Eric J. Stiff is a partner in the San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles offices of Lewis Brisbois. With more than three decades of legal experience, Eric serves as national vice-chair of the firm’s Securities & Corporate Finance practice. He routinely represents privately held and publicly traded companies in transactions involving a variety of practices, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, capital markets and securities, venture capital, private equity, commercial lending, intellectual property, and healthcare.

Eric and his team provide buyer and seller clients with all the support they need to guide them through the intricacies of the merger and acquisition process. They offer thorough support at every stage, from the preliminary and early stages of initiating an M&A transaction, including letters of intent and term sheets, through due diligence review, transaction structuring, and tax planning, to negotiating purchase price, earn-outs, roll-over equity, representations and warranties, indemnification obligations, and more. Eric and his team address all critical issues and conditions necessary to successfully close a transaction and plan for post-closing transition and integration.

Eric regularly advises founders, CEOs, CFOs, management teams, boards of directors, and other advisors seeking to eventually buy or sell a business in the management of all their day-to-day corporate legal functions, serving as outside general counsel. He has represented numerous early stage, emerging growth, and large established corporations (e.g. Fortune 100) as well as their investors on a wide assortment of venture capital, private equity and capital raising transactions, strategic partnerships, exit strategies, and liquidity events.

Eric represents businesses and investors that operate in a broad spectrum of industries, including healthcare (providers and payors), managed care, technology, biotechnology, software, hardware, internet, manufacturing, logistics, and aerospace. He has assisted many highly regulated clients in various matters, including the following: 

• (i) mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, reorganizations, commercial loans, credit facilities, and financings;
• (ii) Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) applications and review negotiations;
• (iii) statutory regulatory approvals;
• (iv) real estate transactions; and
• (v) administrative services agreements, business associate agreements, confidentiality agreements and many other contractual arrangements.

A portion of Eric’s practice involves advising international clients in accessing the U.S. capital markets, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, investment transactions, and U.S. securities law compliance (’33 Act, ’34 Act, and ’40 Act). Clients include issuers (companies), underwriters, investment banks, and placement agents.

Eric’s peers have consistently recognized him as one of the top attorneys in the United States. He has been named Corporate “Lawyer of the Year” by The Best Lawyers in America three separate times (2016, 2019, and 2022) — an award annually granted to only one (1) lawyer per practice area per region, representing the top 0.4% of practicing attorneys in the U.S. He has also been recognized numerous times as a Northern California Super Lawyer in San Francisco Magazine and Sacramento Magazine, and he was named one of San Francisco’s top attorneys by the San Francisco Chronicle. Additionally, Eric earned an AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating™ by Martindale-Hubbell®, the highest peer review rating available.

Representative Experience

Admissions

• State Bar Admissions
  • California

Admissions

California

Awards & Honors

• AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating™ by Martindale-Hubbell®
• Best Lawyers in America®, Mergers and Acquisitions Law, Securities / Capital Markets Law, Venture Capital Law, 2026
• Best Lawyers in America®, Corporate Governance Law, 2021 – 2026
• Best Lawyers in America®, Corporate Law, Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity Law, 2010 – 2019 and 2021 – 2026
• Sacramento Magazine, Top Lawyers in Region for Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities & Corporate Finance, 2016 – 2020
• Best Lawyers in America®, Corporate Law — "Lawyer of the Year" (Sacramento), 2016, 2019, and 2022
• Northern California Super Lawyers List, Securities & Corporate Finance and Mergers & Acquisitions, 2012 and 2014 – 2018
• San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Magazine, San Francisco's Top Attorneys, 2011 – 2019

Education

University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law

Juris Doctor, 1995 

University of California, Santa Barbara

Bachelor of Arts, 1989