A high-ranking in-house lawyer at Amazon.com Inc. has left the online retail giant to start his own intellectual property boutique law firm.

Stephen Coates, the former senior counsel for trademarks and domain names at Amazon.com Inc., launched Coates IP last week.

"My favorite counsel have always been former in-house people," Coates told Corporate Counsel in an interview. "You can provide legal counsel on what the risk is legally, but very few of us have experience knowing the actual risk that happened. Being able to speak practically, to say, 'Here's what's going to happen' is a very valuable skill."