About Us

Howard Rice is dedicated to excellence in the practice of law—excellence in client service, excellence in performance, excellence in hiring, and excellence in challenging our attorneys with complex and interesting engagements.

Since our firm's creation in 1954, we have not lived by the conventional wisdom of the day. When others were hiring inexperienced attorneys and creating leverage, we sought attorneys who would make a contribution to our firm and our clients. We selected new and lateral associates who demonstrated the highest academic performance, and who would provide creative approaches to complex legal problems and contribute to our collegial working environment. In addition to the high caliber of our associates, our low director-to-associate ratio assures substantial director involvement and oversight. We provide the highest quality of service on a cost-effective basis.

We know that focusing on excellence works. Our clients are among the largest and most sophisticated consumers of legal services. They include The Charles Schwab Corporation, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Digital River, Inc., Genentech, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Morgan Stanley, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, PalmSource, Inc. (now named ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc.), Prudential Securities, Inc., Sony Online Entertainment, Technology Crossover Ventures, Thomas Weisel Partners LLC, United States Olympic Committee and Wells Fargo & Company. These companies selected our firm because of our dedication to their needs, their reliance on our excellent judgment, and our consistently outstanding results. Over the years, we have handled their large and complex litigation, corporate counseling and transactional work, tax matters and precedent-setting bankruptcies intelligently, effectively and successfully.

We are known as the "lawyers' lawyers." Many of the largest firms in California regularly call upon us to handle delicate issues of conflicts of interest, disqualification, malpractice or dissolution. For the same reasons that our largest clients choose us, these law firms, which are among the most incisive purchasers of legal services, select our firm when their own interests and reputations are at stake.

In addition to our strong dedication to our corporate clients, we have also forged a long and rich tradition of involvement in pro bono matters, especially those involving personal civil and human rights issues.

Our litigators regularly appear in high-stakes securities and consumer class actions, intellectual property disputes and product liability matters all over the country. Our corporate, bankruptcy, real estate and tax attorneys excel in finding the most efficient and creative ways to structure public offerings, mergers, acquisitions, tax strategies, restructurings and other business transactions in numerous industries, states and countries throughout the world. When other trial counsel need appellate specialists to pursue reversal of multimillion dollar verdicts or issues of precedent-setting importance, they often select our appellate attorneys to brief and argue their cases in the highest courts because of our outstanding record of success.

Howard Rice is an exceptional firm. If you need something important done right, look to us. If you have to bet your company, bet on us.