Kaye Scholer IP Team Joins Kirkland & Ellis

Kirkland & Ellis has hired a four-partner intellectual property team from Kaye Scholer, including Leora Ben-Ami, who co-chaired Kaye Scholer’s IP practice and was a member of that firm’s executive committee. Thomas Fleming, Patricia Carson and Christopher Jagoe also joined Kirkland as partners. “Kaye Scholer is an excellent firm and I enjoyed working there over the years but Kirkland provided a unique opportunity to join an incredibly strong technology IP practice and a growing pharmaceutical-life sciences practice in IP,” Ben-Ami said in an interview. Kirkland has more than 260 intellectual property lawyers, including 56 in the New York office, a firm representative said.

Ben-Ami, who focuses on patent litigation, has represented clients including Pfizer, Genentech and DuPont. “We are in the process of transitioning our clients,” she said. Ben-Ami declined to say whether any Kaye Scholer associates or counsel will join the move. Before joining Kaye Scholer in 2003, Ben-Ami was a partner at Clifford Chance, where she chaired the global IP group and was a member of that firm’s board.