Davis Wright Tremaine Adds More In-House Leadership from Tech Industry to Silicon Valley Office

Ulysses Hui, Former General Counsel of Japan Display Group, Joins as Partner

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Many law firms would like to call themselves the preferred choice of the technology industry’s leading legal departments. But few are making a stronger claim to that title than Davis Wright Tremaine, which, after adding an in-house veteran from Apple and Google, has now added the former general counsel of Japan Display Group, which makes displays for those companies and more. Ulysses Hui has joined the firm as a partner in its new Silicon Valley office.

“Ulysses brings the perspective of a general counsel, an invaluable asset to our expanding practice serving leading Bay Area technology clients,” said Wendy Kearns, co-chair of DWT’s Technology, Communications + Privacy & Security Practice. “His expertise in hardware nicely complements our existing strength in software, and his experience building a legal department will be critical as he works with Marisa Brutoco to build out our Bay Area technology team.”

Silicon Valley-based partner Brutoco, formerly in-house with Apple, Google, Amazon and GoPro, joined DWT in 2020 to spearhead its growth in the Bay Area. Her work will be complemented by Hui, who as the first general counsel of Japan Display Group, helped guide the company through its 2012 formation, 2014 IPO, rapid growth and trade tensions of recent years. Created through a merger of the display units of Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba, it grew to over $9B in global annualized sales.

“As a general counsel, I valued firms that worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the legal department, executing transactions and other operational tasks on a daily basis, and that saw value in helping us succeed, no matter whether the project was glamorous or routine. That’s just what DWT does for its clients,” said Hui. “The most important things I was looking for in a law firm were a collaborative culture and a strong technology background, and DWT checked both boxes emphatically.”

At Japan Display Group, Hui focused on the acquisition of major customers and strategic partners to advance new display and sensor technologies in the automotive as well as smartphone, wearables and mixed reality space. In addition to creating the company’s global compliance policies, he more recently secured an exclusion to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration—a rare achievement for a Japanese company importing products from China.

“I didn’t understand it at the time, but when I joined Japan Display Group, I was joining an entire network of technology GCs who draw on each other for guidance,” added Hui. “I get their concerns in a way that I simply couldn’t without my in-house experience, and now I look forward to addressing those concerns in private practice.”

Before his tenure at Japan Display Group, Hui served as an associate at multiple AmLaw 100 firms, where he focused much of his practice on the semiconductor industry.

Davis Wright Tremaine recently reported that it had another strong year in 2020, its seventh consecutive year of record performance. Revenue increased by more than 7% and net income rose by nearly 12%.

About Davis Wright Tremaine

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP is a national law firm with more than 550 lawyers representing clients based throughout the United States and around the world. For more information, visit www.dwt.com.