Email: [email protected]
Phone: 508.395.2230
Lois Novotny’s practice focuses on general business and corporate law and intellectual property law. Her diverse in-house and major law firm experience includes 13 years as Vice President and Associate General Counsel to Houghton Mifflin Company, one of the nation’s major educational publishers. She managed all aspects of SEC compliance and filings; co-authored corporate compliance programs, governance standards, and codes of ethics; created audit and compensation committee charters; and ensured that board committee charters and the corporate operating manual reflected best practices and changing regulatory requirements. She participated in a variety of major transactions, including the spin-off and public offering of a division as an independent company, several debt offerings, the sale of Houghton Mifflin to a consortium consisting of Bain Capital Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and The Blackstone Group, and the acquisition and sale of publishing programs. As counsel for the largest publishing divisions, Lois has negotiated all forms of agreements relating to the creation, acquisition, distribution, and licensing of intellectual property in a variety of formats and media and counseled on adoption and use of trademarks.
As an associate at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in New York and Gaston & Snow in Boston, her practice included private and public offerings of securities; conversions of savings banks from mutual to stock form, private equity transactions, mergers and acquisitions, technology licensing, and corporate agreements such as shareholder, employment, consulting. Lois received both an A.B. and a J.D. from New York University.