Laurel Kilgour

Special Counsel

Over the past decade, Laurel has represented clients ranging from emerging-growth companies and top tier venture capital firms to Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries, including fintech, e-commerce, cybersecurity, SaaS and cloud computing, computer software and hardware, entertainment and gaming, semiconductors, biotechnology, and pharma.  She is certified as a privacy professional (CIPP/E and CIPP/US), and has developed training seminars to help local small business owners comply with privacy, intellectual property, and internet laws.  She has represented startups and venture capital firms in transactions that closed for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  Through her advocacy in information litigation matters (intellectual property, employee mobility, trade secret, unfair competition, and complex commercial contract disputes), clients have successfully defeated claims for hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged damages and negotiated many favorable early settlements.  

Laurel has worked closely with in-house counsel and founders to quantify and minimize litigation and other compliance risks.  She has also coached cost-sensitive startups to diplomatically defuse copyright and trademark disputes without litigation. 

Her pro bono work has included winning asylum for a domestic violence survivor and preparing successful applications for tax-exempt status on behalf of non-profit organizations.

Prior to her career as an attorney, Laurel worked on policy issues at the intersection of innovation and international development at the World Health Organization and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  She also organized workshops to improve the technology transfer capacities of public research institutions in Vietnam on behalf of the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture, in partnership with Vietnam's National Office of Intellectual Property.

Degrees: Amherst College (BA, magna cum laude), University of Minnesota (JD/MS; Royal Stone Scholarship, Minnesota Intellectual Property Law Association Scholarship, Consortium Student Scholarship), National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (study abroad)

Past affiliations: Goodwin Procter LLP

Admissions: California

Concentrations: employment law, data privacy, venture financing, M&A, intellectual property transactions, licensing, and corporate transactions

Contact: laurel@comarmolle.com