Donahue Fitzgerald Adds Former Port of Oakland Director Danny Wan
Deeply Rooted Attorney Continues Focus on Economic Development in Greater East Bay Region
OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 23, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Donahue Fitzgerald, the East Bay Area’s largest law firm, has added attorney and former Executive Director of the Port of Oakland Danny Wan as Of Counsel in its Oakland office. With a career-long dedication to the economic development of Oakland and adjacent East Bay communities, Wan will continue to focus on projects at the intersection of public finance and real estate development, with the goal of enhancing the economic vitality of the region and his clients.
“Danny is highly respected, both domestically and internationally, within the shipping and port industry, and even more critically, he is tremendously well-connected within the greater Bay Area’s public finance and land use arenas – a winning combination for developers and companies looking to move the economic needle in the region,” said Andrew MacKay, Donahue Fitzgerald’s managing partner. “With a commitment to partnering with area’s businesses and continuing to expand the services these clients need today and well into the future, Danny is exactly the sort of attorney we’re seeking out – and not just because clients will benefit; he’s the kind of seasoned professional those coming up in the law want to learn from.”
For more than 12 years, Wan served the Port of Oakland, first as general counsel and then Executive Director, overseeing a portfolio that included maritime port facilities, the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport and over 875 acres of waterfront properties. In addition to his tenure with the Port, Wan’s experience includes serving as: City Attorney and Risk Manager for the City of Morgan Hill, where he focused on land use, development agreements and municipal governance; a member of the East Bay Municipal Utilities District’s Board of Directors, overseeing the greater East Bay’s public water and wastewater utility; and a representative of the Chinatown/Grand Lake district on the Oakland City Council, where he was the city’s first openly LGBTQ council member and led a successful bond initiative to fund clean-up and capital improvements that revitalized Lake Merritt and the Oakland Estuary.
“Working with the East Bay’s legal leader feels like the next natural extension of my career,” said Wan. “I’ve always taken great professional pride in having a role in the economic vitality of our communities, and I expect that I will be in a position to continue to use my skills toward this end, while sharing my enthusiasm for Oakland and its surrounds with a new, up-and-coming generation of legal and business professionals.”
While Port Attorney and Executive Director, Wan led the negotiations for complex lease and development agreements for seaport terminals, logistics and warehousing space, airport gates and concessions and entertainment and restaurant venues. Additionally, he headed up the legal and business aspects of port operations, land use regulations, leasing of port properties, development agreements, regulatory and grant compliance governance, and ethics.
Wan was elected to the Board of Governors of the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA), an organization representing more than 130 public port authorities in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America, in October 2022, and he will serve as the U.S. South Pacific Ports delegate on AAPA’s governing board in the year ahead. He also served a two-year term as president of the California Association of Port Authorities (CAPA) from October 2021–2023.
Within the greater East Bay community, Wan was a member of the Executive Committee of the Bay Area Council for many years. In 2024, he served on then Mayor-elect Barbara Lee’s transition team, and in 2017, he served by appointment on the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, overseeing state economic development grants in the Sierra Nevada region.
Wan earned his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law and holds an M.A. in education and a B.A. in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley.
About Donahue Fitzgerald LLP
Donahue Fitzgerald LLP is a full-service law firm with more than fifty attorneys with offices in the Bay Area. The firm provides legal advice and representation in all aspects of business and corporate law, employment, intellectual property, real estate and construction, immigration, nonprofit, franchise, music and entertainment, and tax, as well as trusts and estates and litigation.
Contacts:
Traci Stuart
Blattel Communications
415.413.4522
traci@blattel.com
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