Andrews Kurth has entered into an agreement to add 55 lawyers from Kenyon & Kenyon. The team is scheduled to join in early September.
The firm will market its intellectual property and technology practice and certain offices as Andrews Kurth Kenyon.
This means the end for Kenyon & Kenyon, which was established in 1879 and boasted more than 200 lawyers a decade ago, although the shell of the company will be wound down.
“It’s not often that you find a firm that shares a similar culture and core values, and it became clear early on that the Kenyon lawyers were a good fit for us,” said Bob Jewell, who will remain the firm’s managing partner, in a statement. “Strengthening these practice specialties immediately makes us a top-tier destination for domestic and international clients for their intellectual property and technology needs.”
Kenyon & Kenyon managing partner Edward Colbert will serve on the firm’s policy committee and as global co-chair of the firm’s intellectual property and technology practice.
Jeff Dodd will serve as global co-chair of the firm’s intellectual property and technology practice. “Andrews Kurth has been building a practice that has been gaining recognition, but this combination immediately catapults our combined practice into the top ranks,” he said.
Andrews Kurth, which is headquartered in Houston, Texas, particularly highlighted Kenyon’s Silicon Valley presence in Palo Alto, California, as well as venture capital and emerging company work. The deal greatly increases the IP lawyer count, from 33 at Andrews Kurth now.
Andrews Kurth Kenyon will have more than 400 attorneys in 11 cities – Austin, Beijing, Dallas, Dubai, Houston, London, New York, Research Triangle Park, Silicon Valley, The Woodlands and Washington, DC.
Charles Ossola (right) has joined Hunton & Williams as a partner in its intellectual property group in Washington, DC. He rejoins the firm from Vinson & Elkins, having previously spent 14 years at Hunton.
Ossola focuses his international practice on litigation and counselling, including patent, trade mark, copyright and trade secret matters, as well as pharmaceutical patent litigation and antitrust matters that intersect with intellectual property.
Ossola will work closely with partner Eric Weisblatt, who joined the IP practice group in June.
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Allisen Pawlenty-Altman has joined Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton’s Washington, DC office as a partner on the firm’s trade mark and copyright team. She rejoins the firm after serving as corporate counsel at Amazon for two years.
Merchant & Gould has opened a California office, in Silicon Valley, with the hires of David Bohrer and Mansi Shah as partners. They both were most recently at Valorem Law Group.
Bohrer focuses his litigation practice on patent, trade secret, copyright, and other IP matters in federal and state courts, arbitrations and mediations across the country and at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Shah has over a decade of experience in intellectual property strategy and complex litigation in a variety of technologies for both startups and large companies.
John Squires has joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher as a partner in New York. He was formerly with Perkins Coie, and has an emphasis in IP transactions.
Baker Botts has hired Wayne Stacy and Sarah Guske in San Francisco as partners. Both join from Cooley. Stacy has a background in trying patent cases in the Northern District of California and the Eastern District of Texas. Guske focuses on technology and patent litigation.
Donald Dunner, a partner at Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner in Washington, DC has accepted John Marshall Law School’s offer to chair the advisory board of the school’s Center for Intellectual Property, Information and Privacy Law.
Dunner also serves on the ABA Board of Governors and its House of Delegates. He has argued more Federal Circuit cases than any other litigator in the US.
In accepting the position of Chair of the Advisory Board Dunner said: "John Marshall is one of the preeminent centers of legal education in the IP field. I look forward to assisting it in that role.”
