Foley & Lardner has hired intellectual property litigators Duane Mathiowetz and Richard Chang as partners in the firm's San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices. Both attorneys were previously partners at LeClairRyan, where they represented clients including the Taiwanese image sensor company PixArt Imaging Inc. and wind tunnel manufacturer Indoor Skydiving Germany GmbH.
Chang said Mathiowetz has been a mentor to him since 2000, when Chang joined Townsend and Townsend and Crew as an associate. Mathiowetz was then a partner at that firm, and the pair moved to Howrey together in 2003 to launch its San Francisco office. Chang went on to work at McDermott Will & Emery and as senior counsel to Apple, while Mathiowetz hopped from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to Schiff Hardin to Novak Druce, but the pair were reunited at LeClairRyan in 2015.
Foley's reputation for IP work and the size of its 70-litigator patent practice caught the lawyers' attention, they said. When the firm outlined its ambition to expand in California in the wake of the Supreme Court's TC Heartland decision, which will likely increase patent filings in the Northern District of California, Chang and Mathiowetz were sold on the move.
"For us it was a platform that would really benefit our existing clients and help grow our client base among the bigger technology companies in Silicon Valley," Chang said.
Mathiowetz said the move "takes me back to my Howry days as a tier-one IP practice."
The two lawyers said they didn't expect any other attorneys from LeClairRyan to follow them to their new firm. Watanabe Nason recruiter Victoria Gamble brokered their move, Chang said.
"Duane and Rick's combined experience will greatly benefit our clients and enhance our ability to handle additional patent litigation matters in the Northern District of California," Foley IP litigation chair Bill Robinson said in a statement.
Foley has been busy on the hiring front in the Golden State this summer. The firm brought on consumer law, finance and class action partner Jaikaran "Jai" Singh from Dentons in San Diego earlier in July, and in June it poached longtime Jones Day partner Erik Swanholt for its business litigation and dispute resolution group in Los Angeles.