It was 48 years ago to the day that Douglas Henderson and Marc Finnegan founded their full-service intellectual property law firm. So it's only fitting that Henderson chose the forty-eighth anniversary of the firm as his retirement date.
In the years since it's been around, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner has grown from two attorneys to 369 at the end of 2012.
"We started off with the idea that we wanted to be a full service IP firm," Henderson said. "The clients liked that because instead of talking to someone secondhand, they were able to talk to someone who knew the most about the subject."
Among some of his highlights, Henderson helped found the Federal Circuit Bar Association after Congress merged the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the appellate division of the U.S. Court of Claims, to form the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Henderson also represented Australia II after its victory in the 1983 America's Cup, snapping the New York Yacht Club's 132-year winning streak.
Henderson said he had been thinking of retirement for a while, and that he wanted to leave the firm before his colleagues grew tired of him. "I wanted to leave when people wanted me here," he said. Henderson said that he hasn't tried any cases in several years. Instead he's been meeting and consulting with clients and working to build the firm's culture.
As for what's next, Henderson said he plans to take some time off. But he does plan to give his clock collection more attention. Henderson said that it's one of the few mechanical devices that you can take apart and tinker with. "It's sort of comforting that there is something out there I can make work," he said.
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