Boies Schiller Flexner has bolstered its patent litigation practice in Washington DC with the hire of a trio of partners from trial firm Shook Hardy & Bacon. 

Ryan Dykal, Jordan Bergsten and Mark Schafer have collaborated for more than a decade and boast extensive trial experience litigating intellectual property disputes in the tech sector on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants.

Their hire follows Boies Schiller recruiting seasoned trial and appellate attorney John Lyons from Shook Hardy last month; his practice focuses on the defence of companies against class actions and individual claims, as well as complex litigation outside of the US.

Meantime the incoming trio work closely with start-ups as well as Big Tech in competitor litigation and have litigated patents in telecom, online streaming, semiconductors, medical devices and other technologies. 

They have worked with clients including Sprint/T-Mobile, tech startup TouchStream, enterprise SaaS provider Rimini Street, UPS and Coca-Cola.

BSF pointed out that the team has secured more than $1bn in recoveries for its plaintiff-side clients and has successfully defended claims worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Bergsten said: “BSF’s willingness to take on significant cases on both sides of the ‘v’ fits our experience extremely well.”  

He added: “On a regular basis, I tell clients, ‘If I were on the other side of the case, this is what I would do’. It really helps us do a better job when we can anticipate the moves our opposing counsel might take.”

Chairman-elect of BSF, Matthew Schwartz, said the trio’s arrival “immediately strengthens our IP practice and gives us a core building block for future growth.”

He added that the hires “demonstrate BSF’s investment in the technology sector, where we anticipate that clients will continue to need sophisticated lawyers to handle cutting-edge disputes”.

Dykal said he and his colleagues were “excited to collaborate with the exceptional litigators at Boies Schiller as we look to expand our contingency work while maintaining our defence practice”.

In addition to being affiliated with the firm’s Washington DC office, Dykal and Bergsten will maintain presences in Kansas City, while Schafer will remain active in Denver.

In December BSF opened an office in Rome, its second in Italy after Milan. Also in December its renowned founder and chair, David Boies, announced he would relinquish his chairmanship of the firm by the end of this year.