The Lackenbach Advantage 

Lackenbach Siegel LLP (“LSLLP”) is a venerable intellectual property boutique. For our nearly 85-year history, our practice has been devoted exclusively to trademark, copyright, advertising, patent, trade secret, and related matters. We provide our clients with a full range of intellectual property legal services, including general counseling, litigation, licensing, searching, clearance, application preparation and prosecution, assignment, acquisition and other agreement work, including the due diligence in connection with such matters.   

Our attorneys are well known and well respected authorities in their respective areas of expertise.  For example, despite our relatively small size, one of our partners regularly ranks among the top 10 trademark filers in the entire country.  This high volume registration practice creates the need to negotiate and draft large numbers of co-existence agreements.  And the large number of applications and registrations we service results in a vigorous practice before the TTAB.  Fortune 500 companies, fashion industry leaders, and celebrities seek us out to litigate matters across the country.  Indeed, litigation on behalf of a large stable of fashion industry and hand tool clients has been a foundation of the firm since its formation in the 1920’s. 

We are routinely called upon by brand management companies and other IP dependent businesses to negotiate, draft, and conduct all necessary due diligence in connection with asset purchase, assignment, and other acquisition agreements, sometimes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  We have been called upon to offer IP advice and opinions in connection with the financing of these acquisitions.  We additionally help our clients profit from the ownership and use of trademarks and patents through licensing, both as licensors and licensees.  As licensees’ counsel, we have obtained the right to use valuable movie and character properties and designer marks for a variety of clothing and accessory products.  Working on behalf of licensors, we have helped a number of designers grow from single product producers to household name “life style” brands.  In fact, for one client alone, we helped negotiate and draft nearly 60 licenses in just a two-year period.  Our experience in this area included serving as licensors’ counsel for some of the first large-scale licensing programs for fashion designers such as Geoffrey Beene, Bill Blass and Anne Klein in the 1970’s. 

In the current age of the “mega-firm” which has seen most other intellectual property boutiques disappear through merger or acquisition, LSLLP has survived - indeed, thrived - by adapting and evolving. Though relatively moderate in size, we number as many attorneys and support staff as many large firm IP departments. Through our unique hiring and staffing practices, we can accomplish more than our mere numbers would suggest. At LSLLP, we do not have any attorneys with less than 15 years of IP experience; the average attorney having over two decades experience in IP law. And unlike many firms, our attorneys do not act as generalists who try to fulfill all the needs of their individual clients. Rather, our attorneys develop and hone sub-specialties, and share their expertise with all of the firm’s clients. No client pays for on the job training. Any IP matter that a client may call upon us to do, the assigned attorney will have already done and likely done it many, many times before.    

Despite this high level of relevant experience and expertise, our attorney billing rates are substantially lower than our large firm counterparts of like experience. This is accomplished through our Westchester location and our extreme efficiency (brought about by our expertise), which allows us to operate at much lower overhead than most law firms. Our experience and sub-specialization, coupled with our absence of junior associates who would be forced to learn as they go, permit LSLLP to staff matters with fewer attorneys than would be needed elsewhere. Fewer attorneys, billing at lower billing rates, result in drastic cost savings over other firms that offer comparable services. This unique business model - offering only highly experienced attorneys - who accomplish tasks quickly and efficiently, while charging very reasonable rates - has permitted LSLLP to flourish and prosper while many IP boutiques have disappeared. We believe this business model and our highly specialized skill sets make LSLLP uniquely qualified and attractive to most clients.

l Home l