Jay Bettinger

Jay Bettinger is a corporate, securities and business attorney. Mr. Bettinger advises and counsels privately-owned companies, investors, funds, family offices, trustees, advisors, attorneys, entrepreneurs, and executives on a variety of corporate and business matters. 

Mr. Bettinger mobilizes and leads teams of attorneys throughout various law firms to respond to client needs. He has represented experienced business attorneys, trust administration attorneys and law firms with complex corporate and business matters, including advising on discharging fiduciary duties during mergers & acquisitions and financial transactions.

He advises on domestic and international business transactions, commercial agreements, formations and entity selection, joint ventures, private equity and debt security offerings, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), corporate finance, corporate governance, executive employment and compensation agreements, and regulatory compliance.

Mr. Bettinger often structures private investments and negotiates private equity take-overs. Leveraging his tax education and experience, he typically coordinates with private wealth planning specialists, financial advisors, investment bankers and trust and estate administrators to achieve an optimal corporate and trust structure. He works with the team to advise clients on considering and balancing numerous factors such as business ownership, optimal entity organization, business risk mitigation, succession planning, multigenerational ownership, entity financing, exit planning, and tax optimization strategies.

Mr. Bettinger has a proven track record of effectively working with chief financial officers, certified public accountants, business owners and other financial stakeholders on achieving financing and financial goals with business transactions.

Mr. Bettinger has strong industry knowledge in technology, software, real estate, professional services, construction, energy, military products, domestic and international manufacturing, and distribution of consumer and durable products. He has significant experience in technology and web-based business such as social networking, second screen, software as a service (SaaS), mobile operating systems, e-commerce, video content and media companies. He has extensive experience working with founders and owners of startups, early-stage companies and startup divisions of larger entities (for new business, joint ventures and spin-offs) on optimal ownership structures, restructuring, and financings. 

Mr. Bettinger has served as outside general counsel for hundreds of clients. In this role, he provides ongoing hands-on legal counsel and business advice to his clients. This includes services such as review and advice on various legal agreements and forms; budgeting; issue resolution for products, technology and service offerings; intellectual property acquisition and protection via patents, trademarks and licenses; direct business and legal advice to executive management; legal counsel to boards of directors during or outside of board meetings; and policy strategy and implementation across numerous enterprises, subsidiaries, divisions and business lines.

Mr. Bettinger also has significant experience with foreign clients. He routinely structures domestic operations for companies seeking to enter the United States. He is very experienced in issues unique to these organizations such as licensing arrangements and complex cross-border joint ventures and acquisitions. He has worked directly with clients based in Australia, China, Germany, Holland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal and Vietnam.

Mr. Bettinger is experienced at crisis management and keep-the-lights-on situations, advising clients during complex litigation (bet/defend-the-company), natural disasters, social unrest, military actions and pandemics. 

Mr. Bettinger was a corporate partner in the Los Angeles office of Holland & Knight. He previously worked with Brown & Streza and Allen Matkins. In addition, he taught Advanced Business Planning: Financing the Startup and Venture Capital Financing as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

As an entrepreneur, Mr. Bettinger has founded several companies, including a reputation management company, and he is the named inventor on several patents. Mr. Bettinger also founded a nonprofit organization that reinvented startup contests by using patents as topics for competitions for universities and colleges to educate students and to help patent owners. In 2017, Mr. Bettinger formed and led a business and technology team that participated in the XPrize that was focused on artificial intelligence (AI). More recently, Mr. Bettinger founded Focus Point Consulting (www.focuspointconsulting.net).

• Representation as lead counsel on advising a chief executive officer and significant minority-owner on a contemplated $4 billion public offering of a pass-through business that included complex umbrella partnership (Up-C) structuring with a public company with a tax receivable agreement

• Successfully represented as lead counsel a real estate development company in an acquisition involving $700 million to a private equity fund, which included simultaneous resolution of a complex $50 million business dispute and involved significant debt and numerous subsidiaries and affiliates, some subject to complex joint venture features

• Successfully structured as lead counsel a leveraged buyout involving $250 million in underlying holdings with complex tax implications and significant legacy liabilities

• Representation as lead counsel on matters concerning the resort and residential community build-out in an Opportunity Zone in Hawaii

• Successfully represented as lead counsel the seller of a 40-year-old military technology company to a foreign buyer that involved a year-long Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approval process

• Successfully represented as lead counsel a financial technology (FinTech) billionaire in a $100 million financing of privately held securities

• Advised as lead counsel on structuring an artificial intelligence (AI) technology solution that enables users to optimize cryptocurrency trading

• Successfully represented as lead counsel the sellers of a $100 million human resources software as a service (SaaS) solution focused on the construction industry

• Representation as lead counsel on a complex partnership and corporate dispute involving a significant owner with a transportation and trucking company, including reorganization to resolve and settle the matter

• Representation as lead counsel in advising on the formation of a community development financial institutionRepresentation as outside general counsel of delivery technology solution that enables real-time delivery to consumers inside airports

• Representation of sellers as lead counsel in a workout dispute concerning earnout

• Represented a company in the energy industry in a $100 million credit facility 

• Advise attorneys and transaction teams on California legal opinions, including complex opinions involving cross-border lending transaction involving interplay of California, New York, Delaware and foreign laws

• Representation as lead counsel in advising California companies on relocating and moving to other states, including Texas and Florida

• Representation as lead counsel with hundreds of private offerings securities

• Representation as general counsel for 60-year-old company, operated and managed across three generations, to coordinate ownership, growth strategies and exit planning

• Secured and responsible as lead counsel for all business and real estate transition and liquidation matters for significant trust and estate administration matter that included complex and extended trust litigation

• Representation as lead counsel with dozens of mergers and acquisitions across all industry sectors

• Representation as lead counsel with structuring a $100 million private equity fund

• Created as lead counsel an innovative ownership structure for a high-velocity startup company to permit founders to accept venture capital financing while maintaining capability to engage in appropriate private wealth planning and trust and estate transactions

• Created and implemented as lead counsel SaaS agreements for a startup technology company that became widely adopted by the largest media companies from 2006 to 2008

• Successfully represented as lead counsel a technology company and led litigation and public relations teams in defense against an unrealistic investor in a business dispute that resulted in clawback of significant equity and forfeiture of investment

• Successfully implemented data security breach preparedness planning and procedures for large enterprise companies with more than 10,000 employees, as well as formulated and led numerous responses and crisis management

• Structured as lead counsel thousands of startups using C corporations, S corporations and limited liability company structures

• Representation with the first call-through click business transaction between an internet provider and a mobile phone application, allowing a phone user to click and call on a mobile phone

• Representation as lead counsel with structuring international operations and nationwide distribution agreements for a construction manufacturing company engaged in business in more than 50 countries

• Representation as lead counsel with preparing terms of use for numerous technology companies for SaaS solutions with no prior competitors or precedent

• Representation as lead counsel on matters concerning significant master service agreements for multinational companiesPrepared countless companies for due diligence in financings and acquisitions

LAW FIRM EXPERIENCE:

• Holland & Knight 

• Brown & Streza 

• Allen Matkins  

EDUCATION:

• University of San Diego, LL.M., Taxation

• Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, J.D.

• Loyola Marymount University, M.B.A., Finance

• University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) B.A. Economics & History

LICENSES:

• California State Bar

MEMBERSHIPS:

• Orange County Bar Association (OCBA)

• California Bar Association

• Bruin Varsity Club, UCLA