Mintz Levin opens in San Diego with Fish & Richardson team

Boston firm Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo has scooped a 12-lawyer team from Fish & Richardson to open an office in San Diego.

Leading the team is Fish & Richardson's corporate and securities head Eddie Wang Rodriguez and the firm's San Diego managing partner Craig Hunsaker.

Three other partners - IP specialists Lance Kurata, James Cleary and Carl Kukkonen - also join Mintz Levin's new office. Of counsel Jeremy Hayden and six associates complete the team. Mintz Levin has even bagged David Salisbury, Fish & Richardson's marketing director.

The move is Mintz Levin's second office launch on the West Coast in as many months. The firm opened a Palo Alto office in April after acquiring three-partner patent boutique Reed Intellectual Property Law Group.

More national IP firms are likely to expand their West Coast offerings, to cash in on an upsurge in entrepreneurial activity. Mintz Levin co-managing partner Andrew Urban said: "Like Palo Alto, San Diego has a vibrant life sciences, corporate, IP and technology community."

Mintz Levin's move follows the West Coast expansions of other Boston-based firms such as WilmerHale and Ropes & Gray, which opened in Palo Alto last year.