Four-and-a-half years after he joined Winston & Strawn from now-defunct Howrey, and at an age—65—when many of his peers are retiring, former Howrey chair Robert “Bob” Ruyak has started a new patent litigation boutique, RuyakCherian, along with longtime colleague Korula “Sunny” Cherian and his daughter-in-law Brittany Ruyak. During his 11-year tenure as Howrey’s leader, Ruyak was often recognized as a legal innovator for his vision of management.
Ruyak was credited with driving explosive global growth at Howrey, a firm focused on antitrust, IP and litigation. He was also an early proponent of a more corporate model of firm management and the importance of investing in legal branding, as well as offshoring and insourcing legal services. But Ruyak also drew a lot of ire for Howrey’s ultimate failure in March 2011, as The American Lawyer described in its post-mortem of the firm. We caught up with Ruyak to discuss his recent move, his future plans and his evolving views on what happened at Howrey.
