Harold Laufer

Harold Laufer is a highly experienced corporate transactional lawyer with over 25-years of high level experience as a senior law firm partner and as General Counsel of a public international technology company. He spent much of his career practicing corporate law as an equity partner at a major Midwest law firm, where he headed the Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Group.

He has represented companies of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, along with their owners and managers, as a Trusted Advisor. Mr. Laufer has handled a wide variety of transactions for corporate clients, with experience in all aspects of a business’ life cycle, starting with deal structuring and entity formation, and continuing through Founder’s documentation, initial HR, IP, rights and licensing issues, financing, growth, corporate governance and eventually ending in liquidity events and exits. As a transactional lawyer, he negotiated client contracts for several high end events such as the Super Bowl and the Olympics. His first position after moving to California was as interim General Counsel to a public international technology company located in Newport Beach.

Additionally, Mr. Laufer has extensive deal and mergers and acquisitions experience. He has lead deal teams for many acquisitions, sales and mergers, including the sale of a SoCal $60 Million dollar plumbing contractor, the spin off a subsidiary of a US avionics company, the US launch of the UK’s largest weight loss company, venture capital financing for a Swiss technology company, and a strategic purchase in the US of a competitor by a Swedish industrial group. Mr. Laufer has represented clients in entertainment, OTT and new media, start-ups and emerging companies, manufacturing, distribution and supply chains, real estate, technology, services, and banking.

For several years, Mr. Laufer was the Chair of one of the 7th Circuit Bar Committees in Chicago. He has published and lectured on mergers and acquisitions, negotiation strategies and skills, and corporate governance. He has taught graduate level business courses on family offices, contract drafting and enforcement, and entrepreneurship. He is affiliated with UCLA’s Anderson’s MBA and entrepreneurial programs.