Farella Braun + Martel is proud to announce that senior associates Taylor E. Rottjakob and John M. Ugai have been named 2024 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Pathfinders. Pathfinders have been identified as early-career emerging leaders who have distinguished themselves within their organizations.

Taylor advises individuals and families on developing comprehensive estate, gift, and income tax planning strategies to achieve their unique financial planning goals. She represents individual and institutional fiduciaries and beneficiaries in trust and probate administrations, counsels clients on their lifetime gifting options, helps with corporate and partnership formations, dissolutions, and agreements, and assists with charitable giving. Taylor earned her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law (2018).

John represents clients in environmental litigation, permitting, compliance, and administrative enforcement matters, focusing on assisting clean energy and technology companies in litigation and regulatory matters and renewable energy project development issues. He was a 2022 Clean Energy Leadership Institute Fellow and a 2022 Environmental Law Institute's Emerging Leaders Initiative cohort member. John served as a law clerk to the Honorable Susan van Keulen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School (2017).

Conceived as a supplement to training initiatives already in place at LCLD Member corporations and law firms, the Pathfinder program offers practical tools for developing and leveraging internal professional networks, leadership skills, and an understanding of career development strategies. In addition to full-class programming, participants are placed in small groups led by a Program Facilitator who serves as a mentor to help each Pathfinder connect what they learn to the organization at which they work.

Farella is an active member of LCLD—an organization of more than 400 corporate chief legal officers and law firm managing partners who have pledged themselves, through its Leaders at the Front initiative and other means, to creating a truly diverse U.S. legal profession.

Farella Braun + Martel is a leading Northern California law firm representing corporate and private clients in sophisticated business and real estate transactions and complex commercial, civil, and criminal litigation. Clients seek our imaginative legal solutions and the dynamism and intellectual creativity of our lawyers. We are headquartered in San Francisco and maintain an office in the Napa Valley that is focused on the wine industry.

Contact:
Cheryl Loof
Farella Braun + Martel LLP
415.954.4433 / [email protected]