Venable LLP

The venerable, mono-monikered Venable is a titan of the mid-Atlantic I-95 corridor (where seven of its nine offices are located) and is home to nearly 800 lawyers. Venable complements a conventional BigLaw practice with Beltway-specific work. 

A Morphing Midsized Regional

Call it a victory for career services: Venable, Baetjer & Howard was formed in 1900 when Richard Venable, a law professor in Baltimore, partnered with two of his former students. The firm has grown substantially since the millennium, thanks largely to a series of mergers to bolster its Beltway contingent, tech offerings, and litigation department. These changes landed the firm two locations in California and one in New York. In 2018, the firm bolstered its IP practice by merging with Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto, doubling its NYC presence.

Venerable Specialists

Venable specializes in corporate and business law, complex litigation, intellectual property, and government affairs. The firm’s Litigation practice carries a particularly heavy workload in products liability, toxic torts, and environmental law cases, with corporate defense being the group’s overwhelming forte. They’ve defended entities as widely varied as Wal-Mart, Merck, ExxonMobil, Perdue Farms, and Ford Motor Co.

The firm has a strong IP team that focuses on a range of areas, including copyrights, domain names, ITC matters, licensing, litigation, patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and unfair competition. Many of its attorneys are armed with technical degrees—from applied molecular biology and biochemistry to computer engineering and electrical engineering to molecular genetics and organic chemistry, and more—and some served as USPTO examiners before coming to the firm.

With an eye toward helping early-stage companies, Venable has developed Venable Venture Services, which helps startups with all of their multidisciplinary needs. Among areas the firm counsels on are corporate structure, employment issues, financing, IP transactions and counseling, and regulatory issues.

Political Power

Venable is no slouch when it comes to political experience—the firm’s past and current attorneys include a U.S. attorney general, a DC attorney general, two Maryland deputy attorneys general, four members of the Senate (Arkansas, Indiana, and two from Maryland), four members of the House (California, Arkansas, Maryland, and Michigan), a former head of the DEA, a secretary of transportation, an administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and 11 federal judges.

Perhaps most noteworthy among Venable’s who’s-who are Francis Murnaghan, who sat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for 21 years, and Senator Paul Sarbanes, who co-sponsored the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and is father to John Sarbanes—a 17-year veteran of Venable and current member of the House.

• Venable represents MSC Cruises in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit filed by Havana Docks Corporation under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allegedly prohibits “trafficking” in property that was confiscated by the Cuban government under the Castro regime.  MSC Cruises offered cruises to U.S. passengers from Miami to Cuba beginning in December 2018 after the Obama Administration published a general license authorizing cruise lines to transport Americans to Cuba.  MSC Cruises’ alleged “trafficking” involved docking at Havana Docks’ Cruise Terminal.  In a case of first impression, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida initially granted Venable’s motion to dismiss all claims but later vacated the decision and granted summary judgment for the plaintiff. Venable, along with another firm, will continue to represent MSC Cruises during the appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which will evaluate whether, among other things, the Helms-Burton Act violates the Due Process clause of the United States Constitution. Havana Docks Corporation v. MSC Cruises SA et al., S.D. Fla. Case No. 1:19-cv-23591-BB.
• On September 27, 2022, Venable Fitzpatrick secured a victory on behalf of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation on a motion to dismiss certain defendants’ counterclaims in patent litigation concerning Novartis’s Entresto drug product. In the motion, Novartis sought to dismiss declaratory judgment counterclaims filed by defendants Hetero and Torrent against three patents for which Hetero and Torrent had filed “Section viii” statements. Judge Richard G. Andrews, of the District Court for the District of Delaware, agreed with Novartis that a defendant who files a Section viii statement does not face an Article III controversy of sufficient immediacy to support the exercise of jurisdiction over its counterclaims. Judge Andrews also determined that Hetero’s and Torrent’s allegations concerning other potential sources of Article III controversy were too speculative to support jurisdiction over their counterclaims.
• The National Business Coalition on E-Commerce and Privacy, founded in February 2000, was one of the first industry groups to dedicate itself exclusively to engaging in federal regulatory and legislative activities impacting domestic and international privacy policy, along with state legislative and regulatory activity pertaining to privacy policy. The Coalition consists of blue-chip members, including Acxiom/Kinesso, Bank of America, Charles Schwab, Deere & Co, Fidelity Investments, Experian, Investment Company Institute, Principal Financial Group, and Visa, and actively engages on Capitol Hill and within the regulatory and legal community.  It regularly helps shape regulatory and public policy positions on privacy and, on occasion, submits amici briefs on key privacy issues percolating through the courts.  It also serves as an information clearinghouse on key e-commerce and privacy matters affecting member companies, several of which have global interests.  Our involvement ensures that the Coalition contributes to the public policy debate to help ensure that policymakers undertake changes in law and regulation that are commercially and economically prudent and feasible, as well as beneficial to American consumers generally and member customers in particular.  The paper we authored, “Data Ownership – The Suitability of a Consumer Property Right in a 21st Century Economy,” which was published by the National Business Coalition under the auspices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), remains the definitive analysis on the subject and is relied upon nationally by the ILR state Chambers engaging in advocacy on the subject.
• During the last year, Venable completed five announced transactions for Dechra (a UK-listed animal pharmaceutical company) in the U.S., where their business is rapidly growing, both organically and through acquisitions of entities and brands. Two of the transactions were structured as equity acquisitions; three were carve-out transactions:
• Acquisition of Sucromate® Equine (reproductive drug), from Thorn Biosciences
• Acquisition of Isoflurane® and Sevoflurane®, inhalant anesthetics, from Halocarbon Life Sciences
• Acquisition of Laverdia-CA1®, novel treatment for canine lymphoma, from Anivive Lifesciences
• Acquisition of Piedmont Animal Health (merger)

• Am Law 100, ranked #64, 2024—American Lawyer
• 95 Venable Attorneys, 34 Practice Areas—2024, Chambers USA
• 72 Venable Attorneys, 11 Practice Areas, 2024—Legal 500
• The World's Leading Patent Professionals (17 attorneys recognized), 2024—IAM Patent 1000 
• Mansfield Certification Plus, 2023—Diversity Lab