Principal
Nina B. Ries has extensive experience in business and real estate, in both litigation and on the transactional side, for clients ranging in size from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies in a variety of sectors, including in manufacturing, technology, real estate, pharmacy, healthcare, start-ups, and in the service industry. Nina has litigated a variety of complex matters and countless cases involving breaches of a variety of contracts, real estate disputes, business torts, 17200 claims, partnership disputes, employment matters (including sexual harassment defense), and class action defense. She credits her ability to anticipate the opposing party's arguments, strategy, and actions to her experience both prosecuting and defending cases. Because she is just as likely to sit at the defendant's table as she is at the plaintiff's, she can better anticipate the other party's next steps. Her experience identifying weaknesses in documents and analyzing the parties' vulnerabilities means she can apply a litigator's analysis in the structuring of deals to mitigate her clients' risk upfront.
Nina is a Southern California native. She attended college at the University of California at Irvine, where she triple-majored in Political Science (with honors), Philosophy, and Sociology, and was active in a number of campus groups and organizations. She attended law school at the University of Southern California, and later served three terms as President of the USC Gould School of Law Alumni Association, one term as Chair of the USC Alumni Real Estate Network, and was named to the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors. She currently sits on the UCI Alumni Association Board. She is active with her sorority's alumnae association, serving as President of her alumnae chapter. She is frequently quoted in national media outlets, including Forbes, Inc., and Huffington Post.
Intellectual Property Co-Counsel
Rose Hickman Rigole is the Founder of StrategyIP and co-counsels with Ries Law Group to provide her extensive intellectual property expertise. Rose practices in all aspects of Intellectual Property, including prosecution, litigation, licensing, and opinion work involving trademarks, patents, domain names, copyrights, rights of publicity, and trade secrets. She has helped her clients secure and enforce monopolies on their ideas and protect the goodwill of their brand names for over ten years, and has been recognized as a top Intellectual Property attorney by numerous sources. In her patent work, Rose has handled a wide range of technologies, such as software, integrated circuits, fuel cells, flat panel displays, interplanetary rovers, medical devices, complex mechanical systems, andmcomputer implemented business methods. In her trademark work, she hasmhelped clients from individual startups to international corporations secure and enforce their trademark rights from initial trademark selection to litigation. She has also advised and advocated for her clients on domain name issues, such as selection, transfer, and enforcement. Her clients have included technology companies such as Samsung SDI, IBM, Intel and Broadcom, manufacturers such as Bobrick, research institutions such as California Institute of Technology/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA and the University of California Regents, and recognizable brands including Guess?, Neiman Marcus, and True Religion.
Rose has a B.S. in Physics from the College of William and Mary, and worked in satellite technology/remote sensing at NASA Langley and Georgia Institute of Technology before attending law school at the University of Southern California.