St. Louis-based Husch Blackwell to add Chicago IP firm

Husch Blackwell Sanders is planning to add a Chicago firm that would double its intellectual property practice group and bring revenue to about $300 million.

A merger with Welsh & Katz is expected to be completed in the first half of July. The 45-attorney firm focuses on litigation and high-technology, biotech and pharmaceutical work.

The combined firm will remain the second largest by headcount in Missouri.

Merger talks started in early April, initiated through a mutual acquaintance of the two firms' senior management, said David Fenley, co-chairman of Husch Blackwell. That's about a month after Husch Blackwell opened a Chicago office with three attorneys led by partner John Mandelbaum. Those attorneys would join the Welsh & Katz office and Mandelbaum would be co-managing partner of the combined office with A. Sidney Katz, president and managing partner of Welsh & Katz. Katz also would be chairman of the firm's national intellectual property practice.

The name of the combined firm in Chicago would be Husch Blackwell Sanders Welsh & Katz through 2010.

The prospective deal comes as large general practice firms compete for intellectual property talent. Husch Blackwell had been looking for intellectual property lawyers, Fenley said.

"All the legal specialists talk in terms of intellectual property being a growth area," Fenley said.

Welsh & Katz, meanwhile, has been looking for a merger partner. "The business model of a small IP boutique is difficult to sustain as large general firms have IP

practices," Katz said.

The firm hasn't lacked for suitors, talking with about half a dozen firms in as many years, Katz said. In 2005, Welsh & Katz and Minneapolis IP firm Merchant & Gould announced they agreed in principle to merge, according to a report in ipFrontline.com. That deal fell through because of financial concerns, but Husch Blackwell Sanders and Welsh & Katz seem to have the same kind of fiscal views, Katz said.

"To quote one of my daughters, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find the right prince," Katz said, adding that the merger talks with Husch Blackwell had advanced further than any of the previous discussions.

The firms are being careful about potential conflicts, Katz said. Since intellectual property practices sometimes involve trade secrets, the firms have to consider business conflicts as well as legal conflicts, he said.

Welsh & Katz clients listed on the firm's Web site include generic pharmaceutical company Apotex Inc., Honeywell and Intel corporations, Monsanto and The Walt Disney Co.

Husch Blackwell Sanders is the product of a February merger between St. Louis-based Husch & Eppenberger and Kansas City firm Blackwell Sanders. With about 630 attorneys, the firm is Missouri's second largest by headcount, behind Bryan Cave, according to sister publication Missouri Lawyers Weekly's Big 50 rankings.

Welsh & Katz was launched 25 years ago with the then-novel idea of adding trial lawyers who didn't necessarily have a scientific background with patent attorneys to make IP litigation teams, said Katz, who founded the firm with Donald Welsh. Welsh retired in 1990 and died in 1998.

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