Our Team

Dean has over 30 years of experience as a business attorney, including over a decade as in-house counsel at Amazon.com, and almost two decades in private practice. Dean has been an attorney at Quadrant Law Group since 2016 and a partner since 2022.

Prior to joining the partnership at QLG, Dean was the founder and principal attorney at Cerulean Law PLLC, where he advised large and small business clients on corporate organization, e-commerce law, commercial negotiations, content, and intellectual-property licensing, digital distribution, and antitrust compliance. 

As Senior Corporate Counsel, North American Retail at Amazon.com, Dean supported Amazon’s fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar North American retail “hardlines” business (including consumer electronics, toys and baby, jewelry and watches, home and garden, sporting goods and automotive products). His duties included vendor negotiations, legal compliance and training, marketing review, and strategic competitiveness initiatives. 

Dean previously served as Senior Corporate Counsel, Operations, and Senior Corporate Counsel, Corporate and M&A, supporting Amazon’s international and cross-border projects, including establishing and/or managing Amazon’s operations in numerous countries, including Japan, France, Germany, Canada, India, South Africa and Romania. In this role, Dean worked closely with (and often in) Amazon’s various foreign offices, supervising outside counsel, administering subsidiaries, negotiating commercial contracts and leases, securing intellectual property, handling labor matters, researching the regulatory environment, communicating with government officials and managing litigation.  At other times, Dean acted as the primary legal counsel for Amazon’s domestic and international customer service, import-export and transportation groups, and supported international mergers and acquisitions and merger integration, as well as equity investments in strategic partners. He trained staff in a half-dozen countries on corporate compliance, ethics policies and other legal subjects.

Prior to joining Amazon.com, Dean began his legal career at K&L Gates (formerly Preston Gates & Ellis) in Seattle, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and municipal law.  He was seconded for three years to the Tokyo office of Tanaka and Takahashi, where he supported Japanese attorneys in international business transactions, project finance, intellectual property licensing, banking, finance, and aviation law.   He was also a summer associate in the Paris office of Baudel Sales Vincent & Georges.

Dean received his J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School. He received his BA in history, magna cum laude, from Yale University.  Since 2013, Dean has been an Affiliate Instructor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law, where he has taught International Business Transactions and Payment Systems, and currently teaches Constitutional Law. In addition to English, he is fluent in French and conversant in several other languages (including Japanese, and German, Spanish).

He lives in Seattle with his wife and two exceptionally well-traveled children.