Koji Fukumura (LAW \u201893) is a study in balance: corporate lawyer and occasional surfer, zealous advocate and respectful adversary, East Coast crisp and West Coast cool. \u201cHe\u2019s a good balance between a laid-back Hawaiian and a street fighter from Philly,\u201d says Brian Robbins, co-founder and managing partner of Robbins Arroyo, in a recent Super Lawyers<\/em> article about his occasional adversary. \u201cAnd he always shows good judgment on how to balance those two sides.\u201d<\/p>\n Fukumura is a partner at Cooley LLP, Chair of the Firm\u2019s Securities Litigation Practice Group, and a member of its Management Committee.\u00a0\u00a0 He is resident in the San Diego office and part-time in the Colorado office. \u201cSeventy percent of what I do is shareholder litigation. This includes shareholder litigation where plaintiffs are asserting securities fraud under the federal securities law or are asserting breach of fiduciary duty in derivative suits or direct class actions,\u201d he explains. This also includes M&A litigation – \u201cI defend deals.\u201d The rest is largely defending his clients in government investigations, where either the Securities and Exchange Commission or the U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing claims similar to those raised in his shareholder cases.<\/p>\n Fukumura chose securities litigation for two reasons: access and potency. \u201cEarly on in my career,\u201d he says, \u201cI realized that securities litigation is a seemingly narrow field but one that has a couple of great advantages. First, when you represent a client in securities litigation, you are dealing with executives in the C-Suite of a public company as well as that company\u2019s Board of Directors. It gives you access, right away, to the highest levels of a public company. Second, it is a field that is always going to have potency in the sense that public companies, their executives and their directors are always going to be targets of plaintiff\u2019s firms.\u201d It\u2019s that gift for strategic perspective that has made him invaluable to his clients, who look to him for counsel when events don\u2019t go their way.<\/p>\n Much of Fukumura\u2019s practice is event-driven. \u201cLet\u2019s say I represent a biotech company whose lead compound failed its phase II trial,\u201d he begins. \u201cThe success or failure of that clinical trial will likely have a profound impact on that company\u2019s stock price. Accordingly, I routinely counsel clients during the pendency of the clinical trial about the various actions the company\u2019s shareholders or the government regulators may pursue in reaction to the trial\u2019s failure and the resultant large, unfavorable price movement. Or, a software company might restate its financial statements \u2013 they discover, for example, that the way they have been recognizing revenue for the past five quarters is incorrect. Like the failure of a clinical trial example, that revelation could have a dramatic, negative effect on the company\u2019s stock price. What I do is I look at the total landscape of what might happen as a result of the occurrence of that event and counsel (or defend) my clients.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, it was looking at the landscape, or perhaps the horizon, that led Fukumura from an early career in life sciences to one in law. The son of a doctor, Fukumura graduated from the University of Colorado in 1989 with a degree in molecular biology and began work as a medical researcher. But then came managed care, and with it concern among physicians about its impact on their ability to practice. \u201cDoctors were saying to me, \u2018We\u2019re going to have to see two hundred patients a day in order to make a living,\u2019 and, \u2018It\u2019s just not the same as it was when your dad was a doctor, when he could see his twenty patients a day and really develop long-standing relationships with families,\u201d Fukumura recalls. \u201cI viewed the practice of medicine as changing, and so I applied to a bunch of law schools instead. I had choices all across the country, but the trial advocacy program made Temple very attractive to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocacy turned out to be something at which Fukumura excelled \u2013 not only in the courtroom, but in conference rooms and deposition rooms as well. Even as a young lawyer, his perspective, coupled with a tenacious commitment to preparation, made him a formidable advocate for his clients. One particular early securities case stands out. After spending the first day of a deposition plagued with speaking objections by a more experienced lawyer, Fukumura regained the upper hand by first shutting down the bad behavior and then presenting an original defense based on a novel reading of one section of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which he had read from end to end off the clock. His preparation and big-picture perspective paid off, resulting not just in a favorable outcome for his client but also an understanding of advocacy that has informed his practice ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cAdvocacy means that I am ethically and professionally advancing the position of my client – to win,\u201d Fukumura begins. \u201cIt\u2019s preparation, preparation, preparation\u2026. Young lawyers need to recognize over and over and over that we have to be maximally prepared whenever we\u2019re standing up before a judge,\u201d he says. \u201cSo that\u2019s first. Then, there\u2019s another aspect of professionalism, which is civility. I have a curious practice in that I see many of my opponents all the time in cases which creates, in itself, a sense of civility. We all know that we\u2019re going to be seeing each other again in the next case or in two cases from now. So I really try to separate how I am as a person from the fact that we\u2019re opponents and try my best to ensure that the civility part of our profession is something that I carry through personally.\u201d<\/p>\n Both preparation and civility require \u2013 and support \u2013 the strategic perspective that has made Fukumura a trusted advocate for so many clients. Understanding the big picture, in the case and in practice, is essential not just to winning in court but to leading in the profession. Fukumura, who will chair the Litigation Section of the American Bar Association beginning in August 2017, does his best to persuade young lawyers of the wisdom to be gained by asking bigger questions and thinking outside of the box. It\u2019s that wisdom, in tandem with experience, that can help them learn what Fukumura already knows: that success, in practice and in life, often depends on your perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Matter of Perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":335,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","class_list":["post-333","lens_portfolio","type-lens_portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","lens_portfolio_categories-alumni"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n