TencerSherman LLP

Focus and practice areas

Based in San Diego, California, the firm concentrates on four practice areas: business litigation, employment law, intellectual property litigation, and securities litigation. The common thread is disputes. Each area involves a claim, a defense, and a forum where the two get tested.

The firm represents businesses in San Diego, across Southern California, and nationally. Its client list includes local technology startups and national Fortune 100 companies. That spread means the matters vary in size while staying inside a defined set of legal problems.

The partners who started it

Philip C. Tencer and Sam G. Sherman formed the firm in 2014. Both had worked at larger law firms before starting out on their own, and the firm grew from that shared background.

Tencer is a San Diego native who grew up in Cardiff-by-the-Sea. He earned his law degree at U.C. Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. There he was an articles editor on the California Law Review and reached the national finals in Moot Court. Before this firm, he was a partner at Cooley in San Diego.

Sherman is a Southern California native who moved to San Diego for law school. He spent nearly a decade at a San Diego full-service firm before leaving to start his own practice. Jessica L. Mulvaney is the third partner the firm names.

How the team is built

The firm lists three partners and nine associates, twelve attorneys in total. That fits how the firm describes itself as a boutique practice. In my opinion, a group this size tends to keep partners close to the day-to-day of a case.

The one-to-three ratio of partners to associates is common in firms built around litigation. Associates carry much of the research and drafting, and partners direct strategy and argue the main motions. The nine associates the site names are Cristina Murillo, Manuel Jimenez, Luke P. Twomey, Mallory Francis, Sydney E. Becker, Jaclyn N. Laswell, Mark A. Simpliciano, Kenneth Schuelke, and Katherine E. Cervantes.

What the business litigation work covers

Business litigation is the widest of the firm's four areas. It covers contract disputes, business torts, partnership disputes, and trade secret matters. It also takes in commercial litigation and arbitration.

Business torts include claims such as interference with a contract or with a business relationship, and fraud tied to a deal. These often travel alongside the contract claim they arise from, so a single case can carry several theories at once.

Where these cases are heard

The firm handles these matters in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. The choice of forum shapes the whole case. A contract dispute between two California companies may sit in state court, while a claim tied to a bankruptcy proceeds under federal rules in a separate court. Bankruptcy courts enter the picture when a party has filed for protection, which can pause a case or pull part of it into the bankruptcy proceeding. Arbitration follows its own procedure, often set by the contract the parties signed.

Some of this is general to how such disputes proceed. Commercial litigation moves through pleadings, discovery, and motions well before any trial date, and many matters resolve at one of those stages. Partnership disputes tend to turn on the written agreement and the conduct of the partners. Trade secret claims usually require the plaintiff to define the secret with care before the merits get reached, since that definition shapes what evidence counts.

Intellectual property and securities matters

The firm's intellectual property litigation involves trademark, copyright, patent, trade dress, and trade secret disputes. These sit close to the business litigation practice, since a trade secret claim can surface in either setting. Patent and copyright disputes carry their own procedural rules and often proceed in federal court. Patent litigation in particular tends to be document-heavy and slow, with claim construction as an early turning point.

Trade dress and trademark disputes tend to turn on how consumers perceive a mark or a product's look, which brings market evidence into the case. Securities litigation is the fourth named area. As a reviewer, I read its place on the list as a fit with the firm's dispute focus. Securities matters generally involve claims about disclosures, transactions, or the conduct of parties in a regulated market. They draw on both federal statutes and detailed factual records, and they can run for years.

Who the firm represents

On the employment side, the firm represents employers in San Diego and Southern California. Employer-side matters in California commonly include wage and hour claims, discrimination and harassment claims, and wrongful termination suits, each with its own filing rules and deadlines. For an employer, the early questions often concern documentation, timing, and which forum the claim belongs in. Placing this practice next to the business and IP work keeps the company as the client.

The 2014 founding gives the firm a clear starting point, and its two founders bring experience from Cooley and from a San Diego full-service firm. The firm handles business, employment, intellectual property, and securities disputes for companies in San Diego, across Southern California, and nationally.