Posts Tagged: "IP Attorneys"

I have had a fair number of clients, staff members and managers, and have been fortunate to glean various nuggets of wisdom from my interactions with all of them. I now share those learnings – distilled into ten business-oriented rules – that in my humble opinion amount to excelling as an IP legal practitioner. While some of the following rules may sound a bit cliché, my explanations below are an attempt to craft them as powerful reminders that an IP lawyer is nothing without the clients/managers who are willing to pay their fee/salary. Thus, no matter whether your law firm billing rate is $200 or $1,200 per hour, or your in-house salary is $50,000 or $350,000 per year, these ten rules apply!

Hricik brings with him more than 25 years of experience handling patent infringement suits and complex commercial litigation. Most recently, he served as clerk to the Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit, Randall R. Rader, and now acts as a professor at Mercer University School of Law teaching Patent Law and Litigation, Ethics, and Federal Civil Procedure. He also is a nationally known speaker on patent, ethical and procedural issues.

I ended my three-part article by recommending that members of the IP Bar should strive to volunteer more pro bono hours in order to help bridge the innovation gap. Encouragingly, I received some emails from IPWatchdog.com readers asking, “how can I help?” Well, after some research, here is a list of some organizations around the country seeking patent, trademark and copyright pro bono attorney volunteers.

Earlier today Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP announced that David J. Kappos, former Under Secretary of Commerce and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), joined the Firm as a partner. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog points out that this is only the fourth lateral hire by Cravath in the last 50 years. Indeed, Cravath is not a firm know to play the revolving door lateral hiring game, but obviously couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add a talent of the likes of David Kappos. He is listed on the Cravath website as being a member of Cravath’s corporate law group.

I don’t know what is going on at Chadbourne & Parke, but I do know I know that Walt and John were both at Morgan & Finnegan and left for Chadbourne over 7 years ago. Morgan & Finnegan subsequently filed for bankruptcy ?several years later. Over time the best attorneys were slowly bled from Morgan & Finnegan, and virtually all of the rainmakers left. There were obviously internal problems of one kind or another, likely of a structural nature compounded by top earners and rainmakers leaving. Now I see top level attorneys leaving Chadbourne & Parke, one of them my friend who had enough sense to get out of Morgan & Finnegan years before they went bankrupt. Could this be a sign of what may become over the next several years for Chadbourne & Parke?

Prior to joining Stradling, Mr. Kong was Senior Corporate Counsel for Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC. While at Sony PlayStation, he was the lead attorney for the US R&D and Strategic Business Development Groups for the Sony entity responsible for Sony PlayStation matters in North and Latin America.

In October, Life Science litigators Mary Bourke, Mark Pino, Kristen Cramer, Dana Severance and Daniel Attaway joined the firm from Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP, an intellectual property law firm located in Delaware, which not lists 52 attorneys on their firm website. These laterals include three partners and two associates. Veteran IP litigators Barry Herman and Behrooz Shariati also joined the firm in June and July, respectively. According to the firm’s website Womble Carlyle now has 547 attorneys and 89 attorneys operating within a broadly defined Intellectual Property practice group.

“I am honored to have been elected President of an outstanding organization that plays a pivotal role in the global IP landscape,” Mr. Lewis said. “The coming year promises to be one of continuing change as the evolving global economy and ongoing advances in technology raise new challenges for the IP industry. I am excited to have the opportunity to work with AIPLA and its membership to address these issues and help to ensure that our intellectual property system remains strong and serves the best interests of its participants.”