Finkel Law Group, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

This firm handles business law for companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its clients are founders and senior executives, and the work follows a company through its life cycle. That covers formation and funding at the early stage, then mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations and restructurings as the business grows or changes direction. The firm frames its work around company clients, so most matters touch how a business is owned, financed and run.

The named practice areas span a wide range of corporate work. They are litigation, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, corporate matters, technology start-ups, securities and corporate finance, bankruptcy and restructuring, and real estate and environmental law. In my opinion, that mix reads as a general business practice with a litigation arm attached, which suits companies that want transactional advice and dispute work in one place.

How the team is built

The firm names two attorneys on its website, and each one carries a clear half of the practice. Lonnie Finkel handles corporate, securities and intellectual property transactions, together with the litigation and regulatory matters that grow out of them. His transactional work covers companies at every stage of their life, including formation, funding, mergers and acquisitions, and the reorganizations or restructurings that some of them need. He also works with technology companies to protect, license and enforce their intellectual property.

Ruth Auerbach covers the other half. She has practiced bankruptcy, insolvency, debtor and creditor rights and commercial litigation for more than 25 years. Her work begins with financially distressed companies and a review of the options open to them. From there she helps them shape and carry out plans meant to maximize value for stakeholders, including shareholders and creditors.

Where the firm practices

The firm keeps three offices: two in the Bay Area, in Oakland and San Francisco, and one in Washington, D.C. Its federal practice runs in the federal courts of California and covers intellectual property, securities, bankruptcy and environmental litigation. The firm's attorneys describe that federal work as backed by more than 25 years of experience. As a reviewer, I read the three-office setup as a way to keep Bay Area clients close while holding a base in the capital.

The site carries a copyright range of 2009 to 2026, and it does not list a founding year. The office map still tells its own story. Bay Area clients get a local presence in Oakland or San Francisco, and the Washington office gives the firm a base in the nation's capital.

Intellectual property and trade secret work

Intellectual property runs through both the transactional and the dispute side of the firm. On disputes, it handles trade secret, trademark and copyright matters. On protection, it helps clients set up trade secret programs, and it advises technology companies on how to license and enforce what they own. That gives a client one team for building IP rights and for defending them.

Trade secret protection usually starts well before any dispute. A company identifies the information it treats as confidential, limits who can reach it, and backs that up with written agreements and access controls. Trademark protection often runs alongside, since a registered mark gives a company a clearer claim if a competitor copies its branding. When a conflict does arrive, trademark and copyright claims in federal court often turn on registration, priority and proof of use, so the record a firm builds early tends to shape how a later case runs.

Corporate deals and start-up clients

Technology start-ups sit among the firm's named practice areas, and they connect to several of the others. A young company usually needs entity formation first, then a funding structure that fits how it plans to raise money. The firm's transactional description matches that path, since it begins at formation and moves through the financing and deal work that follows.

Mergers and acquisitions add another layer. A sale or purchase runs through due diligence, a negotiated agreement, and a closing that shifts ownership and assigns contracts and intellectual property. Securities and corporate finance work overlaps here too, because raising capital brings disclosure duties and filing rules that a business has to meet. Keeping those areas in one firm lets a client hold the same counsel across a financing and the deal that follows it.

Restructuring and distressed-company work

Bankruptcy and restructuring hold their own spot among the practice areas, and Ruth Auerbach's long background gives that area its weight. Work with a distressed company tends to open with a hard look at what the finances allow. The paths available include an out-of-court workout, a Chapter 11 reorganization, or an orderly wind-down, and each one balances the claims of creditors and owners in a different way. The choice among them depends on how much of the business can keep operating and what the creditors are willing to accept.

These matters run on plans and approvals. In a Chapter 11 case, creditors and the court review the proposed plan, and value moves to stakeholders according to priority rules. Auerbach's practice puts her on the company side of that process. She works with the distressed business as it weighs those choices and settles on a plan.