Best Law Firms by Practice Area
These firms were voted strongest in each practice area by associates working in that area at peer firms. Vault's 2025 Rankings are derived from Vault's Annual Associate Survey conducted between January 2024 through March 2024.
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2025 Best Intellectual Property Speciality Law Firms
Desmarais LLP
Founded in 2010 by former Kirkland & Ellis attorney John Desmarais, Desmarais LLP focuses primarily on trial and appellate-level intellectual property litigation, including matters involving patent infringement, counterfeiting, trademark, and trade dress, and the firm handles both plaintiff and defense cases. Clients range from Fortune 100 companies to individuals and include major names such as Apple, IBM, Enzo Biochem, and GSK. Desmarais eschews the traditional billable hour model; the firm works with clients to set fee arrangements that best fit a client’s needs.
36.29% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#1
McKool Smith
McKool Smith is a trial firm with a reputation for victory in the courtroom in “bet-the-company” cases and beyond. With seven offices coast to coast, the firm’s experienced trial attorneys represent both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial cases, intellectual property disputes, bankruptcy litigation, securities litigation and white collar defense. McKool Smith takes diversity seriously, and since January 2020 has retained Coston Consulting, a Black-owned business advisory firm, to help further develop and implement diversity initiatives.
25.05% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#2
Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.
Windy City-based Banner Witcoff is a top IP boutique that offers a friendly, open-door culture. It also boasts a strong pro bono practice, which has included work on numerous amicus briefs related to novel IP issues. With its reputation as a firm that has helped shape IP law, including through work on groundbreaking Supreme Court cases, the Banner Witcoff name certainly carries a lot of weight in the IP world.
22.68% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#3
Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C.
Wolf Greenfield is an IP-focused midsize firm based in Boston, with additional offices in New York and Washington, DC. The firm covers all aspects of IP, from patent prosecution through post-grant proceedings at the Patent Office, International Trade Commission litigation, and litigation before all levels of the federal courts. Most attorneys at the firm have degrees from multiple educational fields, with almost all having backgrounds in engineering or science and over half having worked in those fields before coming to the law.
17.39% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#5
Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP
Keker, Van Nest & Peters is a midsize firm rooted in California. The firm's lawyers are skilled in everything from intellectual property disputes to white collar criminal defense to commercial litigation, but the firm is best known for its litigation and IP prowess. It is among the Top 5 firms in Vault’s Litigation Boutique Law Firm and Intellectual Boutique Law Firm rankings. The firm has also been recognized as a firm committed to supporting a diverse workplace.
14.69% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#4
Merchant & Gould P.C.
Headquartered in the Twin Cities with six offices nationwide, IP boutique Merchant & Gould covers clients on the East Coast in New York and Washington, DC, as far south as Tennessee and Georgia, and into the mountain states with an office in Colorado. The firm's wide national reach has served to provide the firm with access to big-name clients like Microsoft, Polaris, Cristal, and Radisson.
8.32% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#6
Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P.
Virginia-based IP boutique Oblon has one foot in the United States and one in Japan, and both are strategically placed to serve the booming tech industry. Oblon consistently files the most patent applications per year for its clients, which range widely by industry. The firm's locations and focus has made them a very well-regarded trademark and patent prosecution firm.
7.13% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#8
Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, P.C.
Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, P.C. is an IP firm based in Washington, DC, with additional offices in Boston, MA and Ossining, NY. With a staff of about 45 attorneys, the firm is small but mighty and is best known for its IP litigation work. Rothwell Figg focuses on all aspects of IP law—from patent, trademark, and copyright to unfair competition, trade secrets, and cybersecurity, any many more. Biotech and life sciences companies make up a fair portion of the firm’s clients, but clients also include media companies, pharmaceutical companies, and many other clients with sophisticated IP needs.
6.80% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#6
Patterson + Sheridan LLP
Patterson + Sheridan is an intellectual property boutique with eight offices nationwide. With 80+ attorneys, patent agents, and technical advisors, many with technical and scientific backgrounds, the firm serves the IP needs of clients across a broad range of industries. The firm’s experience and breadth attract big-name clients like Applied Materials, IBM, Disney Pixar, ExxonMobil, and Western Digital, to name a few examples.
6.70% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#9
Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
Fross Zelnick is a leading IP boutique with just shy of 50 attorneys in New York and Washington, DC, focused solely on intellectual property and related disputes. Today, the firm handles intellectual property transactions and disputes globally, including in China, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Through the years, the firm has represented companies like PepsiCo, LEGO, Movado, The Gap, Chanel, DC Comics, Tiffany & Co., and New York Life Insurance Company, just to name a few, as well as a list of celebrities.
