Karen Hermann Bio

Karen Hermann is chair of Venable's Washington, DC/Tysons Corporate Group. Karen's practice focuses on corporate transactions – specifically, mergers and acquisitions, carve-out transactions, corporate reorganizations, strategic alliances, and joint ventures. She represents public and private corporations, private equity firms, and startup and emerging companies in a wide range of industries, but particularly in regulated industries, such as aerospace and defense, technology, federal contracting, cybersecurity, professional services, and healthcare. Karen provides practical, business-savvy advice on everything from transaction structure to integration of acquired companies and unique requirements for regulated industries, for both buy-side and sell-side deals. She also advises joint ventures and other entities on such matters as entity formation, ownership structure, corporate governance, intellectual property portfolio management, staffing and business models, and exit strategies. She also prepares and negotiates teaming agreements and contractual joint venture agreements. Karen negotiates a variety of intellectual property agreements, including patent, know-how, trademarks, copyright, and software licensing arrangements; technology and know-how transfers; manufacturing, data rights, and data protection agreements; and collaborative research agreements involving private parties, universities, and research institutions. She also conducts intellectual property due diligence and counsels clients on strategies for protecting and deriving value from intellectual property assets. Karen represents clients in connection with outsourcing arrangements, on both the customer and vendor sides. She is adept at drafting and negotiating service-level agreements because of her understanding of the customer's needs and the vendor's capabilities. Her practice also includes drafting and negotiating commercial contracts, ranging from purchase order terms and conditions to employee leasing arrangements.