Latham & Watkins partners Arlene Chow, left, and Ernest Yakob, right.

Arlene Chow and Ernest Yakob have been neighbors on and off for 17 years.

The two have practiced life-science based intellectual property litigation from adjacent offices in the New York branch of Hogan Lovells since the early 2000s. Yakob left for awhile to get a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.