Chicago firm McDermott, Will & Emery has opened an Austin office with the hiring of eight intellectual property partners from Baker Botts, the firm announced Thursday.
Austin is McDermott’s 22nd office worldwide and third in Texas.
The new partners all join from Baker Botts’ Austin office. The group includes Kevin Meek, Syed Fareed, Stephen Hash, Paula Heyman, Brian Oaks, Margaret Sampson, Nick Shuneman and Brett Thompsen.
Meek will serve as the managing partner of McDermott’s new office. Dallas health partner Amanda Jester will relocate to Austin to help with the new office.
“This is an incredible opportunity for this team to lay the foundation of a new office in a booming IP market and the firm has given us the platform to support and make this both a near-term and long-term success,” Meek said in a statement. “Our group was initially attracted to McDermott’s global reach and the sophisticated legal talent of our new colleagues, and once we began conversations with the firm, there were simply too many current and prospective client- and cross-practice synergies to count. We knew right away that joining McDermott just made sense.”
Firm leadership said the group represents McDermott’s priority in growing its IP, transactions and litigation practices and expressed confidence in announcing more firm growth in the near future
“Opening an office in the Western District of Texas allows us to take full advantage of the growing influx of patent case filings in Texas since the largest percentage of all district court patent litigation cases are now filed in Texas,” William Gaede, who heads McDermott’s intellectual property practice group, said in a statement. “The team of elite practitioners boosts our practice’s strength in both IP litigation and IP transactions and is a bold move advancing our remarkable IP practice into an industry powerhouse.”