In The Pearl , John Steinbeck highlights the dangers of wealth and status through the story of Kino, a poor man content with his simple life who finds a large pearl and allows the precious stone to destroy his family and turn him against his fellow villagers.
Given the story’s theme, it may have been apt that when Penguin Group, Inc., needed to defend its copyright on the book against a bid by Steinbeck’s son and granddaughter to terminate that copyright, the publisher didn’t think big, tapping Cowan, Leibowitz & Latman, a 51-lawyer New York intellectual property boutique instead of a large, full-service firm. It didn’t hurt that Cowan partner Richard Dannay—perhaps best known for defending Michael Crichton in a 1996 copyright infringement case connected to his book Jurassic Park —had represented Penguin in previous copyright litigation over such Steinbeck works as Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath . “Relationships are important,” says Dannay, who won the case for Penguin on summary judgment in federal district court in Manhattan last December. “Anyone selecting a lawyer has to be comfortable with that lawyer, and that varies from firm to firm. One complaint I’ve heard is that larger firms sometimes overstaff cases with junior associates who aren’t as experienced as the senior people.”
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