Arnold & Porter boosts IT team with niche firm

Washington DC firm Arnold & Porter is bulking up its Los Angeles-based intellectual property and technology practice by adding another team of lawyers.

At the beginning of this month the firm gained 12 lawyers when it acquired niche law firm Blanc Williams Johnston & Kronstadt (The Lawyer, 3 July).

It is now taking on another boutique practice, with three of the four partners from Los Angeles firm Kimball & Weiner. The lawyers focus primarily on technology and carry out a lot of outsourcing and e-commerce work.

The team is led by partner George Kimball, who was a partner at Latham & Watkins before forming his own firm in 1993.

His practice revolves around the outsourcing of technology and business processes and other complex technology transactions for major corporations.

The other partners are Matthew Maccoby, who was a lawyer at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher before joining the niche firm, and Ira Moskatel. Kimball and Maccoby join Arnold & Porter as partners, Moskatel joins as of counsel.

Arnold & Porter chairman Michael Sohn says: "We want to have on both US coasts and in London a full range of IP and IT expertise, and this gives us that now in Washington, Los Angeles and London.

"Particularly where intellectual property is concerned, it really knows no boundaries, and having that expertise on both sides of the Atlantic really gives us the ability to service these clients."

Arnold & Porter is committing resources across the firm to developing IP/IT and last month took on the head of the London-based telecommunications practice of Coudert Brothers, Michael Ryan (The Lawyer, 5 June).

The firm has four offices in the US - in Washington DC, Denver, Los Angeles and New York - and a practice in London.