More IP Angst as Fish & Richardson Cuts 35 Lawyers, 85 Staff

Fish & Richardson, a Boston-based IP firm, cut 35 lawyers and 85 support staff, slashing their head count by more than 7 percent, Above the Law reported on Wednesday. Friday the firm confirmed the information is correct.

As we reported in our April issue, patent infringement filings in federal district courts were down almost a quarter for the last four months of 2008, and remained down at the same level for the first few months of 2009.

A study by the research firm BTI Consulting Group this month found that a majority of 370 corporate counsel at Fortune 1000 companies were planning to cut IP litigation spending by more than 7 percent. With patent cases increasingly taking longer, firms are becoming less willing to invest in expensive litigation. And many types of patent transactional work often falls as investment capital dries up.

Meanwhile, IP lawyers have been feeling the heat. In layoffs at Cooley Godward Kronish and Morrison & Foerster in January, and at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in March, IP lawyers were not immune to the knife. San Francisco IP boutique Townsend and Townsend and Crew cut 16 attorneys in April, while now-defunct New York IP house Morgan & Finnegan filed for bankruptcy last month.

These days, no matter what kind of law you practice, it's hard to know who is safe.