Bio

Daphne Higgs is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Morrison Foerster and a member of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group. Daphne advises companies, from emerging growth through the Fortune 50, on complex commercial arrangements, intellectual property issues, and other strategic transactions, including joint ventures, cross-border strategic alliances, product/service launches, patent and technology licensing, and outsourcing. In addition, Daphne provides strategic intellectual property, privacy, and data security advice with respect to M&A, venture capital, private equity transactions, and spinouts, and she is a core member of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Steering Committee. Most of the clients with whom Daphne works are in the AI, Info-Tech, EdTech, digital assets, apparel, consumer products, entertainment, digital health, Internet of Things (IoT), Fintech, cybersecurity, semiconductor, or quantum computing space. By leveraging her background in pure mathematics and corporate law, Daphne brings a valuable business and quantitative perspective to her transactional practice. Daphne is also known for her ability to prepare plain English documents and train in-house teams in a manner that significantly reduces the contract inception-to-close timeline. Daphne is a thought leader and highly regarded speaker on legal informatics, intellectual property regimes, responsible innovation, and resource/opportunity DE&I. Daphne has received numerous recognitions of her exemplary work, including being named a Women Leader in Tech Law by The Recorder 2022 and a Women of Influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal 2023. Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Daphne was a partner at another international law firm, where she held multiple high-level leadership roles, including member of the firm’s Partner Compensation Committee, chair of the Hiring Committee, managing partner (Palo Alto office), member of the Strategic Firmwide Leadership Selection Committee, and member of the Partner Compensation Task Force.