Joseph Halloum is a nationally recognized corporate, M&A and private equity advisor and Chair of the West Coast M&A practice at Baker Botts.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he represents public and private companies and leading private equity sponsors on their most complex and strategically important transactions. His practice spans domestic and cross border M&A, take privates, acqui-hires, carve outs, leveraged buyouts, strategic investments, joint ventures, activism defense, capital structures, governance matters, and an array of high stakes corporate issues.
Widely regarded as one of the foremost dealmakers across both the technology and life sciences sectors, Joseph has advised on many of the industry's most notable and closely followed transactions. His experience includes hundreds of M&A matters across software, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, machine learning, enterprise services, CX, internet-of-things, datacenters, telecom, media, life sciences, medtech, gaming, manufacturing, and industrials. Clients regularly rely on him for his deep market knowledge, creative problem solving, ability to navigate sensitive boardroom dynamics, and relentless focus on helping to obtain successful outcomes in fast moving, high pressure situations.
Joseph also represents numerous companies and boards in connection with large shareholder matters, activist defense, and unsolicited takeover situations, the majority of which remain confidential. Among publicly disclosed situations, he advised TriNet Group with matters involving its largest shareholder Atairos Group, Del Frisco's in its settlement with Engaged Capital, Yahoo! in its settlement with Third Point, Autodesk in its settlements with Sachem Head Capital and Eminence Capital, and Tessera Technologies in its settlement with Starboard Value.
A committed leader in the Bay Area legal and academic communities, Joseph teaches Mergers & Acquisitions at both Stanford Law School and Berkeley Law. In partnership with Stanford Law School, Joseph founded and co-chairs The GC Roundtable, which has brought together more than 500 general counsel and chief legal officers across the technology and private equity ecosystems. He also created and continues to run the Emma and Joseph H. Halloum Business and Negotiation Competitions -- two first of their kind programs jointly run between Berkeley Law and the Haas School of Business that give students practical, hands on M&A negotiation experience and facilitates connections with participating legal practitioners and future career opportunities.
