Malaika D. Tyson

Malaika Tyson joined McAndrews Held & Malloy in 2011 and became the firm’s first female, African-American shareholder in 2020. She concentrates her practice in the area of strategic management of intellectual property, including patent and trademark prosecution, competitive intellectual property analysis and portfolio management, and management of complex multi-faceted intellectual property transactions. Malaika is also a tireless advocate for her clients, which include universities, research institutions, multinational companies, and startups in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries.

In 2020, she was named an American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) 2020 Woman to Watch and in 2016, was named one of Law Bulletin Media’s 40 under Forty. Malaika also continues to be recognized as an Illinois Rising Star, and honor she’s received for the past five years.

Malaika grew up in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood and earned her undergraduate degree from Hampton University in Hampton, Va. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Purdue University. Before pursuing her J.D. at The University of Chicago Law School, she worked at MilliporeSigma Biotechnology in St. Louis, Mo., as a senior research and development scientist in the proteomics group, where she was responsible for the development and optimization of products and strategies for biopharmaceutical applications.

Malaika is committed to increasing the ranks of women attorneys and attorneys of color. As a board member of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms, Malaika drives progressive ideas on inclusion and retention of minority attorneys, and institutional changes to how law firms view diversity. As president of the Chicago Chapter of the Coalition of Women’s Initiatives in Law and National Board member Malaika spearheads inclusion efforts, pipeline issues, financial literacy, and the effect the pandemic has had on female attorneys. At McAndrews, she serves on the firm’s Professional Development, Mansfield, and Diversity committees and actively mentors young attorneys both inside and outside the firm.

Malaika is also a leader in the intellectual property community, serving as the chair of the ABA’s Section of Intellectual Property Law (ABA-IPL) International Patent Laws Committee and vice-chair of the Section’s Diversity Action Group. She is also co-chair of AIPLA’s USPTO Relations Subcommittee.

She is also passionate about making sure post-secondary education is available to all children and was a founding member of Bottom Line Chicago’s Associate Board (now Emerging Leader’s Council), an organization ensuring that first-generation, low-income students become career-ready college graduates.

Malaika, along with her husband Sean, are the blogging duo Cider Soms, which was started as a way to introduce wine-lovers to the world of hard cider. The “Soms” blog seeks to uncover and explain the complexities of ciders in a fun way. She also serves as a member of the American Cider Associations’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee.