February 12, 2001
THE CALIFORNIA LAW BUSINESS JOURNAL
By Karen Coleman
LOS ANGELES – Four lawyers from Los Angeles’ Pretty & Schroeder decided to forgo the boutique lifestyle after theirs merged with the Pasadena-based Christie Parker & Hale.
The four intellectual-property lawyers, partners Jeffrey Craft and Marc Hankin, of-counsel Mark Krietzman and associate Matthew Catlett, moved to the Los Angeles office of Chicago’s Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal on Feb. 1.
Craft and Hankin are litigators, while Krietzman focuses on patent prosecution. Most of their remaining 11 Pretty & Schroeder colleagues were planning to merge into Christie Parker on that date.
The Sonnenschein Nath group includes five patent agents, also from Pretty & Schroeder, and associate Francisco Rubio-Campos, who transferred from the firm’s Chicago headquarters.
Hankin, ringleader of the Pretty & Schroeder expats, says the group was looking for a bigger forum for its work than the now 70-lawyer Christie Parker could provide.
“We talked to a lot of firms and had a lot of options,” Hankin says, “but Sonnenschein rose to the top very early.”
After this infusion of lawyers, Sonnenschein’s intellectual property group comprises 11 of the 25 lawyers in that office. Sonnenschein Nath has seven U.S. offices and 500 lawyers firmwide.
Bill Nason of the Los Angeles legal placement firm Watanabe Nason & Seltzer represented the Chicago firm.