Area of Practice: Workers’Compensation, Personal Injury, Social Security Disability

Bill has been a registered patent attorney for 30 years. He has practiced in both law firms and in house, in the United States and in Belgium during that time. Prior to going into private practice, he was an examiner at the USPTO for five years. Bill‘s practice focuses on non-litigious patent matters, including representing clients before the USPTO to obtain patent rights and challenge existing patent rights, preparing all manner of written opinions of counsel, licensing and due diligence transactions, and other strategic patent counseling that efficiently assists in-house counsel with their patent goals and issues. He has also been a lecturer at U.S. and international legal and corporate seminars on a variety of patent law topics. Bill has advised clients in a wide range of industries, primarily, but not exclusively in the chemical and biotechnology arenas, including pharmaceuticals, consumer products, life sciences, skin care and cosmetics.

Area of Practice: Federal Workers' Compensation under the Longshore Act and the Defense Base Act Christy Johnson grew up in Alaska and worked on commercial fishing vessels in the Bering Sea, Pacific Ocean, and South Pacific. After ten years at sea, Ms. Johnson retired her fishing boots and obtained her Bachelors and Juris Doctorate from Gonzaga and Gonzaga Law School. Ms. Johnson then became licensed to practice law in Alaska where she practiced family law for a brief period. Not happy with the practice of family law and wanting to stay true to her roots, Ms. Johnson moved to New Orleans and obtained her Legal Masters in Maritime/Admiralty Law from Tulane Law School. Following the completion of her Legal Masters program, Ms. Johnson became licensed in Louisiana and spent ten years working as a defense attorney handling personal injury cases under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), the Defense Base Act (DBA), and the Jones Act. In January 2019, Ms. Johnson left the defense bar and formed Mainstay Law LLC where she focusses her practice on representing injured workers’ under the LHWCA and the DBA. Because of her extensive offshore experiences and her maritime defense work, Ms. Johnson brings a unique perspective to her practice. She understands the hardships faced by those who work, and are injured, in austere environments. Furthermore, Ms. Johnson has personal knowledge as to how insurance carriers view workers’ compensation cases such as yours and how they develop their defense strategies against you. This gives Ms. Johnson an ability to help you navigate through your workers’ compensation case and best preserve your rights to medical and indemnity benefits under the LHWCA and the DBA. Ms. Johnson’s DBA practice takes her across the nation and around the world so wherever you reside, Ms. Johnson is ready to stand up for you.