Experience

Mr. Walz has been a licensed, practicing attorney for 28 years, with his law practice mostly devoted to the legal needs of businesses, business owners and entrepreneurs.

Bill graduated from Bucknell University in 1982, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in English, and then was accepted into the United States Navy’s prestigious Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, graduating with academic and physical fitness honors with a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve as Naval Flight Officer. He served for six years in Naval Intelligence reaching the rank of lieutenant after which he was honorable discharged . During this time period, Mr. Walz attended the top-ranked University of California, Hastings College of the Law, focusing on international law and business transactions, and where he graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1988.

Bill began his law career in Los Angeles with a top firm as a business litigation associate, then worked as counsel to a large insurance company, founding that company’s funds recovery department, and practicing in its claims area, and for a time heading up its litigation department. However, it was the business acquisitions side of the company’s legal work that most fascinated Mr. Walz, where he had participated on the company’s due diligence teams, which conducted legal and business analysis of numerous other companies for potential merger or acquisition. This interest and fascination motivated Bill to seek an advanced degree in business, graduating from the University of California, Irvine School of Business’s part-time Executive MBA program with a Masters of Business Administration degree in 2001.

At UCI’s Business School, Mr. Walz teamed up with a fellow classmate, and together wrote and entered a business plan into an international competition sponsored by Silicon Valley Venture Capital firm Hummer, Winblad Venture Partners, beating out entries from Harvard, Yale and Stanford to win the first place prize of $5,000,000 in start-up funds. These funds helped Bill and his partners launch start-up company MyDrugRep.com, which, went on to attract successive VC funding, became profitable with its novel application of Internet technology to product marketing and sales, and thrives still today as the technology marketing division of a larger healthcare concern.

Since then, and still inspired by his practice of serving the legal needs of dynamic businesses, Mr. Walz has focused his law practice on what companies need to expand into new areas of geography, technology, and lines of business, such as intellectual property protection, international business transactions, business financing and expansion and corporate law. While Bill has practiced law in large firms, as counsel to Fortune 500 corporations, and in his own law firm with lawyer associates and staff.

Education

• University Of California Hasting School of Law, J.D.
• Bucknell University, Bachelor of Art

Bars and Courts Admitted

• State of California

Languages

• German