With a mandate to generate London revenues of upwards of $40m, Cooley is making good on its City ambitions and hired a trio of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo lawyers to bulk out its London offering and launch a patent practice.
The trio, David Wraige, Jacqueline Ireland and Daniel Sellwood, are the latest addition to the West Coast firm’s London presence, having launched in the City with a 55-strong lawyer office taken from Edwards Wildman Palmer and Morrison & Foerster in January and which has since been added to by Olswang’s longstanding corporate partner Stephen Rosen and a life sciences team from Reed Smith.
Wraige is a European patent attorney who advises clients in the UK and US on patent drafting, prosecution and EPO oppositions, while Ireland, a fellow European patent attorney, handles issues within the biochemistry and molecular genetics industry. Sellwood meanwhile, is a UK‐qualified patent attorney and specialised in European patent prosecution, drafting applications, opposition, portfolio management and foreign prosecution work.
The firm has previously dipped into Mintz Levin’s intellectual property (IP) offering, including its former co-chair of IP, Ivor Elrifi in New York, and Boston partner Heidi Erlacher in April 2014.
Cooley’s UK managing partner Justin Stock said: ‘The momentum in London keeps growing. Launching a patent practice with such talented practitioners was a natural next step for Cooley, which is so dominant in tech and life sciences. Nothing demonstrates this more than our very recent work on Europe’s largest private life sciences financing for a British-based company seeking to find a cure for cancer.’
‘The arrival of this high quality patent team gives Cooley’s clients a balance of core IP strengths in both the UK and the US,’ added Elrifi who previously led the group at Mintz Levin. ‘David, Jacqueline and Daniel are superb practitioners whom I’ve known for several years – our transatlantic team is looking forward to building great things together.’
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
For more on the new US firms looking to make it in the City see: The Third Wave – high stakes City deals for Akin and Cooley highlight changing tactics