5.62% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#11
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff is an intellectual property law firm with offices in Illinois and California. The firm's client list includes Fortune 100 companies, midsize companies, startups, and academic institutions. MBHB attorneys are experienced in the procurement, licensing, enforcement, and defense of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and unfair competition actions in a number of technological disciplines and product categories, including biotechnology, business methods, chemical, electrical, mechanical and materials, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, software, and telecommunications.
5.08% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#13
Klarquist Sparkman, LLP
Oregon firm Klarquist Sparkman is one of the oldest and largest IP boutique firms in the Pacific Northwest. The firm handles IP matters for individual investors, mid-size companies, and some of the world’s largest industry leaders, such as Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, eBay, SAP, and ConAgra. The firm’s clients also include prominent federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as many prestigious universities.
4.86% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#18
Sughrue Mion PLLC
Intellectual property boutique firm Sughrue Mion has obtained more U.S. patents than any other firm. With a top-notch litigation practice; one of the largest full-service trademark practices in the country; and wide-ranging expertise in patent counseling, prosecution, and review, Sughrue handles all manner of IP issues for clients around the world. Sughrue’s main practice groups are in patent counseling, patent post-grant review and patent prosecution, trademark, copyright, and litigation.
4.86% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#10
Bookoff McAndrews PLLC
Based in Washington, DC, Bookoff McAndrews focuses on patent counseling and prosecution for technology companies. Founded in 2012, this patent boutique has been recognized by Chambers and Forbes, among others, for its stellar work as a top intellectual property firm. BoMc is committed to DEI, celebrates the outside interests of its attorneys, and embraces work-life balance as much as possible in a busy practice; this is evident in its high positions in multiple Best Midsize Law Firms to Work For rankings.
4.75% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#19
Tensegrity Law Group LLP
Tensegrity Law Group is a firm that has remained small because it has proven to be successful. It’s even in its name: “Tensegrity” refers to a small number of elements that create a structure of simplicity, balance, and strength with efficiency and economy. Located in Redwood Shores, California, the firm was founded in 2011, but it has grown to become a reputable patent litigation boutique known to secure “eve of trial” resolutions for its clients. In fact, the firm has earned its clients more than $1 billion in patent licenses and settlements, and the firm’s quick success has earned it a spot in Vault’s Best IP Boutique Law Firms ranking.
4.75% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#17
McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd
McAndrews, Held & Malloy is an IP boutique in the Windy City, with a team of attorneys, patent agents, and technology experts who handle high-stakes, complex IP litigation and billions of dollars of IP transactions. McAndrews takes pride in its ability to not just hire great attorneys, but also to keep them. More than 70 percent of the firm’s attorneys have spent their entire legal career at the firm, and this includes some who have been with the firm since its inception in 1988.
4.32% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#16
Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd
As a firm that has been at the forefront of intellectual property law for more than a century, Leydig, Voit & Mayer has helped shape the IP landscape. With clients in fields ranging from pharmaceuticals and biotechnology to consumer household goods and financial services, the firm specializes in patent, trademark and copyright litigation, registration and prosecution, unfair competition, and franchising and licensing.
3.78% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#12
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A.
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner is an IP boutique with Midwest roots. With offices in Minneapolis, Silicon Valley, Austin, and the U.K., the firm focuses on patent portfolio planning and management, infringement, validity and clearance investigations, opinions, and IP prosecution. Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner represents multinational corporations, middle-market businesses, universities, startups, and individuals across industries like chemical & materials science, clean technology, electrical & computers, life sciences, mechanical & electromechanical, medical devices, and software & e-commerce. The firm offers the full swath of IP work, from due diligence and opinions to trademarks and licensing to patent prosecution and post-grant proceedings.
3.78% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#14
Seed Intellectual Property Law Group LLP
Seed IP is a leading intellectual property law firm based in the Pacific Northwest, with more than fifty patent attorneys and patent agents and a staff of over seventy professionals. Seed IP handles matters including litigation and mediation, strategic counseling, licensing, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and trademarks. The firm is also a major league player when it comes to patent work. Seed IP’s clients range in size from individuals and start-up companies to established multinational corporations with IP needs ranging from trademark clearance to protecting complex chemical and biotechnology patents.
3.78% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#20
Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
Headquartered in Chicago, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun is an intellectual property firm that works with clients on six continents. The firm has participated in numerous Supreme Court cases related to IP law since its founding in 1955 and has been recognized as a leader in its field by major publications. Firm attorneys hold degrees in science or engineering—in addition to their juris doctorates—to ensure the best possible representation for their clients.
3.67% of Votes
2024 Ranking
#15
