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How are exit options from firms like Fitzpatrick or Desmarais? Better/worse than other biglaw? Would an IP Boutique position you well to move in-house with tech companies?

Anonymous User wrote:How are exit options from firms like Fenwick or Desmarais? Better/worse than other biglaw? Would an IP Boutique position you well to move in-house with tech companies?

In the last few years, people have left Desmarais for:

Fenwick
Gunderson
Honigman
USAO (non-NY office)
Baker Botts
Gibson Dunn
Willkie Farr
In-house (defense-side client)
In-house (unknown)
Unknown

I would say the level of exit options hasn't really crystallized yet since the firm only started 5-6 years ago and people have only started leaving for other places around in the last 2-3 years, so there isn't much track record yet.

Fenwick is an IP boutique?

h2go wrote:Fenwick is an IP boutique?

No. It's also a very different firm than Desmerais.

@OP: If you want to go in house at a tech company (and are looking at firms like Fenwick), I'd suggest tech transactions or at least something corporate. Litigation is always going to be more difficult for in-house.

Neither of these are IP boutiques. Fenwick is a gp form with great IP work, and desmarais afaik does nothing but represent patent assertion entities aka patent trolls in litigation.

They are also on opposite sides of the country

If you want to do patent prosecution at a boutique and then go in-house neither of these really make sense.

If u meant tech trans, which tbh isn't really IP work, Fenwick has a good reputation in the bay area, among a good amount of other non-boutiques. The only similarly situated arguably "boutique" I can think of would be Gunderson

Sorry I wrote the wrong firm, I meant Fitzpatrick. Desmarais is an IP firm. They do IP defense for Apple and Cisco and do patent prosecution too. They're classified as IP by Vault http://www.vault.com/company-rankings/l ... RankID=275

Lol

This is bizarre

ballouttacontrol wrote:Neither of these are IP boutiques. Fenwick is a gp form with great IP work, and desmarais afaik does nothing but represent patent assertion entities aka patent trolls in litigation.

not only that but desmarais is a patent troll himself. he bought a bunch of patents from micron and used them to start the well known troll round rock research

bk1 wrote:

h2go wrote:Fenwick is an IP boutique?

No. It's also a very different firm than Desmerais.

@OP: If you want to go in house at a tech company (and are looking at firms like Fenwick), I'd suggest tech transactions or at least something corporate. Litigation is always going to be more difficult for in-house.

Does patent prosecution count as tech transactions? Or do you just mean general corporate for tech clients?

Anonymous User wrote:

bk1 wrote:

h2go wrote:Fenwick is an IP boutique?

No. It's also a very different firm than Desmerais.

@OP: If you want to go in house at a tech company (and are looking at firms like Fenwick), I'd suggest tech transactions or at least something corporate. Litigation is always going to be more difficult for in-house.

Does patent prosecution count as tech transactions? Or do you just mean general corporate for tech clients?

no patent pros is not considered tech transactions and is instead its own type of legal practice. tech transactions includes things like software and ip licensing, tech-side m&a support, patent pooling, buying/selling of ip assets, tech transfer, r&d agreements, etc.

Anonymous User wrote:How are exit options from firms like Fitzpatrick or Desmarais? Better/worse than other biglaw? Would an IP Boutique position you well to move in-house with tech companies?

If you're interested in moving in-house to a tech company there are specific firms you should be targeting. A buddy of mine runs a law firm market intelligence company and he's found some distinct patterns for in-house tech hiring. Basically, certain firms (e.g. Wilson Sonsini) send a higher percentage of their lawyers to in house positions because theirs clients are all high growth and have a need for an increasing number of in house lawyers. And even if the clients don't have any in house hiring needs, they can refer the lawyer to other companies that do. So what you end up seeing is a cycle where the same firms are feeding into in house tech positions.

Abbie Doobie wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

bk1 wrote:

h2go wrote:Fenwick is an IP boutique?

No. It's also a very different firm than Desmerais.

@OP: If you want to go in house at a tech company (and are looking at firms like Fenwick), I'd suggest tech transactions or at least something corporate. Litigation is always going to be more difficult for in-house.

Does patent prosecution count as tech transactions? Or do you just mean general corporate for tech clients?

no patent pros is not considered tech transactions and is instead its own type of legal practice. tech transactions includes things like software and ip licensing, tech-side m&a support, patent pooling, buying/selling of ip assets, tech transfer, r&d agreements, etc.

See https://www.google.com/#q=tech+transactions

ballouttacontrol wrote:Neither of these are IP boutiques. Fenwick is a gp form with great IP work, and desmarais afaik does nothing but represent patent assertion entities aka patent trolls in litigation.

Bolded used to be true when the firm first started. Now it's about 50/50 plaintiff/defendant.

Anonymous User wrote:Sorry I wrote the wrong firm, I meant Fitzpatrick. Desmarais is an IP firm. They do IP defense for Apple and Cisco and do patent prosecution too. They're classified as IP by Vault http://www.vault.com/company-rankings/l ... RankID=275

Bolded is only true if you consider IPR practice to be patent prosecution (hint: it's not).



OP- if you want to do patent prosecution then move in house, try for Knobbe. Or Sterne Kessler, or Sugruhe, or Oblon.