M. Kathleen Hart

Kathleen Hart is a partner in the Corporate & Business Transactions Group of Andersen, Tate & Carr, specializing in mergers & acquisitions and intellectual property matters. In addition to a robust business acquisition and sales practice, her “day-to-day” practice focuses on counseling and assisting start up and growth stage technology companies on a variety of issues, including protecting and preserving their intellectual property rights (both internally vis-à-vis employees and externally in their customer, vendor and partner relationships), securing trademark and copyright registrations, negotiating technology licenses and service agreements, and general corporate governance matters. She has negotiated agreements with many of the top financial institutions in the U.S., several of the major ISPs in North America and Europe and various media companies, and has assisted technology clients in expanding into the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and Brazil.

As part of her intellectual property practice, Kathleen represents clients desiring to expand their business through franchising with the organization and ongoing administration of their franchise system, including drafting the required disclosure documents, franchise, area development and other related agreements; seeking and obtaining registration or exemption of the franchise offering in multiple states; and counseling franchisor clients on operational and compliance matters.

Kathleen also provides general corporate representation to clients in a wide variety of industries: providing counseling on entity choice and structure; organization of corporations, limited liability companies and joint ventures; shareholder agreements; business sales and acquisitions (stock and asset); venture capital investments; regulatory compliance (including health care) and general contract negotiations.

Before joining the firm, Kathleen served as a law clerk for the Honorable J.L. Edmondson, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In law school, she was inducted into the Order of the Coif and served as the Executive Articles Editor for the Georgia Law Review. She helps lead our office in Athens, Georgia, where she currently lives with her mechanically-inclined husband, Lego-savant son, unicorn-loving daughter, and their 1.5 dogs (golden retriever/lab and chihuahua/terrier).

Education

University of Georgia School of Law, Athens, Georgia

• Juris Doctor (Summa Cum Laude), 2006

University of Georgia

• B.B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) with Honors, 2000

Admissions

• Georgia