Scheff said he reached out to managing partner John Beulick and chairman Michael Chivell, longtime personal friends of his, in the spring. He was looking to join a firm with a strong intellectual property practice, he said, which he saw Montgomery McCracken as lacking.

“Is it ever the right time to leave a firm you’ve been at for 28-and-a-half years?” he said. “Armstrong Teasdale offers some expertise that frankly I wasn’t able to offer from Montgomery McCracken.”