Paul T. Dacier

Paul T. Dacier is a Partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Boston Office. With a proven track record as a Chief Legal Officer and a highly sought-out advisor, he joined the firm in January 2024 and is in the Corporate Governance Litigation and Crisis Law and Strategy practice groups.

From 2017 to 2023, Paul was the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Indigo Agriculture, Inc., in Boston, Massachusetts – a unicorn start-up science and agriculture technology company. Earlier, Paul served as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel at EMC Corporation (“EMC”) in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. He served under three CEOs during 26.5 years of significant growth - when revenues grew from $170M in 1990 to $24.7B in 2016; market cap grew from $100M to $55B and employees grew from 750 to 68,000. During this time, he helped make business history as EMC became the world’s largest enterprise storage company and later transformed into a diversified technology company and one of the world’s largest software companies through the acquisition of over 40 companies, including VMware, Inc., for $635M in cash in 2003. He left EMC in 2016 after its $67B acquisition by another high technology company.

Given his deep experience, Paul regularly advises general counsels, CEOs and boards of directors on all types of business and legal issues, including corporate governance, shareholder activism, special board committees and investigations, fiduciary duty and derivative claims, disclosure of material events, corporate opportunity, patents, trade secrets and licensing, government inquiries and crisis management. He is an expert on litigation strategy and “bet the company lawsuits.”

Since 2020, Paul has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of AerCap Holdings, N.V., (NYSE:AER). AerCap is the world’s largest commercial aircraft leasing company with over $70B in assets. From 2017 to the present, Paul has been on the board of directors of Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) and is also Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.

Paul is active in the Boston community. For example, from 2015 to 2022, Paul was Chairman of the Judicial Nominating Commission (“JNC”) under Governor Charlie Baker. The JNC was responsible for advising Governor Baker on judicial nominations to the Massachusetts Trial Courts and Appeals Court. This resulted in 262 new judges (or 60% of the Massachusetts Judiciary) and 35 Clerk Magistrates assuming office. From 2016 to 2022, Paul was Co-Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Court Nominating Commission. He co-led this 12-member committee that advised Governor Baker on nominating candidates, including the Chief Justice, for seven historic vacancies on the Supreme Judicial Court.

In 2013 and 2014, Paul was President of the Boston Bar Association (“BBA”). He was the first general counsel to serve as President of the BBA and its then 10,000 lawyer members in its 223-year history.

Paul was the principal proponent for the establishment of a Business Court in Massachusetts. As a direct result of his advocacy, in 2000, the Business Litigation Session (“BLS”) was created by Court Order in the Suffolk County Superior Court. Since formation, the BLS become an institution within the Superior Court and has been acknowledged as an outstanding success that has benefited all litigants.