Morrison & Foerster has acquired California litigation boutique Durie Tangri, the agency stated Wednesday, in a transfer that considerably expands its bench of Silicon Valley and Los Angeles litigators.
Thirty-six attorneys from DurieTangri, whose purchasers embody Amazon, Meta Platforms and Zoom Communications Inc., are anticipated to hitch the Big Law agency as a part of the mix, set to take impact in January 2023. The merger marks the newest play from the San Francisco-headquartered Morrison & Foerster to deepen its work in the tech and life sciences sectors
Twelve Durie Tangri companions, together with agency founders Daralyn Durie and Ragesh Tangri, are a part of the group set to hitch Morrison & Foerster.
“We see this as a natural growth extension,” stated Eric McCrath, who in June grew to become chair of 1,000-lawyer Morrison & Foerster. “When you look at the client base [Durie Tangri] has and the one we have, this is a sort of cross-pollination.”
With workplaces in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Durie Tangri has specialised in mental property and patent disputes, amongst different areas, and constructed a popularity for advising corporations in high-stakes trials. Its attorneys in 2021 efficiently defended the online game model Activision Blizzard Inc. in a copyright dispute over the Call of Duty Black Ops 4 online game.
Morrison & Foerster represents Apple and the McKesson Corporation, amongst a variety of different corporations. Patent litigation has accounted for about 15% of the circumstances the agency has dealt with in federal court docket over the previous 5 years, in line with Bloomberg Law analytics.
Durie stated in an interview that the boutique initiated talks with Morrison & Foerster over the summer time after recognizing that it didn’t have the sources to assist youthful companions develop their practices. The corporations reached an settlement on the mix inside weeks, McCrath stated.
The acquisition comes about seven months after Morrison & Foerster opened an workplace in Austin, Texas, following the current inflow of tech and life sciences corporations migrating to town.
Morrison & Foerster is coming off a yr in which it earned greater than $1.2 billion in gross income, in line with the American Lawyer, rating it among the many 40 largest legislation corporations in the nation.
The windfall many corporations noticed final yr has slowed in 2022, in half resulting from a decline in mergers and acquisitions and different company transactions work. Bloomberg Intelligence has forecast tech business earnings to fall 6.5% in the third quarter.
That hasn’t stopped Morrison & Foerster from making some huge investments, significantly in the litigation observe, the place McCrath stated the agency has added 22 companions this yr.
McCrath famous that the agency stays on monitor to complete the yr in a powerful place. Even as company work has declined, demand for litigation counsel has grown, he stated.
“We’re not terribly concerned that some tech companies are going through harder times,” he stated. “We don’t see litigation as a risky bet in these times.”
