For Shartsis Friese, the last two years have been a fast ride. It started at the end of 2008, when Frank Cialone, a Shartsis partner, was gearing up for a high-stakes trial that was anticipated to last eight months. Instead, the opponent in the case, Princeton University, abruptly settled for about $90 million.
It didn’t take Cialone long to find more to do. Although lawyers at other firms scrambled for work as the economy collapsed, Cialone was able to quickly step into another case. It involved representing a group of lawyers from now-defunct Day Casebeer Madrid & Batchelder. The lawyers had been sanctioned for failing to turn over e-mails in a closely watched patent dispute between Broadcom Corp. and Qualcomm Inc.
