Townsend & Townsend Plans San Diego Office

The Daily Journal, June 19, 2003

By Liz Valsamis

Intellectual property boutique Townsend and Townsend and Crew is going where the clients are.

The San Francisco firm has acquired three attorneys in San Diego and will open an office there July 1. The move gives Townsend and Townsend its first Southern California location.

“San Diego is probably one of the hottest and fastest growing technology markets in the United States, Chairman Jim Gilliland said.

Townsend and Townsend hopes to cater better to its San Diego-based clients with its new office. Those clients include the Scripps Research Institute, Eppimune Inc., the Quidel Corp. Novartis and the University of California, San Diego.

Spearheading the office is biotech partner Karen Dow, who is returning to Townsend and Townsend after a two-year stint in the San Diego office of San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster. Dow worked in Townsend and Townsend’s Palo Alto office from 1991 to 2001.

The firm has leased 7000 squire feet of office space at 12730 High Bluff Drive, which will be built out to accommodate up to 15 lawyers. Gilliland said the firm hopes to fill the space through recruiting efforts it is launching immediately.

Joining Dow in San Diego for now are partner Thomas E. Coverstone, who comes to the firm from Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, and of counsel Sean L. Collin from Pillsbury Winthrop.

Townsend and Townsend, a 150- lawyer intellectual property, antitrust and litigation firm, has offices in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Walnut Creek, Seattle and Denver.

Delia Swan and Elise Lau of Swan Legal Search in Los Angeles assisted Townsend and Townsend in recruiting Coverstone and Collin.