Marc Axelbaum is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. He is a general litigator whose practice is focused on white-collar criminal defense, SEC enforcement actions, corporate investigations, as well as commercial and constitutional litigation. He has experience in a broad array of criminal and civil cases, representing clients at both the trial and appellate levels in federal and state courts across the country. Mr. Axelbaum has had extensive experience in criminal cases involving allegations of revenue recognition, securities, tax and insurance fraud, theft of trade secrets, insider trading, as well as international extradition. On the civil side, Mr. Axelbaum has litigated cases raising novel questions of constitutional, privacy, telecommunications, intellectual property and education law.

Mr. Axelbaum has first-chaired six trials, all with successful outcomes. He also has significant experience handling dispositive motions and appeals, writing briefs and presenting oral arguments that have won cases in federal and state courts.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Axelbaum was an associate at the Chambers-ranked criminal defense boutique firm of Clarence & Dyer (formerly Clarence & Snell), and at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin. Mr. Axelbaum served as a law clerk to the Hon. Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for the Hon. Peter K. Leisure of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In 1993, Mr. Axelbaum graduated cum laude with an A.B. from Cornell University. He earned his J.D. in 1998 from Columbia University School of Law, where he was articles editor for the Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar. He is admitted to practice in California and New York, as well as before the U.S. District Courts in California, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Southern District of Texas, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Tara M. Desautels is a senior associate in the San Francisco office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. She is a trial attorney and general litigator with a varied civil litigation practice, which focuses on corporate investigations and white-collar defense; antitrust and unfair competition claims; and complex business and commercial litigation. Ms. Desautels also has experience with government contract disputes; construction, energy and cogeneration litigation; and affordable housing conflicts. Ms. Desautels has successfully argued determinative writs and motions in state and federal court, taken and defended depositions, and mediated and arbitrated cases before AAA and JAMS.

In addition to vigorously advocating for her clients, Ms. Desautels twice served as national co-chair and San Francisco representative to Pillsbury’s Attorney Development Committee. Ms. Desautels is also an active member of Pillsbury’s Recruiting Committee. Ms. Desautels maintains her commitment to the community through a strong pro bono practice and is the sitting president of the board of CALICO, an Alameda County children’s advocacy center.

Prior to joining Pillsbury in 2005, Ms. Desautels served close to eight years as an Alameda County deputy district attorney. Having solo-tried 24 jury trials to verdict and successfully argued hundreds of court trials, preliminary examinations, motions, and contested hearings, Ms. Desautels brings an exceptional level of courtroom experience to her civil litigation practice. During her tenure as a D.D.A., Ms. Desautels also served as a member of the child sexual assault felony prosecution team, where she was selected to be a sexual assault mentor for the California District Attorney’s Association and a liaison to the multijurisdictional Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Task Force.

Ms. Desautel revieved her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1997 and her B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1993. She also studied at L’Institute D’Etudes Politiques in Lyon II, Lyon, France from 1991 to 1992. She is admitted to the bar in California.