Airplanes / Aviation, Boutique Law Firms

International Firm Buys $3 Million Jet As Cost-Saving Measure

These lawyers are leavin' on a jet plane...

By  
on

Say a prominent, Texas-based law firm is interested in expanding its global footprint by opening a new office across the country in Silicon Valley. At the same time, the firm is not at all interested in paying the outrageous rents and salaries that have come to be associated with the city it’s got in mind for its new office location. What does that firm do if the partners still want the high-value tech clients that the area is known for?

That firm takes the obvious course of action and buys a $3 million Gulfstream G200 jet that costs $2,500 per hour to operate so that it can ship its attorneys to and from San Jose, California. Oh, was that not the obvious thing to do?

Patterson & Sheridan, an international boutique IP firm that’s based in Houston has been flying its lawyers from its headquarters to Silicon Valley since about 2010, and the firm is able to offer California clients lower prices because everything is cheaper in Houston, where most of the patent work is done.

The firm’s jet — often referred to as “the bus” — logs about 150,000 miles per year. Here’s more information on Patterson & Sheridan’s flying patent prosecution machine from the Houston Chronicle:

It costs roughly $1,900 per passenger, [managing partner and firm founder] Todd Patterson estimated, but each hour on the three- to four-hour flight is billable because the lawyers work the entire time. On commercial flights, their work is restricted to protect confidential information because one look from an unknown competitor sitting next to a lawyer working on a patent could undermine the value of an invention.

The private flights also avoid about 36 hours in time spent arriving early for commercial flights, checking bags and going through security. Apply a $250 per hour average hourly billing rate to the flight and wait times of commercial travel, and it pretty much covers the cost of the trip, Todd Patterson said.

According to law firm adviser William Cobb, managing partner Cobb Consulting in Houston, the only other firm that’s done something like this to avoid the offensive price points associated with Silicon Valley has been the dearly departed Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, which operated a small San Jose outpost three days a week, staffed entirely by lawyers from its headquarters located 50 miles away.

Rick Anderson, the managing partner of the firm’s closest California IP competitor, Fish & Richardson, called the firm’s arrangement “very interesting” and “very intriguing.” Let’s hope Patterson & Sheridan’s jet-setting plan is also “very profitable,” lest the firm meet a similar fate as Brobeck.

Sponsored

No flight of fancy: Law firm exports Houston’s cost advantages to Silicon Valley [Houston Chronicle]

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Sponsored

Topics

, , , , , , , ,