How Three Firms Snagged Former Government Employees

In the legal community, there has been an uptick of lawyers leaving government roles and entering private practice. This trend is illustrated at Finnegan when in late January, Daniel Roland rejoined the firm as a partner. To understand what attracted him to return and what he hopes to accomplish in the future, Daniel sat down with Managing IP to further discuss.

Most recently, Dan worked at the Department of Justice as a trial attorney. Dan said that coming back to Finnegan from the DOJ wasn’t a difficult decision to make.

“Working at the DOJ outside the IP area confirmed to me that if I’m going to do litigation, I want to do IP and do it at a law firm. I enjoyed my time at Finnegan before I left, and it was a really easy choice to come back.”

Dan decided that he was better suited for IP law, however, he is thankful for being exposed to different areas of litigation for it helped with his professional growth.

“I was tackling new legal issues every day. Having to face that made me a more well-rounded lawyer and a lawyer with more confidence,” he said.

“Every case, except one, was essentially just me. I was managing my cases with no supervision, so that’s a skill I can carry over to Finnegan.”

Dan isn’t the only lawyer to come to Finnegan from the government. In the past year, the firm hired  Anna Chauvet from the US Copyright Office, Lynn Parker Dupree, a former chief privacy officer at the US Department of Homeland Security, and Reginald Lucas, a former senior IP litigation attorney at the US International Trade Commission.

Erika Arner, managing partner at Finnegan said these moves aren’t just about hiring people who have been in the government.

Often government agencies are where attorneys gain a lot of really unique skills, she says.

She said the primary way Finnegan reaches out to people in government roles is through personal relationships built up through bar association membership, working on cases, or through other contacts.

“We don’t have a formal recruiting department specifically focused on the government. It’s a bit more individualized,” she says.

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