Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins Adds Premier IP Litigation Group

ATLANTA & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP, the world’s leading plaintiffs’ law firm, today announced the addition of a premier Intellectual Property Litigation Group. John C. Herman and Ryan K. Walsh will lead a team of IP litigators for Coughlin Stoia, focused on enforcing the rights of inventors, innovators and universities. Herman and Walsh join Coughlin Stoia from the Atlanta office of Duane Morris LLP after previously practicing at King & Spalding LLP.

“Our clients include a number of the country’s leading academic institutions, and they are asking for top-notch IP counsel. We are extremely pleased that some of the nation’s most talented IP litigators have selected Coughlin Stoia as the law firm to help them grow their practice,” said Darren Robbins of Coughlin Stoia. “Now, investors, innovators and academic institutions with sophisticated IP claims can turn to a firm with the ability and resources to stand toe-to-toe against the world’s largest corporations.”

“Joining forces with the world’s leading plaintiffs’ firm allows us to leverage Coughlin Stoia’s tremendous resources in building the leading plaintiffs’ Intellectual Property Litigation Group. True innovation in this country comes primarily from small companies, universities and individuals who are too often overmatched by the resources of powerful corporations,” Herman said.

Citing a few examples of Coughlin Stoia’s notable victories, Walsh pointed to the firm’s securities class action against AT&T that recovered $100 million for investors after two weeks of trial, and the recently approved $600 million Cardinal Health securities class action recovery, the largest shareholder recovery ever in the Sixth Circuit. Coughlin Stoia is perhaps best known for recovering more than $7 billion for Enron shareholders, an effort that led renowned Professor John C. Coffee Jr. to state recently that Coughlin Stoia “…is the adversary most feared today by the defense bar….”

“This unique fusion of legal powerhouses gives inventors, innovators and universities an ally with the ability and resources necessary to ensure that they are fairly compensated for their innovations,” noted Herman. “Our clients have extraordinarily challenging and complex patent and copyright claims, and we are now uniquely positioned to provide them with the highest quality legal services available. We will continue to represent only those innovators with the strongest patents in the clearest cases of infringement.”

“Our firm’s continuing success has been driven by our ability to provide our clients with the best litigation services in a variety of practice areas including securities, mergers and acquisitions, options backdating, individual opt-out actions, antitrust, consumer, and now intellectual property disputes,” said Paul J. Geller, Managing Partner of Coughlin Stoia’s Florida office. “The expansion of our southeastern presence through the opening of an Atlanta office enables us to be even more responsive to the needs of our growing roster of institutional clients, which now includes more public and multi-employer funds than any other plaintiffs’ firm in the country.”

Mr. Herman’s practice focuses on vindicating the rights of famous innovators. Noteworthy cases of his include representing renowned inventor Ed Phillips in the Phillips v. AWH Corp. case in which the Federal Circuit sat en banc in 2006; representing pioneers of mesh technology – David Petite, Edwin Brownrigg and IPCo – in a series of patent infringement cases; acting as plaintiffs’ counsel in the In Re Home Depot shareholder derivative actions pending in Fulton County Superior Court; and representing the Georgia Tech Research Corporation in connection with its patent licensing, intellectual property portfolio and securities issues.

Herman most recently served as Co-Chair of the Intellectual Property Practice Group at Duane Morris and is recognized by his peers as being among the leading intellectual property litigators in the South East. He is regularly named as a Georgia Super Lawyer by Atlanta Magazine, and in 2007 he was named to the “Top 100” Georgia Super Lawyers list. Herman also has been named one of “Georgia’s Most Effective Lawyers” by Legal Trend. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School.

Mr. Walsh is a seasoned intellectual property litigator who has prosecuted numerous high-profile IP cases involving medical and telecommunications technologies. Georgia Super Lawyers has honored Walsh as a “Rising Star” in the field of Intellectual Property Litigation in each of the last three years. Walsh graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law, where he was a Bryant T. Castellow Scholar and a member of Order of the Coif.

About Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, LLP

• Coughlin Stoia is consistently ranked as the world’s leading plaintiffs’ firm, having recovered billions of dollars for clients around the world. The firm has been appointed as lead counsel in hundreds of cases since its founding in 2004.
• In 2006 (the most recent year available), Coughlin Stoia was the top-ranked class action firm – both in aggregate amount of dollars recovered and number of recoveries secured – according to a report by Institutional Shareholder Services. Cornerstone Research also ranked Coughlin Stoia at the top of its list for representing 31 percent of all plaintiffs in successful securities cases.
• Coughlin Stoia’s lawyers have been responsible for recovering more than $45 billion on behalf of clients – including an unprecedented $7.2 billion for the victims of the Enron fraud. The firm’s attorneys have been involved in 60% of the top 25 recoveries in US history.
• Coughlin Stoia is one of the leading firms appointed as lead counsel on behalf of consumers in numerous insurance, consumer and antitrust matters.
• Coughlin Stoia represents more institutional investors in securities and corporate litigations – public and multi-employer funds – than any other plaintiffs’ firm in the world.
• Coughlin Stoia has nearly 200 attorneys, including dozens of former federal prosecutors, SEC attorneys, state prosecutors, and a former federal judge. The firm has offices in San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, New York, and Atlanta.