Margie B. Aoki and Emily C. Peyser, shareholders with Polsinelli.

Polsinelli, which made its Seattle debut last year, is bulking up the Emerald City outpost, adding to what it sees as an essential offering for that legal market.

The Kansas City, Missouri-based firm kick-started its Seattle intellectual property practice with four patent attorneys from local IP firm Christensen O'Connor Johnson Kindness.

The IP team is led by shareholder Emily Peyser, who joined Polsinelli in July, but was just joined this month by her longtime colleague, shareholder Margi Aoki, as well as counsel Katherine Lee and associate Jennifer Junkin.

According to Polsinelli partner Jane Pearson, who took over the office managing partner role from Steve Kenyon last week, the expansion is part of the firm's nationwide push to bolster its IP capabilities.

"It's a highly visible and expanding practice here in Washington State, and it's important to serve the clients Polsinelli already has here that have IP [needs]," Pearson said, adding that IP is a particularly important practice area there because of the high concentration of tech clients in Seattle.

"To be a strong firm in Seattle, I think you have to have a strong IP practice, or it's ideal to have a strong IP practice," Pearson said.

Peyser, too, noted that "the Seattle area is such a hot area for IP."

She added that her group, all four of whom are women, was particularly attracted to Polsinelli because the firm has a "Women in Intellectual Property" initiative, which launched earlier this year, as well as other diversity programs.

"Polsinelli believes that we provide better client service with a diverse team of attorneys," she said. "And that's also a belief that I hold, and so it just seems like a perfect match for me to move to Polsinelli."

Christensen O'Connor did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the four lawyers' departure.

Polsinelli said it plans to build its Seattle IP team around this core group, which has experience with clients in the software, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering and high-tech industries.

In addition to adding the IP practice, Pearson said the Seattle office has also been expanding in areas including health care, financial services, real estate, intellectual property, corporate, labor and employment, and business litigation.

"We want to expand our presence in the Seattle market in the areas that we specialize in. We want to become more visible in Seattle," Pearson said. According to Pearson, the Seattle office currently has a total of 12 lawyers. Other than one who relocated from another firm in Washington D.C., the rest all are local attorneys.

Newcomers in Seattle

Pearson joined Polsinelli last May from Foster Pepper when that firm's former CEO, Stephen Kenyon, brought over a team of lawyers to help Kansas firm set up a Seattle office. Pearson, who has been practicing in Seattle for nearly three decades, said local attorneys nowadays are well sought-after by non-local law firms because they all want to grow in the region.

"Seattle is becoming important for law firms to have a presence in because the economy here is so strong, and because of all the businesses that are attracted to Seattle," Pearson said. "I only see that increasing."

Earlier in the year, Portland-based Stoel Rives has added more than a dozen attorneys, including eight partners, to its Seattle office from local firm Foster Pepper.

In the spring of 2018, Buchalter launched its office in the city with three Foster Pepper partners, including its former managing partner Jeffrey Frank, who now serves as managing partner of Buchalter's Seattle office.

Seattle-based Foster Pepper then merged with another local firm, Garvey Schubert Barer, in June to create Foster Garvey, which has 180 attorneys combined.

"It becomes harder and harder to just offer a client one service or one specialized service from one law firm and clients need and expect to be able to have full service provided by one law firm," Pearson concluded.

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