Michael C. Herrera
Michael (he/him) is a technology lawyer who focuses his practice on advising clients in all aspects of acquiring, developing, commercializing, and licensing new technologies and products through complex and unique commercial and licensing agreements.
Often using novel approaches that further his clients' business objectives, Michael Herrera has extensive experience structuring strategic alliances, collaborations, patent and trade secret licenses, and services delivery arrangements, including clinical trial and sponsored research, as well as structuring research, design, development, non-recurring engineering, contract manufacturing, fabrication, testing, assembly, distribution, and other supply chain-related relationships.
Michael has represented startups, emerging growth entities, and high-profile technology enterprises, as well as Fortune 500 companies. His clients come from a wide variety of technology-focused industry sectors, including the semiconductor, newspace, advanced hardware, quantum computing, interactive and immersive entertainment, clean technology, life sciences, transportation, consumer goods and electronics, wireless, and chemical and material sciences industries.
Michael's background and experience has earned him a reputation for being a trusted advisor to clients working to bring some of the world's most cutting-edge and world-changing technologies to market. For example, Michael has dealt with a variety of such technologies, including satellites and space vehicle assemblies, quantum computing hardware and software, custom silicon and semiconductors, immersive and interactive entertainment hardware, next generation hardware for consumer devices, enterprise applications, and autonomous vehicle systems, life sciences and biotechnology (including biologics, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices), advanced robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and technologies using natural language machine learning models and quantum hardware to help discover new chemical and material solutions to key issues, such as discovering novel protein folds or predicting chemical reactions that can be used to cure cancer.
While working as an associate for Perkins Coie, Michael has served on a few secondments in-house for some key clients. Michael served as a legal secondee for Waymo, working as commercial counsel with Waymo, Google's self-driving car company that is focused on fielding the next generation of autonomous vehicle technologies. Michael has also served as a legal secondee for Microsoft, working as commercial counsel with Microsoft's team that is focused on bringing new technologies to market, as well as for Amazon, working as commercial counsel with Amazon's Project Kuiper team that is focused on bringing the internet to every corner of the world through deployment of thousands of satellites.
Michael is highly committed to the firm's diversity and inclusion efforts, and regularly speaks on panels and offers commentary on these issues at law schools, as well as Duke Alumni Association events. Prior to entering private practice, Michael served as a reconnaissance officer holding various leadership positions including platoon leader, executive officer, and operations officer in the Army National Guard. While attending law school Michael was an intellectual property scholar at Københavns Universitet in Copenhagen, Denmark. His personal passion is auto racing, and he participates in various track events throughout the country in his spare time.
Areas of focus
Industries
Services
Education & Credentials
Education
- Duke University School of Law, J.D., cum laude, Staff Editor, Duke Law Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, 2016
- Johns Hopkins University, B.A., Political Science, cum laude, 2012
Bar and Court Admissions
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California
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District of Columbia
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North Carolina
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Texas
