Montana-Based Michael Kummer Brings Impressive In-House Tech Expertise

BOZEMAN, MT. (May 7) – Kilpatrick announced today the addition of Michael Kummer as Counsel on its internationally recognized and growing Mergers & Acquisitions Team. Mr. Kummer will remain in Bozeman, Montana, where he has practiced for the last 12 years. He joins from Zoot Enterprises, Inc., a leading provider of advanced origination, acquisition and decision management solutions for some of the largest organizations in the world, after serving as its Managing Counsel.

Mr. Kummer’s practice will focus on general counsel services to privately held companies.  He brings a wealth of in-house legal experience from his extensive work in the technology industry. Beginning his tenure at Zoot Enterprises in 2016, he has led a team of legal, compliance, and governance professionals as they operationalized the General Counsel’s legal strategy. In his role, Mr. Kummer was responsible for day-to-day management of transactions (commercial contracts, corporate, and tax), risk management (privacy, security, insurance, intellectual property, and litigation), and legal operations, including:

• entity structuring and formation, debt and equity financing, corporate governance, contract drafting and negotiation, template creation, mergers and acquisitions, and management of outside counsel/accountants;

• advising on a multitude of tax planning and structuring questions, current issues, and previous transactions in the areas of corporate tax, partnership tax, individual income tax, property transactions, tax credit transactions, tax controversies, state and local tax, employee benefits, estate and gift, tax accounting, and international tax; and,

• drafting and negotiating non-disclosure agreements, master services agreements, reseller agreements, joint-venture agreements, and licenses for cloud computing services and client-side deployed software with a deep understanding of the challenges each model poses to traditional concepts of data ownership, control, privacy, and security.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Kummer was Cloud Deal Manager for Oracle America, Inc. where he reviewed, negotiated, and drafted cloud service agreements for Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. He worked on more than 400 cloud transactions generating over $125,000,000 in revenue.

“Clients will find Mike’s deep in-house experience invaluable,” said Mick Cochran, Chair of Kilpatrick’s Private Equity Practice. “His background ranging from M&A to transactions in the tax arena to privacy & security to risk management enhances the firm’s offerings to clients not only in the Mountain West but across the firm. Adding Mike fits perfectly into the firm’s strategy of growing the M&A practice with tech-focused expertise. We welcome Mike to Kilpatrick.”

Mr. Kummer earned his L.L.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center, a J.D. and MBA from the University of Montana, and his B.S. in Business Administration and Paralegal Studies from the University of Great Falls where he was a NAIA Wrestling National Champion and four-time All-American.

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Media Contact:

John Page, Director of Communications
jpage@ktslaw.com