Mark A. Willard is the head of the Technology and Intellectual Property Litigation Sections of the Litigation Division, and chairs the E-Discovery & Information Management Practice Group.  He is a principal contact of the Securities Litigation Practice Area and Chairman of the firm's Technology Committee.  He formerly served on the firm's Executive Committee and for many years served as Chairman of the firm's Hiring Committee.

Mr. Willard focuses his practice on civil litigation and arbitration matters, where he has an extensive background in complex commercial litigation, multidistrict litigation, class action litigation, technology litigation, patent, trademark and copyright infringement litigation, corporate governance litigation, directors and officers litigation, derivative shareholder litigation and securities fraud litigation.  In addition to providing general commercial transactional counseling, he is also experienced in electronic discovery, insurance coverage litigation, environmental litigation, product liability litigation, business tort and unfair competition litigation, defamation litigation and commercial arbitration and mediation.  He is certified as an arbitrator by the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Willard’s clients include officers and directors of publicly traded corporations as well as officers, directors and shareholders of privately held companies in connection with securities fraud litigation, corporate governance disputes and litigation, directors and officers’ insurance coverage and shareholder and dissenters’ rights litigation.  He has served as general outside counsel to privately held companies providing legal advice on a broad range of commercial law matters.

Mr. Willard is a faculty member of The National Institute for Trial Advocacy and has received advanced trial advocacy training through the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the Harvard Law School Roscoe Pound Society.  He is the Chairman of the Lex Mundi E-Commerce Practice Group, the former Chairman of the Technology Committee of Lex Mundi and is a national neutral member of the American Arbitration Association Commercial Arbitration Panel and a member of the Lex Mundi College of Mediators.  He is certified in electronic discovery by Lexis/Nexis Applied Discovery.  He has published numerous articles concerning domain name piracy on the Internet, personal jurisdiction based on commercial activities on the World Wide Web, technology litigation, electronic discovery and document retention duties in litigation.

He is a member of the Pennsylvania and Allegheny County Bar Associations, serves as an Allegheny County Bar Association Practice Lecturer, is a member of both the Allegheny County Bar Association's Opportunities for Minorities in the Legal Profession Committee and Technology Utilization Committee and has been recognized as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer based on state-wide surveys. 

Education:
J.D., Duquesne University School of Law (Cum Laude)
B.A., Duquesne University (With Honors)

Admissions:
Pennsylvania; All Pennsylvania State Courts; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania; U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan; Pro Hac Vice admissions to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, the District of Columbia, the District of Nevada, the District of New Jersey, the Southern District of New York, the Northern District of Ohio, the Eastern and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania, the District Court of the Virgin Islands, the Eastern District of Virginia and the Northern District of West Virginia