Latham Again Named Washington, D.C. Intellectual Property Litigation Department of the Year
Latham has once again been recognized as Washington, D.C. Intellectual Property Litigation Department of the Year by the National Law Journal (NLJ). Recognizing the firm’s IP litigation prowess, Latham has now received this honor four of the last five times the NLJ has awarded it. This year, Latham was featured for more than a dozen notable wins, including a blockbuster victory for Janssen (a Johnson & Johnson company) in a patent infringement suit against its multibillion-dollar cancer drug DARZALEX and successfully defending Adobe’s market-leading Acrobat product at trial and subsequently zeroing out damages.
In the published profile, Global Vice Chair of the IP Litigation Practice and Global Co-Chair of the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry Group Mike Morin explained that the key to the group’s success is having “built a team of exceptional first-chair trial lawyers who consider ourselves peers.” He added that “With our team-first approach, we are able to rise to any occasion, no matter the size or complexity of the case; on any given day, I may be leading a case or happily carrying my colleague’s bag. We are also intensely focused on developing our next generation of trial lawyers and have the best [intellectual property] litigators in the business, from our technical analysts and young associates to our most senior partners.”
Discussing the team’s approach, former Global Chair of the IP Litigation Practice Max Grant said, “We start with the end in mind, to optimize the opportunity to “win” short of trial—to achieve our client’s commercial objective—by preparing for trial. We do that by empowering our lawyers to act independently toward our collective goal. We take great pride when we see the team firing on all cylinders, taking initiative and giving us the edge we need to deliver for our clients; the team is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Prominent first-chair IP trial lawyer Tara D. Elliott offered the following advice to young lawyers, “Find a practice that both excites and challenges you. Surround yourself with solution-oriented lawyers. Early on, you learn to spot issues but it’s important to also problem-solve. In a demanding profession, it’s easier to put in the work necessary to be successful when you enjoy helping clients achieve their goals.”