IP Partner Hired By MoFo Was Asked to Leave, Sonnenschein Says
Updated: An intellectual property lawyer newly hired as a partner at Morrison & Foerster was asked to leave his former law firm, the former firm says in response to an ABAJournal.com post yesterday.
“This was entirely expected. Earlier this year, Alex Hadjis was moved out of the practice group leader role, and a few weeks ago he and a small group of patent litigators were asked to leave our firm and find another firm in which to practice,” Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal says in a written statement provided by Linda Butler, the firm’s public relations manager.
“Their departure does not diminish our commitment to building our patent litigation group nationally, as exemplified by its recent strong growth in, among other offices, Dallas and Silicon Valley,” the Sonnenschein statement continues. “We wish them the best of luck at their new firm.”
As discussed in the earlier ABAJournal.com post, Hadjis, a former chair of Sonnenschein’s patent litigation group, and two other intellectual property partners, Rudy Kim and Kristen Yohannan, are reportedly joining MoFo as partners, Hadjis and Yohannan in Washington, D.C., and Kim in Palo Alto.
Asked in a telephone conversation whether the Sonnenschein statement intended to refer to Kim and Yohannan as included among the “small group of patent litigators,” Butler declined to confirm or deny this, responding “we don’t want to get into naming the names.”
Steven Kaufmann, the chair of MoFo’s 500-lawyer global litigation department, says the firm remains excited about its three new IP partners, as detailed in a press release yesterday.
“Intellectual property litigation is really hot right now,” and the firm expects Hadjis, Kim and Yohannan to help make an already strong department even stronger, Kaufmann says, citing their significant trial experience, technical expertise and academic credentials (all three are former Federal Circuit judicial law clerks).
“We were thrilled to be able to bring them on,” Kaufmann says, “because we know they had a choice.”
Updated at 2:15 p.m. to include Kaufmann comments.
