Law Firms
IP Boutique Day Casebeer to Merge with Howrey
Posted Jul 2, 2009, 05:28 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The rumors are true: Intellectual property boutique Day Casebeer Madrid and Batchelder will merge with Howrey, a law firm with 17 offices and more than 725 lawyers, including more than 300 in the IP field.
The merger was effective yesterday, according to a press release. Nine partners and 16 associates from the Cupertino, Calif., IP firm will join Howrey.
Howrey has aggressively expanded in the Bay area, according to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. Last year it took on most of the construction practice group from Thelen. Day Casebeer’s clients have included Sun Microsystems, Symantec and Amgen.
Robert Ruyak, chairman and CEO of Howrey, said in the press release: “When we contemplated combining our two firms, we realized how well we complemented each other and that, working together in a single firm, we would create what might very well be the most powerful, experienced and comprehensive patent litigation practice available anywhere—for the benefit of all of our clients. They are a strong, talented and impressive team and we are very excited to be joining forces with them.”
One of the partners joining Howrey is James Batchelder, one of five Day Casebeer lawyers sanctioned in a discovery dispute involving the IP boutique’s client, Qualcomm. The other four Day Casebeer lawyers had left the firm, the Recorder reported last week in an article about merger rumors. The sanctions were lifted in March to allow the sanctioned lawyers to testify about privileged client communications under a self-defense exception to the attorney-client privilege.
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