June 16, 2007

THE DAILY JOURNAL

By Emma Dewald

Boston-based Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo has continued its expansion, with more lateral movement into its Palo Alto and San Diego offices.

The Palo Alto office opened last spring with the acquisition of Reed Intellectual Property Law Group, and the San Diego office debuted in June after Mintz Levin talked a dozen lawyers into defecting from Fish & Richardson.

Now, the Palo Alto office has picked up Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal nonequity partners Matt Kirmayer and Jason Altieri, and the San Diego office has added Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney partners Daniel T. Pascucci and Andrew D. Skale, who brought two associates with them.

Kirmayer’s ties to Mintz Levin date back to 2000, when the firm was contemplating entering the San Diego market. At the time, Kirmayer was a San Diego partner at Gray, Cary, Ware & Freidenrich. That move didn’t happen. Instead, Kirmayer moved to the S.F. Bay Area with Reed Smith, then jumped to Sonnenschein.

There, he met Altieri, a ninth-year associate at Palo Alto-based Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, who made partner on his move to Sonnenschein.

The two, Kirmayer said, quickly joined forces.

“We were out in the market branding together,” he said.

Kirmayer stayed in touch with his Mintz Levin contacts, and eventually the two decided to depart together.

“After I joined, one of the partners in New York left me a message saying it took seven years, but we did it,” Kirmayer said.

Kirmayer and Altieri are corporate lawyers working in the emerging-companies field. They declined to name any clients, in part because they had not notified them; but Altieri described their clients as “all little start-ups.”

They also represented “wealthy family investors” and “investment banks in New York,” who would be coming with them to Mintz Levin, Kirmayer added.

“I’m personally disappointed,” said Tarek Fahmi, co-managing partner of Sonnenschein’s Silicon Valley office. “Both Matt and Jason are friends of mine, and I’m sorry that I won’t have the opportunity to work with them.”

On the San Diego end, the hiring of Pascucci and Skale was loosely seen as a continuation of Mintz’s original plan: raid Fish & Richardson. Although the pair most recently came from Buchanan, both were at Fish until 2005.

“We already knew about Dan and Andrew and their practice,” said Craig Hunsaker, Mintz’s San Diego managing partner.

Hunsaker, previously managing partner of Fish & Richardson’s San Diego office, said Skale and Pascucci should fit in well at the firm, in terms of both culture and practice.

He described the process as one of “mutual attraction.”

The deal was brokered by Watanabe Nason Schwartz & Lippman.

Although the departure leaves Buchanan Ingersoll’s San Diego outpost with only five lawyers, including managing partner Edward J. Allera, who spends most of his time in Washington, D.C., Allera said the firm remains committed to the market.

“We want to do it like a real California law firm,” Allera said of the firm’s plans for statewide expansion.

Pittsburgh-based Buchanan Ingersoll opened its San Diego office in 2001. At its peak, it had 10 lawyers, Allera said.

“They just never seemed to fit into our system,” he said of the two departures.