Update, 9/20/12, 2:10 p.m. EDT: This story has been revised throughout to incorporate comments taken from a Delaware Law Weekly interview with Novak Druce managing partner and CEO Gregory Novak about his firm’s proposed merger with Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz, as well as information about the future of Connolly Bove’s Los Angeles office and the roles that Jeffrey Bove and Rudolf Hutz would play should the merger be completed.
Novak Druce + Quigg and Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz have entered into exclusive merger talks in a bid to form the seventh largest intellectual property firm in the United States with seven offices and 140 attorneys.
The merger, which is expected to close shortly before the end of the year, will result in a new entity that will operate as Novak Druce Connolly Bove & Quigg LLP. News of the merger was first reported by Delaware Law Weekly.
The new firm will be headquartered in Houston and will include Novak Druce’s offices in Houston, Cupertino, Calif., San Francisco and West Palm Beach, Fla., as well as Connolly Bove’s offices in Wilmington and Los Angeles. Both firms currently have Washington, D.C., offices that will be consolidated with Connolly Bove’s staff relocating to Novak Druce’s building.
Although some Delaware legal sources had speculated that the Los Angeles office might become a casualty of the merger, Novak Druce managing partner and CEO Gregory Novak confirmed in an interview with Delaware Law Weekly that the satellite office will remain open and that it will give the new firm a strong California presence with three offices in the state.
“A driving factor of this merger on the Novak Druce side was the geographic advantage of having a presence in both Northern and Southern California,” he said.
