t: 404.518.4856
f: 404.393.5827
email: jthompson@patricklawgroup.com

Corporate
Commercial Contracting
Construction
Technology

Boston College Law School, J.D. (1996),
Cum Laude

School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
B.S. in International Politics, (1991), Cum Laude

Cable and Broadcasting
Construction and Development
Telecommunications
Procurement
Technology

Senior Counsel | email: jthompson@patricklawgroup.com

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Jennifer McCoid Thompson has nine years of legal experience as a corporate and commercial contracting attorney. In addition to her experience in private practice at large firms in Boston and Atlanta, she has served as in-house counsel to ZapMedia, Inc., Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and The Weather Channel, Inc. She has experience drafting and negotiating a wide variety of complex business transactions and related agreements, including marketing and co-branding arrangements and launch incentives, construction contracts, equipment agreements and leases, non-disclosure agreements, content distribution and media platform arrangements, technology licensing arrangements and independent contractor agreements. Her mix of big firm and in house experience gives her a unique ability to understand and identify significant business issues and evaluate risk, all with an eye to maintaining the practicality and efficient operation of the business.

While in private practice with law firms, Ms. Thompson worked on many merger and acquisition transactions and securities offerings. She also regularly performed general corporate formation, maintenance and counseling functions. These transactions involved complex businesses and financial arrangements and agreements and required that she quickly identify and prioritize the critical business issues.

While serving as Assistant General Counsel to ZapMedia, Inc., Ms. Thompson was solely responsible for the acquisition of all licenses for software, hardware and content required to be incorporated in the company’s signature product, a consumer device designed to deliver music, video and games to in-home television sets. In addition to coordinating all licenses, Ms. Thompson oversaw compliance with the licenses in the construction and design of the device by ZapMedia.

In addition, while at ZapMedia, Ms. Thompson negotiated and drafted real estate and office leases for the company and approved all human relations agreements, including outsourcing of HR functions, severance arrangements and stock option, independent contractor and employment agreements.

As in-house counsel to Turner Network Sales, Inc., Ms. Thompson regularly negotiated complex, multi-platform agreements to provide video networks, on-line content and marketing support to cable and satellite companies. These agreements were long-term and required the ability to draft the provisions broadly enough to contemplate changes and improvements in technology while still protecting key intellectual property rights and providing sufficient flexibility for the parties to provide day to day services.

In her role at The Weather Channel, Inc., Ms. Thompson continued to negotiate and draft multi-platform agreements to provide video networks, on-line content and marketing support to cable and satellite companies. In addition, Ms. Thompson was responsible for acquiring rights and licenses required for the design, manufacture and installation of thousands of weather-localization devices in over 900 local cable facilities. These arrangements involved equipment leases, procurement agreements, manufacturing agreements, installation agreements, and equipment sale agreements. Ms. Thompson also worked closely with the marketing department to develop literature and communications to Clients regarding the devices.

While in this role, Ms. Thompson also supported the weather.com business unit, which runs a profitable Top 10 website, and the mobile unit, which supplies weather content to cell phones. She regularly drafted and negotiated marketing, branding, content and platform arrangements for both the website and the mobile business units.

In addition, she created and implemented on-air and online advertising policies, directly managed the legal group that approved all online advertising agreements, and regularly reviewed advertisements for clearance on both online and on-air platforms.

While at The Patrick Law Group, Ms. Thompson has worked on numerous construction agreements for the design, development and construction of projects in sensitive healthcare environments and large commercial developments. She has also drafted agreements relating to the creation, manufacture, marketing and provision of telecommunications devices.

She studied in Madrid, Spain during her junior year in college and is proficient in Spanish.