Entrepreneurs are those daring individuals who pour
blood, sweat and tears into projects that might be the next big
breakthrough, or maybe never turn a dime.
In
Cincinnati, the region's historical entrepreneurial pioneers continue
to grow in higher stacked skyscrapers and expanding customer bases. The
commitment they share? Never losing the entrepreneurial spirit.
That
holds true for Wood, Herron & Evans LLP, the 142-year-old boutique
intellectual property law practice. Its recent expansion marks a
significant local leap in intellectual property law.
With new media and technology outlets springing up, the move allows the practice to keep pace with client needs.
A Substantial Shift
After a century and a half, it would be easy for a company to get stuck in its ways.
Instead,
the firm chose to move ahead, hiring eight attorneys from competing
firm Greenebaum Doll & McDonald PLLC, in the biggest change in
intellectual property law in the region in 30 years.
The
new attorneys include Steve Gillen, Lori Krafte, Karen Gaunt, Glenn
Bellamy, Jim Kipling, Ken Germain, Michael Frey and Sean Owens. The
hires expanded the firm and its capabilities. They have substantial
experience in advertising, publishing, media, entertainment and
licensing. The move was part of the Wood, Herron & Evans' goal to
be a business- and client-driven, full-service intellectual property
firm.
"Our expansion really allowed us to say
that more capably and more aptly, because we really are now well footed
in areas that we weren't so well footed in before the expansion," says
Partner Kate Smith.
The firm is currently the
second largest group of intellectual property lawyers in the region,
behind only Procter & Gamble's in-house legal team. This area of
the law practice is divided into two areas: The "hard side," which
includes patents and trade secrets, and the "soft side," which deals
with trademarks and copyrights.
Wood, Herron
& Evans needed to grow the soft side of its business, and the new
attorneys address that. The newly added attorneys also got just what
they were looking for in the move as well.
"For
the eight of us who moved over, we had been working for a number of
years to grow our [former] group, in particular to add patent,
hard-side capability, and that was a struggle for us," says Gillen, a
new partner. "We just hadn't been very successful in adding additional
patent lawyers to our practice. So, instead of doing that, we just came
over here and added 40-some patent lawyers. Our clients are pretty
happy about that."
For the company, the move
affirms the entrepreneurial spirit of its founders, which includes
being open to ideas that may have once seemed implausible.
The similarities between the firm and its inventive customers run strong.
"Inventors
always are people who are enthusiastic and have a certain
entrepreneurial spirit, [who say] "¢I can make something better,' and
there's an enthusiasm that comes with that, no matter what the
technology is," says Partner Thomas Burger. "That's not changed, it's
just a matter of what they're involved with and how you meet their
needs."
Old Company, New Ideas
Agricultural patents adorn the walls of the Wood, Herron & Evans offices.
They're
antiquated images from the founder, Colonel Edmund Wood, who
established the practice during Cincinnati's booming post-Civil War era.
The
images of the company's past are in stark contrast to the computer,
software and media issues that the firm deals with today. As new
gadgets appear nearly daily, the law must scramble to keep up with
their capabilities.
"The contours of
intellectual property law have changed, and have been changing," says
Partner Gregory Ahrens. "Because of that, a firm of our kind, which has
been around a long time, is a little slower to react to those kinds of
changes, because it's not always prudent to ebb and flow with every
single trend. The internet, the media, and the law that relates to
those things, have developed at such a dramatic pace."
For
many lawyers at Wood, Herron & Evans, the fields in which they
practice may not have even existed when they were studying law. For new
Partner Krafte, her specialties of privacy and data security weren't
study options in law school.
"It's a matter of
educating yourself in a new, burgeoning field where clients suddenly
have problems and issues that they didn't have before, and you have to
develop that expertise to be able to deal with that and offer it to
your clients," she says.
Being
Cincinnati-based, Wood, Herron & Evans enjoys a cost advantage,
Midwest work ethic and central location. But as the intellectual
property and technology markets increasingly span the globe, so do
their services. For these attorneys, it's crucial to understand the
industry on a global scale.
In the last few years, firms that have not done this have been damaged, or even closed.
"There
have been regular reports over the last about two years of intellectual
property boutique firms like [us] that have closed, simply because they
cannot continue providing services in the way that they had been,"
Smith explains. "So [our] move was not only different and big, but it
was also bucking the trend, which is significant."
Significant? Of course. In Cincinnati, it's another example of how historic companies evolve with consumer needs.