Profile

Practicing law at Taylor English was an easy choice when I decided to join a law firm again after more than 25 years in general counsel and other in-house roles. The firm’s business model and culture stand in stark contrast to those of traditional big-firm practices – we bring the highest value to the firm’s clients, not only by maintaining a low-cost structure, but by always acting as the client’s business partner and bringing the deep and broad experience of Taylor English’s professionals to the client’s aid.  When I was in GC roles, I often chose to engage Taylor English as outside counsel for those very reasons.  

Tim Reis delivers practical solutions that help his clients achieve their business goals in today’s technology-enabled business world. He possesses a great depth of experience as a member of corporate leadership teams that bought or sold products and services in a broad array of industries, including logistics, wireless communications, telecom, defense contracts, entertainment, business processes, commerce networks, reinsurance and others.

Mr. Reis’ approach to achieving his clients’ goals is to provide sound and practical advice and solutions that bring business results without undue risk. His decades-long experience as general counsel and in-house counsel provide him with a clear understanding of what his clients are looking for and what their business partners will accept in their relationships. Mr. Reis joined Taylor English’s Corporate and Business practice group in 2013 after a career of more than 30 years as counsel to businesses in a wide variety of industries.

As general counsel for companies both public (EMS Technologies Inc.) and private (Inmar Inc.), and as in-house counsel for Fortune 100 companies (United Parcel Service Inc. and Manufacturers Hanover Corp.) and a middle-market technology company (EMS Technologies), Mr. Reis’ practice has spanned a broad range of subject matter areas, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate securities, corporate finance and governance, intellectual property licensing, telecommunications, defense contracts, defense security, media and entertainment, reinsurance contracts, environmental compliance, and labor and employment counseling. His earlier years also included experience in private practice with Atlanta-based law firms King & Spalding and Morris, Manning & Martin LLP. In recent years, Mr. Reis leveraged his deep intellectual property protection and licensing experience to help his son, Tim Reis, Jr., a filmmaker and entertainment media producer (as well as other clients in film, TV and music industries, including a major cable broadcast network), to secure and distribute works of authorship in multinational distribution arrangements and collaboration and services agreements.

Mr. Reis spent the first 16 years of his career as in-house technology and intellectual property counsel with UPS and Manufacturers Hanover, after which he spent three years in private practice before returning to in-house and general counsel roles with EMS Technologies and Inmar.

Mr. Reis played NCAA Division I baseball at Fordham University in New York for four years and men’s amateur baseball for many more years. He is an avid fan of baseball and hockey, and enjoys golf and skiing in his leisure time. Mr. Reis also enjoys listening to an eclectic blend of music and attending live music events. He and his wife, Pat, raised three grown children in Atlanta after relocating from their shared hometown of Chappaqua, New York, in 1991.

Memberships

State Bar of Georgia

New York State Bar Association

Association of Corporate Counsel, 1988-2013

Georgia Production Partnership

Practice Highlights

Experience

  • Acquisition by merger with Honeywell International Inc. merger subsidiary

    Managed, as EMS Technologies, Inc. General Counsel, auction, due diligence and sale processes in completing sale of publicly-traded (Nasdaq) company in response to hedge-fund activist shareholder-initiated proxy contest. The transaction, which had a public tender offer price of approximately $500 million, added to the Honeywell aerospace and scanning and mobility businesses various EMS wireless communications business units serving the business ...

  • $100 million plus negotiated settlement over satellite phone manufacturing and distribution agreement

    As General Counsel of EMS Technologies, Inc., led negotiation of a favorable settlement of a dispute over performance in a development, manufacturing and distribution agreement for the next generation handheld satellite phone with leading satellite communications provider, resulting in continuing royalty stream to EMS and avoiding extensive litigation.

  • Led formation of the first nationwide cellular data network to serve UPS

    As in-house Intellectual Property and Technology Counsel for UPS, led formation of the first nationwide cellular data network, which was developed for UPS’s package-tracking application, overcoming substantial antitrust compliance concerns; negotiated multiple carrier services agreements and contract tariffs.

  • Reliance Financial Corporation's acquisition by Fidelity Information Services

    Advised Reliance Financial Corporation on its acquisition by merger by Fidelity Information Services (NYSE: FIS). The transaction, which had an aggregate purchase price of $110 million, brought together the world’s largest provider of banking and payments technology and one of the largest independent trust companies in the United States. Assisted with the negotiation and preparation of the Agreement and Plan of Merger and the ancillary documents needed to ...

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Education

University of Vermont Law School, JD, cum laude, 1982

Fordham University, BA, 1979

Bar Admissions

Georgia   

New York

Courts & Adjudicative Bodies

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit