Dallas, Texas (February 18, 2010). Three veteran patent litigators in Dallas, Texas, have launched Buether Joe & Carpenter, LLC – a new intellectual property and commercial litigation boutique law firm. The lawyers formed the firm to offer clients more effective and efficient representation in patent and other complex commercial litigation with flexible billing arrangements focused on achieving successful and cost-effective results.
The new firm will focus on handling patent litigation in the Eastern District of Texas and other popular venues for both plaintiffs and defendants. The firm also will represent clients in trademark, trade secret, unfair competition, and copyright litigation, as well as antitrust, contract and other business disputes.
The firm includes former Greenberg Traurig shareholders Eric Buether, Chris Joe and Brian Carpenter. Mr. Buether was head of the IP litigation group at Greenberg Traurig’s Dallas office. Mr. Joe and Mr. Carpenter were the other IP litigation shareholders in that office.
Mr. Buether was a founding member of the litigation boutique McKool Smith, P.C., helping start its patent litigation practice. Before McKool Smith, he worked at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Johnson and Gibbs.
Mr. Joe worked at Holtzman Urquhart & Moore in Houston before joining Mr. Buether at McKool Smith.
Buether and Joe later teamed to win a $41 million judgment for Halliburton in the first patent case tried by Judge Leonard Davis in the Eastern District of Texas.
Mr. Carpenter began his career in Dallas in 1991, and has litigated patent infringement cases throughout the country. After several years of close collaboration with Mr. Buether and Mr. Joe beginning in 2005, Mr. Carpenter returned to Dallas in 2009 to join their group. Mr. Carpenter is a patent attorney registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The three lawyers collectively have successfully handled over 30 patent infringement cases in the Eastern District of Texas.
According to Mr. Buether, the trio had considered opening their own firm for a while and 2 recently decided that the current economic climate offered an excellent chance to make the move and offer quality representation to clients at a lower cost. “General counsel, now more than ever, are focusing on the value they are receiving from their outside counsel, and we believe that we can offer the quality of representation offered by larger law firms at a lower cost, resulting in a superior value proposition,” Mr. Buether explained. The new firm, which opened its doors on February 8, “will operate with greater efficiency and flexibility in the way it handles cases than the larger firms,” Mr. Buether added.
And while the boutique plans to do some work on the traditional hourly basis, Mr. Buether said the firm is open to using more flexible, results-based compensation arrangements, including working at reduced hourly rates with reverse contingency fees or bonuses at the end of a successful case and on a pure contingency fee basis.
All three lawyers emphasized that they have “nothing but the highest respect for our colleagues at Greenberg Traurig,” and will continue working with some of those lawyers on cases they are taking with them. “We wanted to do something that was more entrepreneurial, something that was our own,” they explained.
The firm intends to remain relatively small so it can continue to offer clients a more flexible and less expensive solution to the resolution of disputes. Mr. Buether observed that, “even at our former large firm, we operated with a lean staff and were able to counter opponents’ size advantage with creativity and efficiency. We will continue to do that our new firm, while attempting to keep overhead significantly lower than that at a large law firm, so we can pass those cost savings on to our clients.” Mr. Joe remarked that “we intend to collaborate with lawyers at other firms we know who offer expertise which meets the specific needs of our clients in specific cases. We will selectively hire those young and skilled lawyers who share our passion for representing our clients zealously and at the highest quality level.”
For more information on Buether Joe & Carpenter, LLC, please contact the firm at 214.466.1272 or Chris.Joe@BJCIPLaw.com.
