The merger between Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie will be a game changer for the firms' West Coast and intellectual property practices, firm leaders say, allowing the combined firm to build a deeper bench in these practices and retain many matters that were previously referred out.

The combined firm's IP practice will house 250 attorneys, said Chris Mammen, a partner and IP litigator at Womble Bond and managing partner of its San Francisco office. The merger, effective Jan. 1, will "make us possibly the largest, if not one of the largest, IP groups in the Am Law universe," Mammen said.