Michael Baker is an associate in Cooley's Business department and is a member of the Tax practice group. He is resident in the Colorado office.

Mr. Baker advises emerging, venture-backed, and public companies regarding tax issues in a variety of contexts, including entity formation, mergers and acquisitions, and restructurings.

He also helps corporations and partnerships structure equity and other compensation to accomplish their goals. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder where he teaches Employee Benefits & Compensation Law, a course which covers ERISA, equity compensation, nonqualified deferred compensation (tax code Section 409A), golden parachutes (tax code Section 280G), and fringe benefits.

He has done work for Facebook, Adobe, Zynga, NVidia, LG Electronics, Spotify and for clients from a variety of other industries.

Recent transactions include (Cooley client in bold):

Sale of Dionex Corporation to Thermo Fisher Scientific for $2.1 billion.
Acquisition of OPNET Technologies by Riverbed Technology in a cash and stock exchange offer valued at approximately $1 billion.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals' acquisition of EUSA Pharma in a transaction valued at up to $730 million.
Sale of Beceem Communications, Inc. to Broadcom Corporation for $316 million.

Recent publications include: Employment Litigation, Chapter 17 in The Rutter Group-California Practice Guide (July 2010) (Contributing Author).

Mr. Baker graduated from Cornell Law School in 2006. During law school he spent one semester studying at Sydney Law School in Australia. He received a BS in Accounting from Utah State University in 2002, graduating magna cum laude. Prior to joining Cooley, Mr. Baker was an Employee Benefits and Compensation Associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California.

Mr. Baker is admitted to practice in Colorado and California and is a member of the American and Colorado Bar Associations.