April 23, 2001
THE CALIFORNIA LAW BUSINESS JOURNAL
LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles recruiter Larry Watanabe says Chicago’s McDermott Will & Emery aims to build the finest intellectual property practice on the West Coast.
Big talk for a guy charged with building up an outpost in the middle of Silicon Valley.
So far, he seems to mean business. On April 6, the firm added David Larson, a Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati partner, and Rob Blanch, a Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe partner based in Menlo Park.
The Palo Alto-based Wilson Sonsini weighs in at 800 or so lawyers, and Orrick Herrington of San Francisco has nearly 600.
The 900-lawyer McDermott Will is no small fry, but, so far, the firm has only 18 lawyers in Menlo Park.
Statewide, the firm has 108 lawyers in three offices. Just this year, McDermott Will has added a half-dozen California lawyers, all to its intellectual property practice, which numbers 130.
The first of those, Terry McMahon, arrived in January to head that West Coast practice group.
“As you can see from the pace at which our IP team is growing and the significant IP projects coming in the door, the firm’s West Coast practice is thriving,” he says.
As for the practices of the newest recruits, Larson handles patent litigation with a focus on infringement, trade secrets and antitrust law. Blanche does the same kind of work and has experience in complex civil litigation, client counseling and assisting with technology agreements.
“The firm is attracting premier IP lawyers due to its significant national and international IP practice … and deep commitment to continue building its worldwide IP practice,” recruiter Watanabe, principal of Watanabe Nason & Seltzer, says.