Finally, some good news for Allen & Overy’s (A&O’s) litigation team. While they have been branded over-priced in the UK, A&O could always refocus its IP practice on the US, where the City giant’s BlackBerry-related fees have received a comprehensive thumbs-up.
The source of this endorsement is the Wall Street Journal’s widely-read Law Blog, which covered A&O’s controversial legal costs for representing Research In Motion in a patent dispute and asked readers if the much-debated £5.18m bill was reasonable. The good news for A&O’s US profile is that the case has provoked bafflement from US lawyers more used to the concept of bet-the-company patent litigation, who mainly conclude that the stakes were high and the magic circle firm won.
