The firm is saddened to share that longtime Wilson Sonsini partner Maya Skubatch recently passed away following a courageous battle with blue nevus melanoma, an extremely rare form of cancer. She is survived by her husband, Amit Litsur, their three teenage children, and her parents, among many others. We offer our deepest condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues.

Maya joined the Palo Alto office in January 2003 as the first associate hired into the Patents and Innovations (P&I) group. She was elected to the firm's partnership in December 2012 and officially became a partner in February 2013.

Maya became the senior P&I partner in Palo Alto as it pertained to client work, thought leadership, and the hiring and mentoring of attorneys in her group. She built a highly successful practice providing strategic patent counseling to both public and private life sciences and healthcare companies at all stages. She often assisted clients with IP matters related to financings, M&A transactions, and partnerships, in addition to advising both companies and investors on due diligence matters. In fact, Maya was so engaged with her clients that many viewed her as an extension of their companies—she was fully committed to their mission and always made herself available to them.

“Maya was a force to be reckoned with and had an incredible enthusiasm for her clients and her job," said Patents and Innovations department chair Lou Lieto. “She spent 23 years at Wilson and was the heart and soul of our Palo Alto patent group. Maya was a dear friend and colleague to all who knew her. We will miss her perspective, her passion, and her joy."

During Maya's time at the firm, she was an outstanding firm citizen who served on the board of directors as well as numerous committees, including the Member Nominating, Career Development, and Hiring Committees. As noted above, she was also a trusted mentor to many, including most of the firm’s current P&I partners.

Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maya was a patent litigation associate at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich. She earned her J.D. from Santa Clara University School of Law and a B.A. in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley. During law school, Maya interned at Affymetrix and served as an extern in the chambers of the Honorable Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She worked as a research scientist at Genentech before attending Santa Clara Law.

Following her diagnosis, Maya was committed to increasing awareness about blue nevus melanoma (BNM), given its rarity and the lack of scientific knowledge around the condition. In 2024, she founded the Blue Nevus Melanoma Foundation to support the research and discovery of new therapies for BNM and create a community for patients and their loved ones. Maya applied her brilliance to her journey, and she demonstrated her care and compassion for others by making the learnings from that effort available to others.

For additional remembrances about Maya, please see this tribute from John Cumbers of SynBioBeta.

The firm will host a memorial in Maya's honor in the coming weeks; additional details will be shared shortly.

Please join us in keeping Maya's loved ones in your thoughts.