Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Supporting the Growth of Cleantech Industries

Global environmental and economic forces are fueling a rapid growth of investments in clean technologies. In fact, $7.7 billion poured into cleantech companies around the globe in 2010, and it’s estimated that by 2016 that number will reach $157 billion in the United States alone and $400 billion worldwide. While the sector is still dominated by uncertainty and change, one thing is for sure—cleantech is no longer just a movement, it’s a significant market.

Manatt’s Cleantech Practice actively advances the interests of mature and emerging energy companies, project development enterprises and major public corporations seeking to be tomorrow’s energy and resource leaders. With deep knowledge of the energy industry—and more importantly, an understanding of how cleantech technology can be integrated—our team provides strategic counsel to clients across a broad range of industry and technology sectors, including:

§         Solar

§         Wind

§         Geothermal energy

§         Biomass

§         Waste-to-energy

§         Natural gas

§         Clean coal

§         Hydroelectric power

§         Carbon sequestration

§         Biofuels

§         Energy efficiency

§         Smart grid planning

§         Green building initiatives

We also represent many of the leading venture capital firms, private equity firms and investment banks critical to the development and commercialization of those technologies.

Successful cleantech ventures often bring together different industry and professional sectors. Our practice works the same way, collaborating in interdisciplinary teams to provide more effective counsel. Our dynamic team is comprised of attorneys with substantive experience in energy, intellectual property, government affairs, environment, real estate and land use, venture capital, finance and litigation. Putting our collective knowledge and experience to work for our clients, we help them capitalize on clean energy opportunities while anticipating and minimizing the risks of such ventures.

Getting Cleantech Projects off the Ground Through Financing and Credits

Before cleantech projects can pay, they must be paid for. Our Cleantech Practice has a track record of success in identifying capital market investment sources and leveraging government and other incentives that make previously impossible projects feasible.

Investors are increasingly targeting clean energy projects, and Manatt’s substantial relationships and experience with the venture capital, private equity and investment banking community enable us to act as advisor to project developers requiring financing. Our financial and venture capital clients include such companies as:

§         Bedrock Capital

§         Draper Fisher Jurvetson

§         Chanin Capital Partners

§         Communications Ventures

§         Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co.

§         Sand Hill Capital

§         Labrador Ventures 

We understand what our investment banking, private equity and venture capital clients look for and how they operate, and we work with them as business partners. In clean energy development transactions, we help clients evaluate the risks and rewards, decide which concerns are most important, and complete the transaction to the maximum advantage of everyone involved. 

Additionally, our team actively monitors the near-term potential for opportunities from international, federal, state and regional programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, working with clients to achieve emissions reduction goals.  Because of our broad industry experience, we have the regulatory, tax and economic knowledge to help investors maximize their monetization of revenue streams through the use of:

§         Renewable Energy Credits

§         Renewable Fuel Standard Credits

§         Emission Reduction Credits

§         Carbon Equivalent Credits/Carbon Credits

§         U.S. Emissions Reduction Credits

§         Tax/Non-Tax Incentives

Helping to Chart the Course of Cleantech Policies

Manatt is recognized as a premier firm in government relations and policy development activities, particularly on issues that are crucial to energy, natural resources, environmental and clean energy policy development. With more than a dozen former federal, state and local government and regulatory officials in our practice, we understand the intricacies of government agencies and the decision-making process. That knowledge helps make us savvy and experienced advocates for clients in legislative and administrative hearings, rulemaking and regulatory proceedings, and legislative lobbying and analysis. Our ability to affect government policies is unparalleled in an industry where incentives and mandates play an important role. By helping the industry shape the rules that govern clean energy technologies, we’re better able to help our clients act instead of react.

Manatt Cleantech in Action – Representative Matters

Manatt’s Cleantech group has represented Draper Fisher Jurvetson on numerous deals, including:

§         A Preferred Stock financing for Array Converter, Inc., whose inverterless solar power systems directly refine raw DC electricity produced by solar modules into turbine-quality grid power.

§         A Series B Preferred Stock financing in Greenfuel Technologies, Inc. (GTI). GTI developed a process of growing algae using emissions from fossil fuel, mainly to produce biofuel from algae.

§         Its financing of Pentalum, a developer of wind-sensing technology for control and optimization of wind turbines and wind farms, to fund their issuance of Series A Preferred Stock.

§         A Series B financing in Kaiima Bio-Agritech, a next-generation seed and breeding technology company.

§         The closing of the $350 million Fund X, formed to invest in sectors such as cleantech, IT, mobile and life sciences.

