Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Bradford Newman said he was very comfortable at Paul Hastings, where he had founded the firm's international employee mobility and trade secret practice, when Baker McKenzie came calling.

Baker McKenzie said it could help Newman to take the practice he's built and expand it across North America. It was an offer Newman couldn't refuse. This week he joined the firm's Palo Alto office as a partner in its North America litigation and government enforcement practice group.

Newman will also lead Baker McKenzie's first-ever North America trade secrets practice. He described himself as being a "player coach"—someone who will help put together teams of lawyers to help clients who believe their data or trade secrets are at risk, or have been accused of trade secrets theft.

"We've got plenty of all-stars on the field. I'm helping put the right stars in the right positions—they're already stars in their own right—to become a part of a championship team in this space," Newman said.

Newman served as the chair of Paul Hastings' international employee mobility and trade secret practice for more than 12 years. When he departed that firm, he was the chair of its Silicon Valley employment law practice. Newman has also served as lead trial counsels in eight and nine-figure cases, Baker McKenzie touted in a press release.

When Newman took that first phone call from Baker McKenzie, the threat of a COVID-19 pandemic was not on the horizon. But the pandemic has caused a lot of industries to begin working remotely from their homes, which presents "unheralded risks" to a company's trade secrets, Newman said.

Newman is not anticipating a slowdown in his practice as a result of the pandemic, but it does place limits on what his clients can do to manage their risks. For instance, one of the tools Newman can deploy to protect his clients is filing an emergency injunction in court. Clients can still do that, but the pandemic has inadvertently raised the bar for what constitutes an emergency.

"A judge is going to take a much harder look at any request for emergency relief based on purported trade secret theft," Newman said. "When all of this is cleared, I suspect you're going to see an uptick in trade secrets filings."

Newman also wrote a treatise called "Protecting Intellectual Property in the Age of Employee Mobility: Forms and Analysis" that was published by ALM.

Baker McKenzie has been building up its Palo Alto office for the past few months. In February, the firm added transactional lawyers from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, leading Baker McKenzie to tout that its mergers and acquisitions practice was at "full strength."

Paul Hastings said in a statement that it wishes Newman well.

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