Motorola Solutions Names Company Veteran to Top Legal Post

Motorola Solutions Inc. has named its first new top legal executive in a decade, as James Niewiara takes on the role of general counsel as of this month.

Niewiara succeeds Mark Hacker, who stepped down as of Feb. 1 for personal reasons and plans to officially retire on Dec. 31 of this year, Motorola disclosed in a securities filing. Hacker has been the company’s top lawyer since 2013.

Niewiara most recently oversaw the telecommunications equipment and software provider’s commercial legal, litigation, and intellectual property teams. He has worked for Motorola and its predecessors since 2008.

Motorola, which invented the walkie-talkie ahead of World War II, is the successor company to US telecommunications giant Motorola Inc. The latter split itself in 2011 with its legacy phone business, Motorola Mobility Inc., being sold for $12.5 billion in 2011 to Google. China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. paid nearly $3 billion to buy Motorola Mobility in 2014 but Google retained control of the company’s patents.

Hacker received more than $4.4 million in total compensation during fiscal 2021, the company disclosed in its most recent proxy statement. He’s sold off nearly $63 million in Motorola shares since 2018, securities filings show. Hacker still owns roughly $1.3 million in company stock, per Bloomberg data.

Niewiara owns nearly $2.8 million in company stock, according to Bloomberg data. Motorola didn’t disclose his current compensation.

Patents are a primary driver of Motorola’s litigation caseload, making up almost 25% of the company’s docket in US federal courts within the past five years, according to Bloomberg Law data. Kirkland & Ellis and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton collectively handled about 30% of Motorola’s total cases in those courts during that time.