IP Litigators: Worth Their Weight in Gold?
Brenda Sandburg

As a senior patent litigation associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Jeremy Pitcock was wooed by firms offering partnerships, $75,000 signing bonuses and, on top of his partner paycheck, 5 percent of any business he helped generate.

"I was getting calls from recruiters all the time," Pitcock says.

By the time he was a sixth-year associate, he was offered his first partnership. He turned it down, waiting for the firm with just the right mix of reputation and resources.

Last March, Pitcock, then an eighth-year associate at Simpson, found his match. He jumped to Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman -- the first time ever that Kasowitz has made a partner of an associate from another firm. Pitcock won't say what Kasowitz did to sweeten the pot, but he clearly won't be hurting for money. Average profits per partner at Kasowitz were $1.5 million in 2005.

Pitcock's move is already paying off for Kasowitz. He had been working on a patent case for JDS Uniphase Corp. and brought it with him. The company then chose Kasowitz over Simpson in a beauty contest for a patent infringement suit against Litton Industries, Inc.

Patent litigators are a must-have item for firms. And they're willing to pay for them -- even if, as in Pitcock's case, they have a moderate book of business and just a couple of trials under their belt. Constantly changing technology, consolidation of industries and the increasingly cross-border nature of IP battles are expanding the size and scope of patent cases. The median cost to take a patent case through trial in 2005 was in the $5 million to $6 million range, up from $2 million in 1995, according to the American Intellectual Property Law Association. All of which means that firms are missing a potential fee bonanza if they don't have enough lawyers on hand to do the work.

"If I could hire five or six lawyers today, I would in a second," says Claude Stern, co-chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges's IP group. "We're really scraping." (On average, 60 percent of Quinn Emanuel's revenue has come from IP work over the last five years, Stern says, and half o f that has been patent litigation. Since Quinn had gross revenue of $298 million in 2006, its patent litigation income for the year was around $89 million.)

Stern and others looking to hire should start adding zeros to their checks. The rate for talent with a decent book of business can run upward of $1.8 million, with top rainmakers commanding $5 million and up, recruiters and partners say. Be prepared to toss in a signing bonus, too...

Coyote

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?i...