SAN FRANCISCO — Clients don’t take it well when they are sued by a former lawyer. Especially when the lawyer is Matthew Powers or Morgan Chu.
The iconic patent litigators have both been disqualified in recent weeks after taking aim at companies they once represented. Networking firm Radware Ltd. knocked Chu out of its patent battle with A10 Networks Inc. on March 5, howling that Irell & Manella was trying to depose executives it had once counseled. Powers was ousted on March 7 from a case in which he stood adverse to Samsung Electronics Co., a company he represented for more than a decade at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and his new firm, Tensegrity Law Group.
