Koley Jessen was founded in 1988 when Jim Koley, Paul Jessen, and four additional partners set out to establish a firm focused on being a great place to work and providing over-the-top client service. The guiding principles of the firm’s culture: integrity, mutual respect, and client service, were what truly charted the firm’s path for future success.
Working in a makeshift office while the firm got off the ground, Paul and Jim provided leadership and set a high standard for quality work. The initial focuses of the firm were on estate and business succession planning and corporate and transactional work.
It was not long before Koley Jessen moved from a location in the Old Mill to occupy the eighth floor at One Pacific Place. In addition to the move, a strategic business plan was at the forefront of discussion.
In order to better serve clients, it was clear that the firm needed to specialize and expand its service offerings. As a result, our founders developed a matrix to identify hiring needs. Over the next 10 years, Koley Jessen strategically and deliberately hired both experienced and new attorneys, one by one, checking client needs off of their matrix, until the firm grew to 20 lawyers.
Since that pivotal expansion, we have continued to grow organically, each hire carefully planned, with firm culture and client service in mind. By 2008, the firm employed nearly 100 people, over half of which were attorneys. Sadly, we lost Paul Jessen and Jim Koley, both to cancer in 2012 and 2013. These losses were heartbreaking for the firm, but we knew how they would want us to move forward and continue their legacy. Today, with over 100 attorneys and 170 total employees, Koley Jessen occupies four floors of newly renovated space at One Pacific Place.
We are lucky to call Omaha our home. Our location allows us to serve an impressive and ever-growing base of local, regional, and national clients. Our full-service platform allows us to serve clients who have diverse legal needs and who desire and deserve over-the-top service.
We are proud of our achievements and how we have grown; however, even more important to us is our culture and strong commitment to client service, which has remained in place since the firm’s inception.
Your intellectual property is one of your most valuable assets. Protecting it is important, and at times, critical. Koley Jessen’s intellectual property litigators capitalize on our firm’s extensive experience in intellectual property transactions and our depth in complex commercial litigation and pair those with our many years of experience in intellectual property-specific disputes to provide you with the advice and courtroom advocacy you need.
Our litigators have experience in handling every type of intellectual property dispute. These include trademarks, trade secrets, trade dress, patents, copyrights, and various types of software disputes. We advise clients how to prosecute these actions to protect their interests as well as defend against claims of infringement. Clients have also used us to advise them before matters go to court, working to obtain informal resolutions, and to best prepare for anticipated litigation.
Trademark issues are probably the most common type of dispute. From the look of the packaging to the design of the product, the name and/or logo you use to represent your business, and the quality of your product or your service, we help clients like you navigate the complicated and sometimes seemingly conflicting case law in this area. We apply the same dedication and experience to trade secret, patent, and copyright cases. Often, these types of disputes are in federal court and our IP litigators have successfully handled cases all over the United States. We have built relationships with lawyers and firms all over the country to assist us in knowing the local dynamics of a particular court, which in turn allows us to offer our experience and our rates to your intellectual property dispute anywhere.
We will work closely with you to identify the nature of the claim, map out a strategy to succeed on your objectives, and provide a clear budget of anticipated expenses. Our goal is your success and the protection of your ideas, in whatever form or forms of intellectual property they exist.
When a business or individual is in financial distress, there are many stakeholders. Whether we are counseling a business, an individual in distress, or one of the many other parties that have a stake in the outcome, we provide our clients with practical and strategic advice to help them navigate the complexities of business insolvencies. We assist in evaluating risk, minimizing exposure, maximizing recoveries, and developing creative solutions, all in a cost-effective manner.
Our Omaha-based bankruptcy attorneys understand the complexities of business bankruptcy and have experience in courts all across the country representing stakeholders inside and outside of bankruptcy. We represent financially distressed businesses, their boards, management, owners, secured creditors, unsecured creditors, creditor committees, lenders, bankruptcy trustees, investors, and potential acquirers, handling restructurings in and out of court, business reorganizations, acquisitions, liquidations, and litigation. We have helped hundreds of businesses successfully navigate difficult financial circumstances outside of bankruptcy by developing and implementing creative solutions for their financial needs and realities.
We also have experience advocating for clients in bankruptcy-related litigation matters, including avoidance actions, objections to discharge, dischargeability actions, preference claims, subordination claims, equitable recharacterization claims, plan confirmation objections, relief from stay motions, Section 503(b)(9) administrative expense claims, and other disputes under the Bankruptcy Code. In addition, we regularly represent clients in breach of contract cases, actions under guaranties, replevin actions, and fraudulent transfer claims.
We regularly draw upon the experience of other attorneys in our firm, including those focusing on employment, insurance, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, securities, tax, and various litigation disciplines, and employ a multi-disciplinary approach that provides our clients with expertise in nearly all areas of the law.
One of our members is a court-approved mediator in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nebraska and regularly blogs on issues related to bankruptcy, financial distress, and mediation at www.mediatbankry.com.
Koley Jessen is an aggressively growing law firm serving the needs of business owners, executives, and professionals around the country. As a multi-discipline firm, we serve a wide variety of legal needs.
Our team encompasses over 100 attorneys. With extensive and diverse expertise, we work as a team, utilizing each other’s knowledge and skills to provide well-rounded legal advice to help our clients achieve personal and business success.
Since our inception in 1988, we have had the privilege of representing a diverse clientele throughout the Midwest, the United States, and the world in a variety of legal matters. Our clients include individuals in need of basic estate plans, high net worth individuals needing complex succession strategies, public and private companies, private equity funds, family offices, start-ups, closely held businesses, and health care organizations.
