Monday, December 5, 2011

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Snell & Wilmer Adds Four Attorneys to Los Angeles Office

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Snell & Wilmer on Friday announced the addition of four new attorneys to its downtown Los Angeles office.

Philip Graves, Greer Shaw, Marjorie Witter and William Wong made the move from the intellectual property litigation firm of Graves & Shaw LLP, a spokesperson for Snell & Wilmer said.

Cary Jones, administrative partner of Snell & Wilmer’s Los Angeles office, commented that his firm was “excited to add this talented group of attorneys from Graves & Shaw to our team.”

Jones predicted that “[t]heir collective experience in intellectual property litigation, particularly patent litigation, will greatly enhance our ability to serve our clients and helps us achieve our objective to continue expansion in key growth industries.”

Graves joins his new firm as a partner. His practice primarily involves representing companies in patent cases, but he also handles other types of intellectual property, business and entertainment litigation, including cases involving trademark infringement, copyright infringement, unfair competition, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract and business torts, the spokesperson said.

He attended the University of Washington and Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and clerked for Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld.

Graves was admitted to practice in 1991.

Shaw also joins Snell & Wilmer as a partner. The attorney typically handles intellectual property, business and other complex commercial litigation cases, and has litigated patent infringement and trade secret matters involving a wide variety of technologies.

Before establishing Graves & Shaw, Shaw practiced intellectual property law with Kirkland & Ellis and Goodwin Proctor.

He attended UC Berkeley prior to graduating law school, magna cum laude, from Boston University and clerking for First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bailey Aldrich. Shaw joined the State Bar in 1998.

Witter joined Snell & Wilmer as an associate. Her practice involves intellectual property and entertainment cases, including cases involving patent infringement, trademark infringement, copyright infringement, unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets.

She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina Emory University School of Law, where she received the Dean’s Award for Intellectual Property Licensing.

Witter was licensed to practice in 2007.

Wong also joins his new firm as an associate. He focuses his practice on patent infringement litigation and is a registered patent agent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

He previously served as an intern for the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property where he conducted prior art searches and patentability analyses for university biopharmaceutical technologies.

Before attending law school at UCLA, Wong earned an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University and worked as an engineer in the pharmaceutical industry.

He has clerked for U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero of the Central District of California and New York State Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger, and he joined the State Bar last year.