ROCKRIDGE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Attorney
- Founder
- Principal
- Founder & Principal Founder, Calliope Bio PBC / Founder, QUANTiSCOPE
- PRINCIPAL, CORPORATE & IP ATTORNEY
Kevin Christopher is the founder and principal of Rockridge®, and is widely recognized for his work at the nexus of innovation + impact in venture ecosystems. Kevin's daily work includes helping promising startups raise funds and secure intellectual property protection, providing due diligence to investors, acting as outside corporate counsel to impactful firms, and litigating complex patent and trademark suits. Kevin uniquely offers experiences as an entrepreneur, operator, director, investor, and litigator to best counsel firms at all stages of their existence.
Kevin Christopher is founder and principal of Rockridge Venture Law®, one of the only B Corp law firms in the U.S. and a Real Leaders Top 150 Impact Company. Kevin is also co-founder of Calliope Bio, a synthetic biology company launched through the Nucleate Activator program and Berkeley Skydeck accelerator, and QUANTiSCOPE, a microscopic AI company launched through the BARDA WheelsUp accelerator.
Prior to founding Rockridge®, Kevin led biotech commercialization activities at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Kevin is a Berkeley Form + Fund Fellow (startups), NIH RADx Faculty Member (technology), and Yale 2050 Fellow (sustainability). He's been featured by B the Change, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, Sustainable Brands Magazine, and many other media outlets for his work in impact + innovation. Kevin is a registered patent attorney and impact investor, and his practice areas include: corporate law and governance, data privacy, government contracts, intellectual property, startups, technology, and venture capital.
Background
Kevin Christopher made the most of his time learning entrepreneurship and law in San Francisco. As a student, he interned under Senior U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer and was a teaching assistant in energy law and policy to former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, now U.S. Secretary of Energy. Kevin was an academic honoree for his scholarship in the Hastings Law and Bioscience Project, research assistant to Paul Herman's groundbreaking work in corporate social responsibility, and regularly published poet in the UC Berkeley faith based journal To An Unknown God. After graduating law school, Kevin spurned the traditional firm route in favor of a biomass energy startup, where he learned a little something about equity, hustle, and scalability.
These diverse interests and experiences would lay the groundwork for Kevin's vocation today as a mission-oriented entrepreneur and patent attorney. After his initial startup experience, Kevin would go on to lead various technology commercialization programs at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) before spinning out a biopharmaceutical startup from LLNL called Resolute Therapeutics. Along the way he partnered with several Nobel prize winning scientists and technologists to commercialize CRISPR applications, MOFs, lab-on-a-chip platforms, neural interfaces, sensors, vaccines, and more. He even formed the only known Grammy-Nobel partnership for the commercialization of raw space data into music.
Illustrative of this period, Kevin led the legal activities of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc). Several notable synthetic biology startups launched out of this center, including Ginkgo Bioworks, Lygos, Kalion, and Lattice, with aggregate valuations of several billion dollars. Kevin similarly led legal activities of the Berkeley Sensor Actuator Center (BSAC), with notable startups including Berkeley Lights, Iota Biosciences, and Kryptos Biotechnologies. In parallel, Kevin served as a consultant to the NIH and NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR/STTR) programs.
In 2017, Kevin relocated to Tennessee and launched Rockridge® to the become the preeminent innovation law firm in the Southeast. Founded on B Corp principles, Rockridge has also become nationally recognized as a go-to firm supporting social and environmental impact entrepreneurs, particularly those with scalable ides and technologies. Rockridge is proudly a B Corp Best For The World, RealLeaders Top 150, and 1% For The Planet law firm.
Kevin Christopher is a corporate attorney, patent attorney, and trademark attorney. Specifically, his practice areas include: patent and trademark prosecution, licensing and litigation; corporate law, with an emphasis on benefit corporations, socially responsible businesses and high-growth emergent companies; government contracts, with an emphasis on innovation funding; corporate and investor financing; and, technology commercialization. In addition to his corporate practice Kevin helps many entrepreneurs as program advisor with AgLaunch, Bethesda Green Hub, First Flight Venture Center, Nashville Entrepreneur Center, and Yale Tsai CITY.
Kevin is a Berkeley Form + Fund Fellow, NIH RADx Faculty Member, and Yale Center for Business and Environment Business Leader. He's a Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Lawyer and Leadership Tennessee alumnus, and board member to several environmental and social impact nonprofits. Kevin has been recognized as a SuperLawyer by Thomson Reuters and Top Business Leader by Conscious Company Magazine.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Counsel
- Brand & Data Privacy Attorney
Lauren McClanahan is an associate counsel of Rockridge Venture Law®, Tennessee's first Certified B Corp law group and both a 2018 & 2019 Best For the World Honoree for community impact. Lauren leads clients through copyright, privacy, regulatory, and trademark considerations in optimizing successful e-commerce portfolios, equally adept at creative campaigns as well as technology transactions. She is a leading voice among women practicing in technology law and an IAPP Young Privacy Professional. Her primary practice areas include copyright and trademark law, data privacy, and technology transactions. Lauren leads the Knoxville Technology Council's Women in Tech Committee, and is a Director of the Tennessee Women's Theater Project and Putnam County Library Foundation.
Prior to joining RVL®, Lauren studied at the University of Tennessee College of Law. At UT, Lauren served as President of Law Women, recognized for its outstanding contributions to student life under her presidency. She also founded and served as President of InnTechSpective, a legal technology organization focused on exploring new areas of law created by disruptive technologies, including aspects of blockchain, AI, and IoT. As a Commercialization Analyst within the University of Tennessee's technology transfer office, Lauren identified market opportunities for cutting edge technologies and positioned those technologies for public dissemination through licensing.
Job Titles:
- DIRECTOR of CULTURE & OPERATIONS
Job Titles:
- BRAND, DATA PRIVACY and REGULATORY ATTORNEY