Stacy is a seasoned legal strategist. Highly successful in law school, she began her career at one of the largest and most established Tampa law firms at the time (the former Fowler White firm) as a products liability litigator and trial attorney. At Fowler White, she was trained by some of Tampa’s best trial lawyers and litigators and gained extensive state court litigation and trial experience. She became known for killer depositions and a high success rate in front of judges. After a few years, she was tapped to transition into patent law, due to her electrical engineering background. She became a registered patent attorney and began assisting clients with patent applications and infringement opinions.
After five years at Fowler White, she was recruited to run the legal department of a publicly traded, high-tech, international corporation (Catalina Marketing Corporation, now privately held), where she loved working with a single client and focusing on company-wide complex legal strategies. At Catalina, she was responsible for all contracts, intellectual property, litigation, employment issues, shareholder disputes, state taxation issues, regulatory matters, and acquisitions. She was able to work with top law firms throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia, greatly expanding her capabilities and insight. She became experienced in patent infringement litigation, trademark protection, state taxation litigation, employee disputes and resolution, post-acquisition earn-out disputes, contract negotiations, and getting a lot done with a very small staff.
After four years at Catalina, Stacy started a family and left to have more time for her daughters. She stayed on for some months as a contract attorney at Catalina to help through the transition. Then, at the request of a former client from her Fowler White days, she began a part-time practice as a sole practitioner for privately held businesses needing out-sourced general and intellectual property counsel. In this role, Stacy learned to apply complex legal strategies cost-effectively for companies ranging from start-ups to those with annual revenue in the $20,000,000 range. She was also hired to assist other law firms in the handling of IP litigation and licensing matters.
After ten years as a sole practitioner, and with her daughters well on their way, she was recruited by her current partner (and husband) to expand back into litigation, and in 2014 they formed Matulis IP Law - now a top-tier IP legal strategies and litigation firm. Through low overhead and the strategy of fully researching and investigating a case at the very beginning, Matulis IP law has a track record of successfully litigating complex cases at about one-third of the typical legal fees for complex federal court cases.
The savings are recognized by offering very competitive rates and getting the litigation concluded, wherever possible, without engaging in a protracted and costly discovery phase. We believe in allocating more resources to the investigative and pleading phase, which often eliminates the need for years of discovery and expert costs, and avoids early-on mistakes that are made by taking legal positions before fully appreciating all of the relevant facts and case law.
Stacy was educated at Southern Illinois University, where she graduated with highest honors earning a B.S. in electrical engineering. She attended law school at Stetson University near St. Petersburg, Florida, where she lived with her husband, also graduating with highest honors.
Count on Stacy to put her multi-faceted legal expertise to work for you, with cost-effective, practical, and highly effective legal strategies and services. Stacy loves to talk to clients about their businesses to put together a great legal strategy that makes sense for each client. She is a cautious legal strategist driven to protect her clients from unwanted outcomes, but will not over-lawyer your situation. With the legal issues in good hands, you can focus on growing your business and achieving your other goals.
About Stacy