Brown Rudnick completed its largest lateral hire in firm history, recruiting a 34-lawyer intellectual property team from HSF Kramer. The move simultaneously marks the firm's entry into Silicon Valley with a newly established office.
The group hire represents a significant expansion of Brown Rudnick's IP practice. The firm absorbs the entire team from HSF Kramer, a specialized intellectual property boutique, bringing substantial patent prosecution, litigation, and counseling capabilities into its platform. This acquisition allows Brown Rudnick to scale its IP offerings across multiple geographic markets while establishing immediate presence in the technology sector's primary hub.
Brown Rudnick, a mid-sized firm with offices across the United States and internationally, pursues aggressive growth through lateral hiring. The Silicon Valley office addresses client demand for IP services in a region dominated by software, semiconductor, and biotech companies. Establishing this footprint enables the firm to compete more directly with larger firms already entrenched in the Bay Area market.
The lateral team from HSF Kramer brings established client relationships and specialized expertise. HSF Kramer built a reputation focused on patent work, trademark prosecution, and related IP services. Brown Rudnick gains immediate revenue-generating capacity and market credibility by retaining the departing lawyers.
For the 34 lawyers joining Brown Rudnick, the move provides access to a larger institutional platform with cross-practice capabilities. They gain exposure to litigation, corporate transactions, and regulatory work beyond pure IP specialization. This creates opportunities for client cross-selling and career advancement within a broader organizational structure.
The hire follows a broader trend in biglaw consolidation. Firms pursue group lateral acquisitions to accelerate geographic expansion and practice development, avoiding years of organic growth. For clients, this creates convenience through one-stop shopping but raises questions about service integration and attention to specialized IP work.
Lateral hiring of this magnitude