Joe Garza is a senior commercial attorney who uniquely brings together a blend of his proven in-house public legal pedigree with his competitive, team-minded sports passions. He garners a philosophy that identifies problems early and partners with clients to deliver superior results that often exceed their business objectives.

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You and your business will receive a quality legal solution for your problems because Joe can leverage his risk elimination experience with our full-service firm to handle every legal problem facing your business. You and your business will have a predictable legal budget when you engage Joe, a member of an innovative new type of law firm that implemented an efficient delivery model that eliminates expensive office space and staff.  Your business’ legal problems will be solved by Joe, your business partner, because of his experience on a senior leadership team.

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Risk costs your business money.  Joe is available to help your business eliminate your risk as an outsourced general counsel or overflow and project work for your business with or without a legal department. Joe’s areas of experience:

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• Commercial and Business Law Advice to make your business profitable

  • Intellectual Property advice including Copyrights, Trademarks and Patents,

  • Corporate Secretary Duties, to document your company’s records

  • Resolving tax disputes with state and local authorities

• Risk Mitigation to remove the potential for future expense

  • Risk Management, including insurance and insurance claims

• Labor and Employment advice to align your employees with the company’s vision

  • Employee Relations, and all types of alleged discrimination

  • Absence Management, wages, ERISA and employee benefits

• Contract Management/ Negotiations to obtain the best results for your company

  • Both your customer agreements and vendor agreements

• Litigation Management to efficiently bring the dispute to a successful resolution

 

Joe developed his philosophy by earning a series of successes with his client partners:

• instituting an in-house legal collection process collecting over $35 M net in one year,

• co-negotiated and closed a $41 M asset sale and three stock sales valued over $54 M,

• eliminated the risk of a sales practice,

• used his lean six sigma skills to lower repetitive litigation costs by $5000 per case and further reduced electronic discovery costs by $9542 on a per custodian basis,

• served as trusted advisor to several departments at GTE, Verizon, and Dex Media, and

• delivered many high value litigation defense victories.

 

Joe makes an impact by helping companies succeed and by providing strategic solutions as a trusted partner of the leadership team. His wide variety of experiences, coupled with his tenacious leadership style, fuel his success.

 

After working at the firm for four years, Joe began working in-house at GTE, which, after a merger with Bell Atlantic, became Verizon. Joe held numerous positions with the company and worked on numerous special projects. While at Verizon, Joe represented the company in labor arbitrations, represented the company in front of regulatory authorities, developed and implemented a company-wide intake process for receipt of citation, served as Assistant Secretary to a Verizon subsidiary, provided legal advice to the Verizon risk management department, provided legal support to the Manhattan Restoration Team seeking reimbursement from NY state for Verizon’s uninsured losses suffered from the terrorists’ attacks of September 11, 2001, supported the contract management department and rewrote and harmonized the procurement contracts for the company.

 

Most recently, Joe was the head of the litigation group at Dex Media and was responsible, along with his staff, for all the litigation and risk prevention for the company. Joe and his team oversaw a diverse docket of litigation involving breach of contract, employment disputes, labor arbitrations, securities cases, patent and copyright infringement cases and complex class actions all filed in the courts of 44 states. Additionally, Joe and his team supported HR, sales support and the national sales operation.

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AWARDS AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

• GTE Lawyer of the Year (2)

• Numerous Verizon and Dex Media Excellence and Leadership Awards

• Several Army Medals

• Speaking engagements include several Corporate Counsel Symposiums and Annual Meetings of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, UT Corporate Counsel Institute, and several State Bar CLE conferences

• Corporate Counsel Conferences