Squire Patton Boggs has bolstered its intellectual property practice with a pair of ex-Morrison & Foerster partners on either side of the country.

David Manspeizer and Greg Chopskie have joined the Cleveland-based firm's intellectual property and technology practice on Monday as partners in New York and San Francisco, respectively. The duo previously worked together for over a decade, and reunited again at Morrison & Foerster in 2016.

“Couple of years ago, we decided that we wanted to, for lack of a better term, 'get the band together again' and work as closely as we did back when we were both starting out,” Manspeizer said.

Manspeizer has been collaborating closely with Chopskie on patent litigation and IP matters since he recruited Chopskie to Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner as an associate in 1998. The two then both moved in-house at Wyeth, a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company acquired by Pfizer for $68 billion in 2009.

They went on separate paths when Manspeizer left to join Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in 2010. Chopskie stayed on the in-house side, but moved to Japanese pharmaceutical firm Shionogi Inc. in 2011 and then joined Gilead Sciences in 2013.

“David and I practice extremely well together,” said Chopskie of the reunion. “We complement each other in many respects, we personally like each other, and we know how we work.”

After practicing at Morrison & Foerster for nearly three years, the pair decided to bring their IP expertise to Squire because, they said, “it was an opportunity that was too good to pass on.”

“The fact that it has a terrific life sciences practice here in the U.S. and abroad, and the firm itself was really committed to wanting to build a brand-side pharmaceutical/biotechnology litigation practice, all of which presented a tremendous opportunity for both of us,” Manspeizer added.

Manspeizer focuses his practice on patent litigation, particularly for branded pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. With his in-house background, Chopskie has worked on both domestic and international IP disputes, along with a niche focus on Hatch-Waxman litigation.

“It really does create a bridge between the patent practice and the IP litigation practice,” said David Elkins, Squire global intellectual property and technology practice chairman, of the two partners' practices.

“For quite some time, IP has been a real priority for the firm as a whole,” Elkins said. “And within IP we have been focusing on our strengths, which particularly in California are the life [sciences] and health science practice.”

Morrison & Foerster did not respond to a request for comment regarding the partners' departure.

Squire has over 100 lawyers in its IP practice globally, according to the firm. The firm's California expansion has included absorbing Redwood City, California-based IP boutique Singularity last summer, adding partners Frank Bernstein, Vidya Bhakar and Ronald Lemieux. The firm also hired life sciences partner Todd Lorenz in San Francisco from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer earlier this year.

The firm also saw partner Ronald Fernando defect after just over a year at Squire to reopen his small intellectual property firm, Fernando & Partners.

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