Peter Lando JD '91
Building a New Breed of Law Firm
The Cambridge, MA offices of Lowrie, Lando & Anastasi, LLP, one of the fastest growing intellectual property law firms in the country, offer sweeping views of the city of Boston, historic Cambridge and its famed Charles River. Peter Lando, co-founder and partner, is busy sweeping away the traditional system of billable hours, as it is practiced by most law firms today, and quietly building a new breed of law firm with a brand new way of doing business.
Celebrating its third anniversary this past June, LL&A has proven its innovative formula works. LL&A opened in 2003 with only three attorneys and minimal staff and today has 25 attorneys and more than 50 total employees. As Lando and his firm's marketing materials testify, LL&A looks at "a bigger picture"♦what will most benefit their employees and what will most benefit their clients.
"LL&A challenges the traditional billing model which most law firms require," says Lando. "Instead, we focus on the client relationship and the quality of our work while encouraging a more balanced professional and personal life."
The establishment of LL&A in 2003 ran counter to recent trends in the legal profession. Lando and his co-founding partners, Matt Lowrie and John Anastasi, believe that "in more traditional times law firms emphasized client service and legal professionalism, and business took a second seat."
The three also recognize that most law firms have departed from those standards, devoting far more effort to growing per-partner profits, finding new ways to bill clients more, and driving attorneys to work longer hours to the point where they return less value to their clients.
"We share a vision that a successful law firm could and can be built with a different approach toward the practice of law - one that is truly committed to work-life balance, with an emphasis on high quality work and excellent client support," says Lando.
The decision to create a firm such as LL&A was partly influenced by a 1999 Boston Bar Association report, "Facing the Grail: Confronting the Cost of Work-Family Imbalance." The report concluded that an attorney's inability to balance family time with work time-a situation created by law firms with competitive long-hour structures-adversely affected the quality of service clients received. The report's findings served as a guidepost in planning LL&A's approach.
"We require 1,600 hours per year versus that standard requirement of 1,800 to 2,000 plus billable hours; we also provide a 50% bonus to attorneys for every hour billed over the 1,600 hour mark as an acknowledgement of the added effort," explains Lando.
"More importantly," Lando notes, "the more reasonable minimum hours requirement relieves many of the pressures typically associated with law firm life and allows for the discovery of the best ways to meet our clients' needs. The better balance keeps attorneys fresh, engaged and more responsive to their clients."
"Another important advantage of LL&A's innovative approach is passing along to clients the cost savings we achieve by efficiently organizing our infrastructure, carefully reducing overhead costs, and sticking to what we do best," explains Lando. "Our billing rates are consistently 10-20% below large firm rates in the Boston area.We do not charge for routine disbursements which is common practice in other law firms."
LL&A's practice mix has been fairly consistent since the firm opened, with about 40% of the practice comprised of patent procurement and related counseling-primarily for multinational corporations, midsized companies and startups- 30% with patent litigation in matters across the country, and the balance a mix of trademark, copyright, transactions and client counseling.
Among the firm's roster of satisfied clients are Saint- Gobain Corporation, USFilter Corporation, Color Kinetics, PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences, Abiomed Inc., and the London Stock Exchange.
Pierce Law alumnus and client Thomas G. Field III '99, intellectual property counsel at Saint-Gobain, says, "LL&A understands that businesses need cost effective, focused legal counsel and provides us with great support. Their judgment and counsel are invaluable."
Gary Ganzi, vice president of intellectual property for USFilter adds, "The relationship between USFilter and Peter Lando, and now LL&A, is long-standing. Peter and his team consistently provide us the best product because they are able to combine expert legal advice with in-depth understanding of our technology and our business."
Lando says his practice "involves various areas of intellectual property counseling, licensing and business transactions, patent prosecution and product clearance, trademark adoption, clearance and enforcement, copyright and trade secrets and due diligence investigations."
Prior to founding LL&A, Lando was a shareholder in a Boston intellectual property law firm for six years where he chaired the Chemical Practice Group, sat on the Executive Committee, chaired the Marketing Committee, and was a member of the Mechanical, Trademark, IP Transactions and Opinion Practice Groups. Lando, who holds a BS in chemical engineering from Drexel University and an MBA from Rutgers, has extensive experience in the chemical process industries, including water and wastewater treatment, polymers, small particle technology, specialty metals and ceramics, and mechanical/industrial design.
He worked for BASF Chemicals Corporation for four years in process engineering, marketing, business planning and research and development.While attending Pierce Law, Lando became a patent agent and later worked for Cabot Corporation where he was trained and mentored by Harry Gwinnell, now vice president and chief intellectual property counsel at Cargill, Inc.
"I am not surprised with the great success of the firm," says Gwinnell. "The whole culture and atmosphere of the firm are a direct reflection of Peter's personality."
Originally published in the Summer 2006 edition of Pierce Law Magazine.