We provide more than legal guidance to our clients. Our Omaha-based employment attorneys are also active partners in formulating solutions that meet our clients’ short- and long-term needs based on their specific businesses.
We know that response time can be critical in the employment area. A termination decision or disciplinary matter may arise unexpectedly and need to be addressed immediately. We make ourselves available by office phone, cell phone, email, fax, and through our assistants. Clients will always receive a return call within the same day, or know when to expect one.
The depth and expertise of our Employment and Labor team enables us to effectively and efficiently advise our clients with respect to the diverse circumstances they encounter when managing their workforces.
Our services include:
Employment, labor and benefits can change dramatically through court decisions and legislative changes. Our lawyers constantly monitor these changes, so that we can provide employers with the most up-to-date and relevant information through monthly NewsFlashes, quarterly webinars, periodic round table sessions, and an annual Employment Law Symposium in Omaha on various employment law issues.
Our immigration attorneys help employers achieve their strategic staffing objectives by providing streamlined procedures and guidance through the immigration process and ensuring they are in compliance with immigration-related regulations.
The regulatory landscape can be challenging. From sponsoring workers to responding to Department of Labor audits and Form I-9 inspections, our immigration team stays connected and provide you the information you need in order to remain compliant and provide solutions to fit your unique situation.
Our Omaha-based immigration attorneys regularly work with employers on:
Nonimmigrant visas: We have a wealth of experience working with a variety of nonimmigrant visa categories useful to businesses of all sizes (e.g., H-1B, H-2A, H-2B, L-1A, L-1B, E-1, E-2, F-1, O-1, TN, etc.) and have developed excellent working relationships with state and federal officials to garner support for the successful processing of potentially challenging cases. We work with employers to design and implement the most advantageous course of action to bring the desired caliber of worker to their organization on a timely basis.
Immigrant visas: When the employment relationship progresses as planned, we have the know-how to assist you in appropriately petitioning for immigrant visas to secure the long-term work authorization of your foreign national workforce. Given the length and complexity inherent in this process, our staff works tirelessly to keep clients fully informed of all developments in a timely fashion. Where desired, we have developed processes for employees to contact us regarding case status at no extra cost to the employer. We have found this to relieve employee anxiety and reduce administrative burdens on the employer.
Compliance: We have expertise in designing policies and procedures to proactively handle all levels and types of immigration-related compliance. In the event a government audit catches you off guard, we also have expertise in working through the audit process with multiple government agencies and assisting in the preparation of timely and appropriate responses.
Our clients expect exceptional results at a reasonable and predictable cost. Partnering with our clients, our litigation attorneys utilize our experience and expertise to deliver on that expectation. We are knowledgeable, proactive, organized, and efficient, and we add value for our clients in every case.
Koley Jessen is a recognized leader in complex commercial and business litigation, as well as in trial and appellate advocacy. This reputation has been earned by successfully representing a wide variety of clients, from publicly traded to large privately held companies to ordinary businesses and individuals. The firm was recognized as having one of the Top 50 Verdicts in the Nation in the year 2018 for our success in Infogroup, Inc., et al. v. DatabaseUSA.com, L.L.C.
Clients trust us to handle complex mediations, as well as administrative, judicial, and arbitration proceedings throughout the United States, in matters ranging from everyday disputes to bet-the-company cases in excess of nine figures. We also have an extensive appellate practice that includes appeals to numerous appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Our Omaha-based business litigation attorneys have broad experience in the hands-on management and resolution of diverse claims in numerous industries, from both a prosecution and defense perspective, and we have several attorneys who have served as judicial clerks who provide a judicial perspective in analyzing and assessing risk. Judges and juries have consistently commented that we are among the best trial attorneys around and are adept at effectively using technology to present cases. This extensive experience enables us to minimize liability and maximize value for our clients.
In short, our litigation team provides unparalleled client service, along with aggressive and professional representation, all within a compelling cost structure.
Knowledge, experience, dedication, and personal service – these are the foundations of the Koley Jessen Real Estate legal team, and what every client can expect from us.
Whether our clients’ objectives are a complex real estate development and financing project, or a fairly routine purchase, sale or lease of commercial or residential property, our Omaha-based real estate attorneys work to structure the transaction in a manner that reduces inherent risks and maximizes realizable benefits for our clients. We are, at heart, transaction attorneys. Our job is to help our clients get their deals done. We understand that to each client, satisfactory resolution of its current transaction or problem is critical. Regardless of the size or nature of the transaction or problem, we approach the project with a similar attitude. Our services include:
Real Estate Transactions: We represent buyers, sellers, developers, landlords, and tenants in transactions involving all sizes and types of commercial, industrial, office, and retail properties.
Due Diligence: We perform and coordinate due diligence in the acquisition and financing of real estate for investment, development, occupancy, sales, leasing, and collateralization.
Financing: We represent our clients in negotiating and closing on acquisition financing, construction financing, and permanent financing.
Operations: We assist clients in the operation of their properties, including properties owned and occupied partly or entirely by our clients, as well as single- or multi-tenanted properties owned, leased, or managed by our clients.
Construction: We negotiate construction and construction-related contracts for the design, construction, and occupation of new construction, tenant improvements, or rehabilitation of existing facilities.
Planning/Zoning/Regulatory: We assist and coordinate with clients in working with local city and state officials across the country with respect to planning, zoning, traffic, storm water management, and compliance matters related to the development, redevelopment, and use of property.
