The intellectual property law firm Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner is one of the largest, with 350 lawyers in nine offices worldwide, and also one of the largest in the U.S. That should give them enough buffer to weather just fine the loss of five trademark lawyers who have decided recently to abscond to form their own IP boutique.
Trademark practice leader David Kelly will be taking off with partners Robert Litowitz, Linda McLeod and Stephanie Bald, and counsel Lynn Jordan. It is not known when they will leave, or what their new firm is going to be called, but Finnegan managing partner Barbara McCurdy wishes them well, for her part, and has said, according to Thomson Reuters, “They have many friends at Finnegan who will miss them.”
They bring with them all the experience a place like Finnegan’s has to offer their employees, from working with Soothie brand baby bottles, to Yahoo, to battling against Wells Fargo, and working with such pharmaceutical companies as Wyeth and AstraZeneca, among countless others. Such large firms of course give partners the opportunity to dream of making it on their own, with smaller firms they can control, but Finnegan’s is probably large enough to manage such losses without so much as a stumble.