Washington, D.C.-based intellectual property law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner has tapped Hope Shimabuku to launch a Dallas office.
Shimabuku spent the last decade in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as the regional director of its Southwest Regional Outreach Office, which served eight states. Finnegan has also added Christian Hurt as a partner from McKool Smith, where he practiced for two years.
“So excited to be a part of the world-class Finnegan team,” Shimabuku said on LinkedIn. “This is great news for the Texas and Dallas innovation community.”
At the USPTO, Shimabuku managed thousands of events annually for more than 100,000 stakeholders and oversaw public affairs, operations, employment, budget, and safety initiatives.
Shimabuku is also a former in-house lawyer for Xerox and BlackBerry.
Hurt started his legal career clerking for Judge Leonard Davis of the Eastern District of Texas. He later clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Dallas is the 350-lawyer firm’s sixth U.S. office and 12th globally. The firm’s other domestic outposts are in Atlanta, Boston, Palo Alto, Reston, Virginia, and D.C.