by Heather B.
Hayes
for Virginia Business December 2004
Christopher
Mugel’s
colleagues often call him “the professor.” But
he didn’t earn that nickname for
teaching a law school class or writing
articles for legal publications.
Instead,
the nickname derives from the way Mugel
practices his craft. “He’s
known as ‘the professor,’ because
he has an incredible depth of intellectual
property knowledge,” says Stephen
Noona, a partner with Kaufman & Canoles.
Ian
Titley, a shareholder with Williams Mullen,
agrees. “He
is probably the closest person I know to
a law professor, who is not actually teaching
it. Chris always has his nose in all of
the minutia and detail of intellectual
property law.”
Ironically,
Mugel had little knowledge of intellectual
property law
when he joined his first law firm, Hunton & Williams,
in 1986. He signed up to join the firm’s
antitrust law group. “On my first
day at Hunton & Williams, I went to
lunch with a couple of the partners,” he
says. “At lunch they told me I was
going to be their first intellectual property
associate. I told them that was great,
but I’d hadn’t even taken the
basic survey course!”
That
didn’t deter
Mugel from quickly mastering the nuisances
of intellectual property law. “I
don’t regret it for a minute,” Mugel
says. “Intellectual property is intellectually
stimulating, and over the last couple of
decades, it’s been one of the most
rapidly evolving areas of law.”
The
Internet and new technologies are shaping
the legal climate for copyrights,
patents, trademarks and other intellectual
property issues. Laws are changing, and
lawyers who specialize in the field must
keep pace. “The law wasn’t
written with the new technologies in mind,
and the area poses a lot of new and very
interesting legal issues,” Mugel
says. “I’ve really made it
my mission to learn and understand in depth
intellectual property law. I make it a
point to read all the new cases. I make
it a point to get my arms around all the
new issues, and that part of it is fun
for me.”
Mugel’s knowledge
of intellectual property law impresses
other lawyers to the point that they often
consult with Mugel on their cases to get
a fresh perspective. Titley, for example,
recently handled a trademark dispute in
which the litigants wanted a second opinion.
He immediately turned to Mugel. “I
knew he would analyze all of the facts
and all of the law and come up with the
best, most accurate, recommendation for
the client,” Titley says.
In
recent years, some of Mugel’s clients have been small,
emerging companies — often in the
technology area — that want to license,
commercialize or protect new products or
ideas. “He’s often involved
in cases where he represents David in David
versus Goliath,” says Gary LeClair,
chairman of LeClair Ryan. “He’s
been able to help our David clients negotiate
contracts with the industrial Goliaths.
That’s very important, because many
times the industrial companies are operating
from a standpoint of ‘take it or
leave it.’ He does well at negotiating
from a standpoint of not having much leverage,
and that is very, very hard to do.”
While Mugel handles some
litigation, most of his work is behind
the scenes, helping companies grow their
businesses.
“It’s an area
where I get to work with lots of different
clients in growth mode who have lots of
different problems,” Mugel says. “You
get some of the vicarious excitement from
their growth, because you’re enabling
them to take the next step in the growth
of their company.”
