Dylan Wiseman is the Co-Chair of Buchalter’s Trade Secret and Employee Mobility Practice Group. In 2021 and 2022 he was recognized by the Daily Journal as among the Top Trade Secrets Lawyers in California. His practice focuses on intellectual property protection, including representing employers in cases involving:

• Trade secrets
• Unfair competition
• Employee mobility disputes
• Cloud-based data theft
• Disputes involving customer and employee non-solicitation restrictions
• Social media, workplace privacy, BYOD devices, and eDiscovery
• The infringement of other forms of intellectual property

Mr. Wiseman also defends businesses accused of engaging in trade secret misappropriation and acts of unfair competition. He also counsels employers and start-ups regarding best practices for intellectual property.

Mr. Wiseman has extensive jury trial experience. He has been lead trial counsel in several complex designated unfair competition jury trials, including an eight-week jury trial. Mr. Wiseman also has substantial first-chair experience in complex arbitrations. Because trial experience, the California Lawyers Association asked Mr. Wiseman to be the sole author of the chapter on jury instructions in the treatise Trade Secret Litigation & Protection: A Practice Guide to the DTSA and CUTSA (4^th Ed. 2021). Mr. Wiseman’s chapter provides a comprehensive critique of the CACI 4400 series jury instructions used for trade secret claims.  Similarly recognizing Mr. Wiseman’s two decades of trade secrets trial verdicts, he is a co-author of the Template Civil Jury Instructions Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which was published 2021 in the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal. In 2023, Mr. Wiseman joined The Sedona Conference – Working Group 12 (Trade Secrets) which is developing a set of pattern jury instructions for the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.

Mr. Wiseman also handles multi-jurisdictional litigation involving companies that have hired out-of-state employees that are subject to restrictive covenants and assists with the preparation of non-disclosure agreements, intellectual property assignment provisions, and non-solicitation covenants.

Appearing in state and federal courts, Mr. Wiseman has extensive experience litigating disputes under:

• The Uniform Trade Secrets Act
• The Defend Trade Secrets Act
• The Unfair Competition Law, Business and Professions Code, section 17200
• California’s Business & Professions Code sections 16600 and 16601
• California’s intellectual property assignment provisions
• California Penal Code section 502
• California’s employee duty loyalty provisions

Mr. Wiseman also defends businesses accused of engaging in trade secret misappropriation and acts of unfair competition. He also counsels employers and start-ups regarding best practices for intellectual property protection and avoiding employee raiding problems.

Mr. Wiseman has taught continuing education seminars regarding trade secret and unfair competition litigation for the State Bar of California’s Labor and Employment Law Section. In 2017, Mr. Wiseman led the continuing education class on the Defend Trade Secrets Act for the State Bar of California’s Intellectual Property Law Section. An award winning lecturer, he has also taught continuing legal education seminars regarding intellectual property protection, social media and confidentiality, computer forensics and eDiscovery.

Mr. Wiseman’s diverse group of clients includes:

• Insurance brokerages
• Venture capital and investment banking firms
• Aerospace companies
• Mortgage banking firms
• Biomedical device companies
• Inventors
• Professional service firms
• Life sciences companies
• Renewable and sustainable energy companies
• Casinos
• Healthcare companies
• Sporting goods companies
• Media outlets
• Commercial banks

In 2017, Mr. Wiseman opened the Sacramento office after working for a year to plan, organize, and recruit the other Sacramento attorneys. The Sacramento office now has 27 resident lawyers.

Prior to joining Buchalter, Mr. Wiseman was a Shareholder for ten years at Littler Mendelson, the world’s largest labor and employment law firm.

Most recently, Mr. Wiseman was recognized by Intellectual Asset Management on their 2023 Patent 1000 list in the area of Trade Secrets. Additionally, he was honored as one of Sacramento Magazine’s 2023 Top Lawyers in the field of Trade Secrets.

Bar Admissions

• California

Education

• University of California, Davis
• Santa Clara University School of Law

• Trade Secret Litigation and Protection: A Practice Guide to the DTSA and CUTSA
• Template Civil Jury Instructions Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act
• California Employers Should Modify the Definition of ‘Confidential Information’ to Avoid Operating as a Covenant Not to Compete
• California Supreme Court Clarifies Bounds of Legitimate Competition Under Tort and Antitrust Law
• California Supreme Court to Rule on Non-Competes Between Businesses and Interference Claims
• Republic FC’s Major League Soccer Expansion: What Does It Really Mean for Sacramento?
• California Plaintiffs May Prefer State Court For Trade Secret Claims
• A Patent For A Formula Does Not Destroy Trade Secret Status So Long As The Patent Does Not Disclose The “Process” For Applying The Trade Secret
• High Court Expands Protection on ‘Confidential’ Information Under Exemption 4 of FOIA
• California, Washington and Oregon agree UTSA applies to memory
• Viewpoint: A Road Map to Hiring Employees from Direct Competitors in California
• An Introduction to California Trade Secrets Law
• A Recent Ruling About the “Willful and Malicious” Standard for Plaintiff’s Recovering Attorneys’ Fees Under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act
• Fees for bad faith in DTSA lawsuit
• Employee Nonsolicitation Terms Now Likely Void In California
• Nine Ways to Upgrade Calif. Employee Confidentiality Agreement
• Biz Smarts: The legal hazards of your new sales hire’s old customer relationships
• Steps Every Startup Should Take to Protect its Intellectual Property
• 10 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Odds in a Trade Secret Litigation Dispute
• Winds of Change: the NLRB Challenges Confidentiality Agreements and The Obama Administration’s “Call to Action” to Prohibit Non-Compete Agreements
• New Labor Code Section Prevents Employers from Using Out-of-State Choice of Laws Provisions in Contracts with California Employees
• Anti-Money Laundering and Bank Secrecy Act: Are You in Compliance?
• Protecting Confidential Information and Trade Secrets in a Tech Accelerator or Incubator
• Trade Secrets Cases Center on Cloud
• Dylan Wiseman Urges Employers to Use Highly Sophisticated Data Security Solutions