Diversity at Manatt

Manatt considers diversity to be a fundamental component of our institutional identity. As a law firm, we have a professional responsibility, and as individuals, we have a personal responsibility to our respective communities. Incorporating diversity into our culture allows us to enhance the high-quality, creativity and excellence in legal services that our clients have come to expect.

Manatt has invested a significant amount of human and financial resources in our own diversity program. Our philosophy is simple: include women and minority lawyers at all levels of Firm leadership and promote diversity in the legal profession through our support and active involvement in various minority civic and bar organizations.

The mix of our minority and women attorneys has consistently exceeded the national average among the country's top law firms. Our talented mix includes minority and women lawyers serving as heads of offices, members of the firm's Board of Directors and management team, and chairs of some of the firm's most important practice groups.

Inclusive Culture
Our progressive culture allows us to maintain a growing mix of women and minority lawyers, and the results illustrate this commitment.  The American Lawyer ranked our Firm 29th (in the top 12%) on its Diversity Scorecard for the largest 250 law firms in the country for 2009.  Multi Cultural Law Magazine included our Firm on its 2008 lists of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity, Top 25 Law Firms for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Top 25 Law Firms for Openly Gay/Lesbian Americans.

Despite our progress and diversity success, we can do better.  Our challenge extends far beyond exceeding national averages.  Our plan cannot succeed if we focus only on recruiting minority and women attorneys.  The true challenge and measure for achieving success lies in creating and preserving an inclusive environment where our minority and women lawyers will stay, progress, prosper and succeed.  We have implemented a formal diversity program designed to enhance our recruiting and retention of diverse attorneys through an executive mentoring program intended to cultivate personally and professionally meaningful relationships between our diverse lawyers and our partners. 

Our commitment to diversity exists in a living document – a plan – that is concrete, easy to understand and publicly available.  The plan demonstrates to every law school student, lateral associate candidate, lateral partner candidate, recruiter, existing client, and potential client that we are serious about creating a workplace that mirrors the breadth of the communities where we and our clients live and work.

We focus on the following key areas to accomplish our mission.

Targeted Recruitment Effort
At Manatt, recruiting women and minority attorneys does not end on law school campuses. Our recruiting efforts focus on locating talented women and minority lawyers at all levels. At law schools, we seek out and interview students who share our core values in ways shaped and enhanced by their own experience. Manatt's 2005 Summer Program was the most diverse in the Firm's history. Our nine 2005 Summer Associates included two African-American students, three Hispanic students, one Asian-American student and three Caucasian students. Five of these nine students were women.

Mentoring as a Cornerstone
Minority attorneys who join Manatt as new or lateral hires immediately become the focus of a mentoring program. They are paired with senior attorneys who take an active role in encouraging their career development. Mentors actively work with their protégés, helping them form business plans and involving them in firm-wide marketing and development opportunities. Management holds mentors accountable for their roles and their protégés' progress at the Firm, including reviewing their efforts as part of the evaluation and compensation process.

Access to Opportunity
Success is a matter of talent and opportunity. At Manatt, we believe that the key to retaining talented minority attorneys -- and therefore the key to the success of our diversity efforts -- is providing a distinctive experience that offers clear access to professional accomplishment. We provide women and minority attorneys with important responsibilities and leadership opportunities in client development activities, complex litigation, large transactional matters and high-profile community and civic organizations. We also encourage and support minority and women attorneys who take leadership positions within the firm and outside in the community at large.

Long-Term Commitment
We challenge ourselves to make our young lawyers feel valued, involved and invested in the future of the firm. We know that they will eventually occupy the most important financial, management and executive positions at Manatt. Our professionals thrive in an atmosphere that encourages and supports responsibility, ambition, and entrepreneurship. We offer true opportunity equal to individual commitment to success and advancement. That's the history of opportunity at Manatt, where professionals with talent and drive are rewarded with a nurturing, dynamic and energizing climate.

Promoting Diversity
Promoting diversity in the legal profession requires both an investment of money and time. Our women and minority attorneys are prominently involved and hold leadership positions in some of the most important minority civic and bar organizations in the country including:

• Asian Americans of Equality
• Asian Pacific American Legal Center
• Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association
• California Association of Black Lawyers
• California Black Chamber of Commerce
• California Women's Law Center
• Chilean Association of Attorneys
• D.C. Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander Affairs
• Hispanic National Bar Association
• Inner City Law Center
• International Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of City of New York
• Korean American Bar Association
• Korean American Coalition
• L.A. Conservation Corps
• La Raza Galeria Posada
• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles Urban League
• National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
• NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund Board
• Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association
• The Association of Women in International Trade
• Women Lawyers Association
• Women's Bar Association of District of Columbia
• Women's Forum of Washington D.C.