Firm Watch
Jun. 2, 2004
Recruiting King
From Day One, John Gartman has been a success at firm recruitment. Fish & Richardson tapped the intellectual property litigator to serve as firmwide head of recruiting in its Silicon Valley office when he joined the firm in 1993.
Fish & Richardson tapped the intellectual property litigator to serve as firmwide head of recruiting in its Silicon Valley office when he joined the firm in 1993.
Over the next five years, Gartman helped the new outpost grow to be the firm's second-largest office, behind only its Boston headquarters.
Gartman left Northern California in 1998 to help Fish & Richardson with its fledgling North San Diego office. Now that office, which boasts 60 lawyers, has overtaken the Redwood City outpost in size.
When Gartman joined Fish & Richardson in 1993, the firm was just beginning its West Coast growth spurt. Gartman and seven other lawyers from the Palo Alto office of Phoenix's Brown & Bain left their firm to form Fish & Richardson's first Silicon Valley office. The Brown & Bain office closed a few years later.
Gartman had been a lawyer for two years and a partner for just three months. Despite his inexperience, Fish & Richardson made him firmwide head of recruiting.
"I was the youngest partner at the firm, and I was put in charge of litigation on Day One and in charge of nationwide recruiting on Day One," Gartman says.
But the task was more complicated than simply hiring new attorneys. Gartman says that senior management at the firm recognized the need to integrate the new lawyers in order to make the firm's California venture successful.
"We felt it was really important to integrate them into the firm," firm chairman Robert Hillman says, "and have a national firm rather than have them turned in on themselves."
The Brown & Bain group was the largest the firm has ever acquired, according to Hillman, making it important that they settle in easily.
"We were setting up offices around the country with local people," Hillman says. "We weren't sending people out from Boston to colonize."
The firm's philosophy proved successful as Gartman took the lead in hiring new lawyers in Silicon Valley. The firm also added 10 attorneys in San Diego from Spensley Horn Jubas & Lubitz. The acquisition opened that office in 1995.
Not until three years after the opening of the San Diego office did Gartman choose to relocate there, primarily to be closer to family, he says.
At the time, he was concerned about joining a smaller office, given the size of his practice, which includes clients like Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp.
"I was very concerned it would be impossible to build an infrastructure in San Diego that would be viable," he says.
"I laugh about it in hindsight," he adds. "I thought it would be end of my career."
Instead, under Gartman's leadership, the office expanded to include 60 lawyers and has become a leader in the firm's practice diversification efforts. Along with the San Diego office, Fish & Richardson employs 325 lawyers with additional offices in Dallas, Minneapolis, New York, Washington and Wilmington, Del.
Fish & Richardson opened in 1878 as a traditional intellectual property firm handling transactional patent, trademark and copyright work. In the firm's early days, its clients included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers.
Ten years ago, Fish & Richardson decided that after a hundred years of focusing only on intellectual property, it would diversify into other areas, namely complex litigation and corporate work.
"If you look at us today," Gartman says, "we are the acknowledged leader in intellectual property litigation, an acknowledged leader in intellectual property, and we have a quickly growing and profitable complex litigation group and a quickly growing corporate practice."
Nowhere is the new variety more apparent than in San Diego, which has embraced the firm's diversification effort, according to Gartman.
"There's a lot of momentum in San Diego," he says. "There's a tremendous amount of excitement in San Diego, and people in San Diego realize that Fish & Richardson is really moving in these other areas."
In January 2003, the firm hired former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer Sean Prosser from Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Prosser heads San Diego's white-collar crime and securities litigation practice and represents clients like Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.
In October 2002, the office nabbed partner Eddie Rodriquez of Brobeck Phleger to establish a corporate and securities group in San Diego.
Today, the San Diego office employs 35 litigators, 20 intellectual property attorneys and five lawyers who do corporate and employment work.
While busy building two offices, Gartman has had no trouble building his own practice. The attorney commands an $18 million book of business.
One of Gartman's first cases for Adobe Systems Inc. helped him attract clients. Gartman was co-counsel on a $138 million patent infringement case brought against his client by Britain's Quantel, over Adobe's Photoshop program. Quantel v. Adobe, C.A. 96-18 (D. Del. 1997).
Gartman represents Microsoft and Gateway Inc. in a case brought by Lucent Technologies Inc., which is claiming patent infringement on 15 of its patents and is seeking $100 million in damages. Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Gateway Inc., 02CV-2060 (S.D. Cal., filed 2002).
Gartman shows no sign of slowing. Between trials, he is leading recruiting efforts aggressively, with the hope of further building the firm's corporate and litigation groups.
His passion is reflected in each of the office's lawyers.
"We have a tremendous group of young partners," Gartman says, "that although they are already successful, are very hungry to take our office to the next level."
Liz Valsamis
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