We founded Columbo Deol LLP to represent businesses along with senior executives, founders, investors, and other accomplished professionals in their most consequential legal matters. Our focus is on disputes involving employment matters, commercial litigation, regulatory enforcement, government investigations, and constitutional challenges to agency action. Columbo Deol LLP represents clients across industries including agriculture, technology, media, manufacturing, professional services, development and construction, and other regulated sectors. We take on executive separations, board fights, founder disputes over equity and control, internal investigations involving the key people in an organization, trade secret and restrictive covenant litigation, and the commercial disputes that determine who keeps what when a business relationship ends. We also defend against regulatory enforcement actions, respond to government investigations, and mount constitutional and administrative challenges to agency action affecting business operations.

Our seasoned lawyers have spent their careers on both sides of the disputes they handle. We have represented corporations and corporate executives. We know what a board is willing to authorize and what a CEO will refuse to sign. We have challenged the constitutionality of government actions and defended them. We have served as federal prosecutors and regulatory enforcement attorneys, and we have defended the targets of those proceedings. These experiences inform what we see when we take on a case. We know where opposing counsel has leverage and where they are running on bravado. This is also the foundation of our mediation practice, where we help two sides to a seemingly intractable dispute find a solution.

When Clients Need Us

• A founder has been told she is being removed from the company she built, and the term sheet for her "voluntary" departure is on the table.
• A board needs an independent investigation of allegations against a senior officer, and the answer cannot wait for the next meeting.
• An executive's separation has stalled over terms the former employer is now refusing to honor.
• A company must enforce restrictive covenants against a departing executive who has taken a team, a customer list, or both.
• A subcontractor has failed to perform, leading to costly project delays and frustrated clients.
• A celebration of a job well done turns sour when the payment doesn't arrive and invoices need to be paid.
• A vendor is demanding payment but an inspection reveals that work done failed to comply with critical requirements in the contract.
• A government investigator contacts a company regarding alleged violations, echoing the complaints of a recently terminated employee, and a journalist has left a message seeking comment within two hours.
• A regulator has issued a demand for all of a company’s records relating to a business partner's project and the response window is short.
• A business has met every requirement, but an agency will not approve the project as required by law.
• A state agency has imposed a rule that exceeds its statutory authority and threatens lawful business operations.

The lawyers our clients hire are the ones who do the work, return the calls, and try the cases. We are based in the San Francisco Bay Area and represent clients throughout California in state and federal trial and appellate courts and in arbitration. We also have attorneys licensed in New York, Texas, the District of Columbia, and Washington State, and we appear in other jurisdictions as permitted by local rules.

The firm's partners are Michael A. Columbo and John-Paul S. Deol. It's practice areas are Employment Law, Commercial Litigation, Mediation / Alternative Dispute Resolution, Government Regulation, and Investigations and Enforcement Defense.

To discuss a matter in confidence, call 628-600-0898 or email inquiry@columbodeol.com.