Intellectual property specialty law firms were supposed to have vanished by now. They couldn’t survive competition from general practice firms aggressively moving in on their turf, many IP lawyers said [ IP Law & Business, "Adapt or Die," March 2005]. And sure enough, the past decade saw a half-dozen IP firms close their doors or merge with general practice firms. Howrey, which mixed a strong IP practice with antitrust and general litigation, became the most recent victim in 2011.
Not every IP firm is ready for last rites, though. Fish & Richardson; Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner; Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto; Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear; and Kenyon & Kenyon have all made The Am Law 200 every year for the past five years. Their rankings have shifted a bit. Their gross revenues have in some cases fallen from year to year. But they aren’t about to disappear. “There’s nothing wrong with the IP model,” says Peter Devlin, president and chief executive officer of Fish & Richardson, a 353-lawyer IP firm where profits per partner averaged $1.44 million in 2011. “Demand for IP expertise is stronger than ever.”
