Heidi L. Keefe

A former astrophysicist, now a litigator, Keefe was beyond excited to see the first photo of a black hole. When the image was released, it surpassed her expectations.

“I was absolutely excited,” she said. “It’s something we’ve all known was out there, but could we ever see one? The amount of collaboration and intense mathematics done mostly by a young female that went into getting this image, it just shows what people can do when they work together.”

Keefe was referring to computer scientist Katie Bouman. Keefe said she’s happy more women are pursuing the sciences and intellectual property. However, it was different 20 years ago.

“There were a lot of times I was the only woman in the room,” she said.

“In general, I think what all of us want is just to be the best lawyer who happens to be female, not a female who happens to be a lawyer,” Keefe added.

Last year, she fended off Mirror Worlds Technologies in a patent infringement case involving the news stream of her client Facebook Inc. The plaintiff had been successful in the past, collecting $50 million from technology titans Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

One of Keefe’s biggest ongoing cases involves defending Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from a similar patent infringement lawsuit filed by Blackberry.

Aside from her day to day legal practice, Keefe is one of the founding members of the Women Attorneys Advocacy Project. About once a quarter she, along with co-founder U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte, holds seminars with other women lawyers about how to become better advocates in the courtroom by finding their own voices.

“She wanted to encourage them to play to their strengths and not always mimic examples that perhaps weren’t like them,” Keefe said of Laporte.

Looking ahead to the next space discovery, she said she hopes it’s the ability to take photos of planets orbiting stars in other solar systems.

“I think if we can find more star systems like ours — it has a normal sun with a bunch of normal planets — we’re going to find out our strongest chances of maybe finding out we’re not alone out there,” Keefe said.

— Arin Mikailian