The original version of this report was published on the biweekly IP briefing Skilled in the Art.

Virtual law firms have become popular in the 2000s, but the formation of Beeman Muchmore this week feels like something new: a virtual firm combined with a microspecialty intellectual property practice. In this case it's resolving licensing disputes over enterprise resource planning software.

"It's a gig law phenomenon," says Art Beeman, one of the firm's principals along with Joel Muchmore.

"Gig law" is not meant to demean or devalue the work, Beeman says. The stakes can be enormous when businesses and their software providers get crosswise over licenses. But the disputes tend to recur throughout the market, and Beeman and Muchmore have a lot of experience with them, including the only known instance of an ERP dispute that ended up in court.

"We came to appreciate what's going on in the market, and we believe we're responding to the market in the most effective way possible," Beeman says.

Beeman and Muchmore are IP veterans who practiced together at Crowell & Moring, Arent Fox, and SNR Dentons. Beeman has also logged stints at Jones Day, DLA Piper and other firms.

In 2015 the two filed a suit for the Mars food company against Oracle, seeking a declaration that Mars had complied with the audit provisions in its 1993 software licensing agreement, and an injunction preventing Oracle from terminating the license. The case settled a few months later.

"It got some attention, and before we knew it we were getting phone calls," Beeman says.

With their experience—and a database of how key license terms have been construed by vendors in other circumstances—Beeman says they can provide context, information and leverage, with the goal of "extricating" clients from the dispute.

"It's at the very least going to be a lot of fun," Beeman says. "The times, they are a-changin."