Biglaw Firm Expands With New D.C. Office, Focusing On Antitrust And Trade

Welcome to D.C., Fenwick!

Look out D.C., West Coast mainstay Fenwick & West is here to play!

Yesterday, Fenwick announced they’re opening a new Washington office, their sixth in the U.S., and that location will a focus on the antitrust and trade needs of their clients. At the office’s launch, partners Thomas Ensign (formerly of Freshfields) and Melissa Duffy (formerly of Dechert) will be joining Steve Albertson, who joined Fenwick from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom earlier this month. Ensign works with technology and life sciences clients and works on pre-merger notification requirements in U.S. and international jurisdictions. Duffy’s practice focuses on international trade matters, including those related to trade controls and national security requirements for cross-border transactions. Albertson counsels technology and life sciences clients in mergers and acquisitions and other antitrust compliance and merger enforcement issues.

As reported by Bloomberg, antitrust and trade regulation are areas of focus for the firm:

“We currently represent many of the most significant tech and life sciences companies that there are in the world,” Fenwick chair Richard Dickson said. “Their needs are definitely broad” in antitrust and trade.

This growth opportunity for Fenwick makes a ton of sense as antitrust is in the news in ways we haven’t seen in 20+ years. A sampling of recent developments in the space:

*Lina Khan’s elevation at the FTC will “mean a flood of business for antitrust practices and opacity for clients,” as a D.C.-based IP trial lawyer told ALM.

*The DOJ recently confirmed a change in IP antitrust enforcement which will mean “a significant change in the volume and nature of business for IP trial lawyers and their clients,” one lawyer told the National Law Journal.

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*Bloomberg Law reports we should expect criminal antitrust prosecutions to increase.

*Healthcare antitrust cases are also expected to spike over the next year, as reported by National Law Journal quoted a Biglaw partner saying “Antitrust is in the news more than I have ever seen in my entire 14-year career at the DOJ, and that attention translates to enforcement.”

*A number of prominent private antitrust actions right now (against Apple, Visa/MasterCard, Zillow) that Connecticut Law Tribune describes as an “emerging litigation trend.”

So, yeah, beefing up your firm’s antitrust practice seems super smart ATM.

The firm hasn’t, as of yet, decided on a physical location for the office. Though with the pandemic, this isn’t too much of an issue:

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“It’s a unique time and a unique circumstance and that has made it not necessary to secure the space first,” [Dickinson] said. “In some ways we’ve been able to focus on what’s most important — people first.”


Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).