Frederick T. Muto is Chair of the Firm's Business department. He was a founding partner of the Firm's San Diego office, which opened in 1992, and has been with the Firm since 1980. The Firm's San Diego office was recently named the #1 firm in San Diego as ranked by area corporate board members, according to Corporate Board Member magazine.
Mr. Muto specializes in corporate and securities law with an emphasis on representing emerging and public technology and growth companies, as well as venture capital investors and investment banking firms. He has represented companies and investment banks in well over 200 public offerings. Mr. Muto has managed a broad range of major business transactions, including private placements and public offerings; mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs and joint ventures and other strategic collaborations. He has been counsel to companies ranging from start-ups to companies with billions of dollars in annual revenues in the biotechnology, communications, consumer, hardware, healthcare, internet, medical device, retail, semiconductor and telecommunications industries.
Mr. Muto has received numerous accolades and recognition for his leadership. For 2010, he was named Corporate Lawyer of the Year in San Diego by Best Lawyers. In 2007, he was listed by Lawdragon as one of 500 dealmakers in America. He was also named to the 2007-2014 Southern California Super Lawyers list in the categories of The Top 50 Lawyers and Securities & Corporate Finance. He has also been selected as one of the "Transcript Top Ten" attorneys in San Diego and was named one of "San Diego's Top 120 Influentials" by the San Diego Daily Transcript. Mr. Muto has also been recognized as a leading lawyer in the Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business in the category of Corporate/M&A and Capital Markets for a number of years. He has been consistenly recognized as one of the Best Lawyers in America. He was named by Nature magazine as one of 25 individuals - and one of two attorneys- instrumental to the success of San Diego as a high technology and biotechnology hub.
Mr. Muto attended Harvard Law School and the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he received a JD in 1979 and was a member of the California Law Review from 1977 to 1979. He was a New York State Regents Scholarship recipient and was awarded a BA in Political Science from the State University of New York, Buffalo in 1975, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
