Morrison & Foerster Makes Bet on Litigation in California Tie-Up

Morrison & Foerster has acquired California litigation boutique Durie Tangri, the firm said Wednesday, in a move that substantially expands its bench of Silicon Valley and Los Angeles litigators.

Thirty-six attorneys from DurieTangri, whose clients include Amazon, Meta Platforms and Zoom Communications Inc., are expected to join the Big Law firm as part of the combination, set to take effect in January 2023. The merger marks the latest play from the San Francisco-headquartered Morrison & Foerster to deepen its work in the tech and life sciences sectors

Twelve Durie Tangri partners, including firm founders Daralyn Durie and Ragesh Tangri, are part of the group set to join Morrison & Foerster.

“We see this as a natural growth extension,” said Eric McCrath, who in June became chair of 1,000-lawyer Morrison & Foerster. “When you look at the client base [Durie Tangri] has and the one we have, this is a sort of cross-pollination.”

With offices in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Durie Tangri has specialized in intellectual property and patent disputes, among other areas, and built a reputation for advising firms in high-stakes trials. Its lawyers in 2021 successfully defended the video game brand Activision Blizzard Inc. in a copyright dispute over the Call of Duty Black Ops 4 video game.

Morrison & Foerster represents Apple and the McKesson Corporation, among a wide range of other companies. Patent litigation has accounted for about 15% of the cases the firm has handled in federal court over the past five years, according to Bloomberg Law analytics.

Durie said in an interview that the boutique initiated talks with Morrison & Foerster over the summer after recognizing that it didn’t have the resources to help younger partners grow their practices. The firms reached an agreement on the combination within weeks, McCrath said.

The acquisition comes about seven months after Morrison & Foerster opened an office in Austin, Texas, following the recent influx of tech and life sciences companies migrating to the city.

Morrison & Foerster is coming off a year in which it earned more than $1.2 billion in gross revenue, according to the American Lawyer, ranking it among the 40 largest law firms in the nation.

The windfall many firms saw last year has slowed in 2022, in part due to a decline in mergers and acquisitions and other corporate transactions work. Bloomberg Intelligence has forecast tech industry earnings to fall 6.5% in the third quarter.

That hasn’t stopped Morrison & Foerster from making some big investments, particularly in the litigation practice, where McCrath said the firm has added 22 partners this year.

McCrath noted that the firm remains on track to finish the year in a strong position. Even as corporate work has declined, demand for litigation counsel has grown, he said.

“We’re not terribly concerned that some tech companies are going through harder times,” he said. “We don’t see litigation as a risky bet in these times.”