Courtesy of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
Founded in Philadelphia in 1873, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius is one of the United States' oldest and one of the world's largest law firms. Today the firm boasts 22 offices and more than 1,300 lawyers in major cities, from Boston to Brussels to Beijing. Clients include more than half of the Fortune 100 companies, including 9 of the top 10. With more than 200 lawyers, scientists, and other experts focused on the life sciences industry in various locations, Morgan Lewis has perhaps the most comprehensive life sciences practice of any US law firm.
Philadelphia maintains one of the firm's largest offices, with 300 attorneys. Its accomplishments on behalf of life sciences clients are impressive: For example, Morgan Lewis attorneys assisted in obtaining a patent for the subject matter of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Joanne Soslow, a partner at Morgan Lewis, says: "It's hard to be a Philly firm and not have a life sciences focus. We provide more than just business lawyers to our life science clients. We provide patent lawyers, FDA lawyers, litigators, and so on. We can help service a life sciences company from its beginning, as it grows and evolves, through an eventual sale or merger."
Attorneys with various backgrounds support Morgan Lewis' clients. Soslow says, "We have more than 30 science PhDs who are also practicing attorneys. This enables us to be strategic in analyzing not just what the client needs to do today, but where the client wants to be in two, five, or 10 years."
Morgan Lewis' clients include many of the largest and most successful pharmaceutical companies in the area and in the world, as well as biotechnology firms. "We represent small companies, as well as really big companies," says Soslow. "The big companies, because they're constantly in need of legal services, are the engine that enables us to have the staff to serve the smaller clients."
Soslow says that the key to her company's success is the firm's team approach to serving clients. "Our life science practice succeeds," she says, "because we have people in multiple offices working together. It would be hard for us to do what we do well if we were located only in Philadelphia. We have patent people in Philly, FDA people in our Washington office, and a staff of very committed people with tremendous expertise in various areas and a focus on being highly responsive."