Irvine-based Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP is continuing to grow thanks to an uptick in patent and trademark work.
The firm, which does patent, trademark, copyright and trade secrets law, hired 28 associates for the firm’s Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C., offices.
“When times are tight, companies tend to enforce their intellectual property more,” Managing Partner Steve Nataupsky said.
The Irvine office is getting 14 of the new associates practicing patent and copyright law for various industries including medical device makers, computer software makers and biotechnology companies.
In January, Knobbe Martens took over the No. 1 spot on the Business Journal’s list of law firms here when it grew 12% in 2008 to 159 local lawyers.
The firm’s clients include Irvine-based Masimo Corp., a maker of patient monitors and other devices; Princeton, N.J.-based Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc., part of India’s Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.; and Irvine’s Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., part of Japan’s Toshiba Corp.
Knobbe Martens has expanded in the past few years as more companies look to invest in and protect intellectual property during the slow economy, according to Nataupsky.
“When clients are making money hand over fist and someone is nipping at their heels, they tend to ignore it because they’re doing so well,” he said. “When the markets tighten up, the client’s market share becomes critical—thus (does) enforcing their patents and trademarks.”
That’s meant a rise in litigation work.
“Litigation is countercyclical (to the economy) to a certain extent,” Nataupsky said.
Knobbe Martens has seen sluggishness in trademark procurement, or the process of filing for patents and trademarks with the government.
A slowdown in patent and trademark procurement isn’t unusual in a recession.
“Oftentimes people wait until the worst of the downturn is over before reaching out to lawyers for support and help,” Nataupsky said.
The firm also has seen clients requesting discounts for legal services.
“Our rates are typically much lower than the firms we compete with, so many of our clients get a built-in discount,” Nataupsky said. “We don’t have to play the game of posting huge rates and then haggling down to a discount.”
Many local and national law firms have completed rounds of layoffs, reduced the size of summer associate programs and deferred hiring altogether.
Some firms have frozen or implemented pay cuts to ride out a downturn in legal work.
“The happiest thing for me as a managing partner is that I haven’t had to lay off a single person at the firm,” Nataupsky said.
The 28 new associates come from law schools across the country including Boston University, Duke University and George Washington University, among others. In addition to their law degrees, many hold advanced doctorate or medical degrees.
“Almost all of our people are engineers before they start here as lawyers,” Nataupsky said.
The firm targets younger hires who are looking to build careers at a spe-cific firm, instead of attorneys making lateral moves from competitors.
The vast bulk of the hires come from the firm’s summer program.
When summer associates are offered full-time positions at Knobbe Martens, about 90% of them accept.
Associates at Knobbe Martens start at around $160,000 a year—on par with national firms with offices in OC.
Lawyers bill about 1,650 hours a year, or less than 40 hours per week, the same as in the 1960s, Nataupsky told the Business Journal late last year.
The firm isn’t looking slim down its summer associate program for 2010 and plans to bring on about 40 associates.
“The problem now is that I don’t know if I’m going to find 40 people,” Nataupsky said. “Though with a lot of firms cutting their summer programs, there may be more people for us to find.”
Knobbe Martens has 173 local lawyers with more than 260 firmwide, up from 246 last fall.
