CUSTOMER STORY
IP Partner at Full-Service Law Firm Starts Every Morning with Law360
Taylor English Duma LLP knows that delivering efficient, high-quality legal counsel for businesses, their in-house counsel and their C-suite comes with a clear understanding of today’s business environment and the ability to deliver forward-thinking insights to clients.
The Story
Taylor English Duma LLP is a full-service law firm based in Atlanta, with 175+ attorneys in 13 states. The firm’s clients range from Fortune 500 businesses, mid-cap companies and start-ups to local governments, schools and individuals. The firm was started in 2005 and has grown to become one of the largest law firms based in Atlanta.
Michael A. Cicero began his career in IP as a patent disclosure writer for the Commercial Nuclear Fuel Division of Westinghouse Electric Corp., where he served as a liaison between inventors in Columbia, S.C., and Westinghouse’s Patent Committee in Pittsburgh. After earning his law degree, he entered private practice as a patent attorney and has since amassed more than three decades of experience in the practice of intellectual property law, which has included the drafting of numerous patents, office action responses and petitions for clients in the mechanical and electromechanical industries.
Mr. Cicero also has handled a substantial amount of IP litigation. His patent litigation experience includes Markman proceedings, trials and motion practice. A significant portion of his experience also includes trademark and copyright infringement litigation. This wide range of work across patent, trademark and copyright law provided him with the expertise and insights to co-author the chapter on IP Litigation in Georgia Business Litigation.
Mr. Cicero read and stored various IP Law360 articles over the years preceding his Taylor English career, and in so doing, he developed an appreciation for the high value of the content.
“I was working on my contribution for a chapter on IP Litigation that a colleague and I were writing for Georgia Business Litigation, a comprehensive publication addressing many areas of business litigation in the state of Georgia,” he recalled. “I came across a number of very insightful articles from IP Law360 during the research for that book project, and we ended up citing several in our chapter.”
A couple of years later, Mr. Cicero joined Taylor English full-time as an Of Counsel with the firm, where he is now a Partner.
“I came on board at Taylor English in 2016 and was pleased to learn that our firm had a subscription to Law360,” said Mr. Cicero. “I started consulting it more frequently and quickly realized this would be a terrific news source to help me stay on top of daily developments in patent, trademark and copyright law across the federal courts.”
Mr. Cicero became a daily user of Law360 and relied on its IP newsletters and alerts for the most important stories of the day.
The Solution
“One of the first things I do every morning before I start on any billable client work is to open up my email and look for that morning’s edition of IP Law360,” said Mr. Cicero. “I will carefully review the newsletter and keep an eye out for any articles regarding important IP-related decisions that came out of the federal courts in the past 24 hours.”
Law360 is a daily must-read for legal news and analysis, providing up-to-the-minute coverage on the issues that affect attorneys, business leaders and regulators across 60+ practice areas, topics and jurisdictions. The content is produced by a dedicated editorial staff of more than 300 news assistants, reporters and editors working around the U.S. and U.K. These journalists publish roughly 200 articles every single business day, including breaking news, in-depth analysis and third-party expert analysis.
In addition to breaking news and analysis, Law360 articles also provide access to relevant case information, source documents and related articles. This underlying and supplemental content can be downloaded instantly for immediate reference and assessment, saving valuable time.
If Mr. Cicero spots a potentially precedent-setting decision, he downloads the opinion from LexisNexis® and saves the relevant court documents to a work folder so he can review it more thoroughly in the future. If he spots a story about a case that might be of interest to clients or colleagues in the firm, he shares that content with them for discussion, creating a meaningful dialogue with them and demonstrating added value as a strategic counselor.
“In addition to the use that I get from IP Law360 as a practitioner, I know that our firm’s marketing department relies on Law360 to monitor industry trends and to occasionally inform specific business development opportunities we want to pursue,” said Mr. Cicero.
Taylor English and Mr. Cicero are among the more than 2 million readers each day that rely on Law360, making it the most-preferred, most-used news source for legal professionals, business leaders and government officials in the U.S. 1
1. According to the ABA Profile of the Legal Profession Report, October 2021.
“Law360 is a smart investment for IP lawyers who need to stay abreast of the latest developments that are relevant to their areas of practice,” said Mr. Cicero. “I find the content useful and I especially like that it is presented in a very efficient way to my email inbox every morning. That is crucial for lawyers in private practice who need to quickly zero in on the topics that are most important to them.”
The firm points to four specific benefits it has realized from a Law360 subscription:
Daily Monitoring: Patent and Trademark Decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
“The daily newsletter from IP Law360 keeps me updated on potentially precedential decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears appeals on patent cases from courts nationwide,” said Mr. Cicero. “This is crucial because the Court of Appeals may also review the USPTO’s administrative rulings, so I need to stay on top of all precedential decisions. The Law360 posts covering precedential decisions from the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and from its Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, have also proven highly useful.”
Breaking News: Eleventh Circuit Trademark and Copyright Decisions
Mr. Cicero also relies on IP Law360 for breaking news developments related to decisions in trademark and copyright litigation that are handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. This federal court has appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in Alabama, Florida and Georgia, which includes the business community in which most of Mr. Cicero’s legal work takes place and is the focus of the legal treatise for which he is a co-author.
Program Topics: Trade Secrets News
“As the Chair of the Trade Secrets Committee of the Georgia Bar’s Intellectual Property Section, it is my responsibility to assist with the scheduling of webinars that provide useful continuing legal education for our members,” said Mr. Cicero. “I find IP Law360 to be an excellent resource for monitoring daily news updates in the area of trade secrets law, which helps me identify timely themes and topics for future educational programs.”
Identify New Clients: Business Development
Mr. Cicero noted that, in addition to the benefits that he has experienced from IP Law360 as an IP practitioner, Taylor English’s business development team is also a daily subscriber to various Law360 newsletters. They rely on these news feeds to stay apprised of legal industry trends and to identify potential business development opportunities for relevant practice groups in the firm.
About Law360
Law360 is every U.S. attorney’s must-read for breaking daily news and in-depth analysis on the practice and business of law. Award-winning journalists provide up-to-the-minute coverage of high-stakes litigation, policy developments, corporate deals, administrative hearings and more, across 60+ practice areas, industries and jurisdictions. With a unique blend of cutting-edge technology and journalistic expertise, Law360 delivers the intelligence that legal professionals need to stay informed and competitive.
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