Kilpatrick's New SF Head Enjoys Thrill of Patent Work 'Puzzle'

With experiences as both a patent engineer and a lawyer, Kilpatrick's new San Francisco leader, Neslihan "Nesli" Doran-Civan, is thrilled to bridge the gap between both backgrounds in her work at the firm.

"It really is like putting the pieces of the puzzle together," Doran-Civan said. "Understanding the inventions, talking with the inventors, that's tapping into the engineering side," she went on.

"Understanding the lingo when you speak with them and being excited about the problem that they are solving and going back and translating that into a document that one day a jury can read and understand, that's the lawyer part of me."

About a dozen years after she joined Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, Doran-Civan became office managing partner of the San Francisco shop on Jan. 1, following the retirement of patent prosecutor April Isaacson, who had been the office managing partner for four years.