Dan VanDeMortel is the firm’s marketing communications specialist. In that role, he marries his knowledge of the legal industry with a passion for writing to cover many firmwide communication tasks. He is responsible for content writing, particularly via maintaining and updating the firm’s website, resume, and blog posts. He tracks legal accolades and prepares submissions to achieve firm and attorney rankings and recognition from various prestigious legal ranking organizations across the world. And he actively participates in the firm’s media relations by preparing press releases and proactively identifying opportunities to enhance the firm’s public profile.
Before joining the firm, Dan was a long-time paralegal, both as an independent contractor for several top-level San Francisco law firms and as a ten-year paralegal at Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco flagship office. During his career, he covered and succeeded in all phases of litigation, from client and case development, discovery, and all trial levels, including involvement and attendance on a case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. At Morrison & Foerster, he assisted with various marketing and press outreach tasks, collected and synthesized research to assist attorneys with mock trials and jury selection, and worked closely with a senior partner to write, edit, and disseminate Northern Ireland-related presidential and congressional scorecards.
Dan has traveled to Northern Ireland with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First) to investigate the harassment and killing of attorneys and judges during the province’s political strife. He also lived for a time in Belfast, where he volunteered for the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a cross-community, politically unaffiliated NGO providing legal assistance to victims of “The Troubles.”
Dan has frequently written about Northern Ireland and domestic legal and political topics, and baseball-related human interest and cultural issues. His 2020 article, “White Circles Drawn in Crayon” received the McFarland-Society for American Baseball’s Research Award. In 2022, he co-authored a California Daily Journal article with firm associate Kevin Rayhill regarding baseball's antitrust exemption. In 2020, he co-authored an article for The Recorder regarding the 2017 death of paralegal Heather Heyer during racial and political unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia.