Legal News

From (Hand-) Bag Lady to Supreme Court Nominee

By Ashby Jones

So we went to the Mets/Nationals game last night with a friend who happens to also be a lawyer (we have a few remaining friends who aren’t lawyers, though we confess that their inability to bring much to the table when I ask them about res judicata continues to frustrate). Anyway, this lawyer/friend does IP work. So at first, we were a bit chagrined when he told us he didn’t know that Judge Sotomayor specialized in IP during her days in private practice. But then we realized that, of her entire biography, the chapter on years at Pavia & Harcourt is perhaps the most underreported.

Until now. The National Law Journal today shines some light on what Sotomayor was up to from the years 1984 to 1992. Namely: litigating cases dealing with designer handbags, like the Fendi bag pictured.

According to the NLJ story, one of her big clients during those years was Italian luxury goods retailer Fendi, which fought against makers of knockoff handbags bearing the designer’s logo.

“She was very skilled,” said Richard Mattiaccio, who worked with Sotomayor at Pavia and is now a litigation partner at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. “She came to the firm without any civil practice background, but she learned very quickly.”

She was also fearless, said Steven Skulnik, another former colleague from Pavia & Harcourt who now works at Squire Sanders. Skulnik recalled tagging along when Sotomayor accompanied a police raid on a suspected counterfeiting operation in a Harlem storefront during the late 1980s.

“I was crouched in the van, waiting for things to clear up, and Sonia goes running out with the investigators,” Skulnik said. “She got a thrill out of the cops and robbers stuff. It’s not something you expect to see from a corporate attorney.”

So what’s the deal with Pavia & Harcourt? It’s maintained a relatively low profile since the early 1992 — and has actually slimmed down a bit. The firm’s Web site listed 18 attorneys as of May 26. It had about 30 attorneys when Sotomayor was there, Skulnik told the NLJ.

The main office is on New York’s Madison Avenue; branches are located in Paris and Milan. Most clients are European manufacturers entering the U.S. market, Mattiaccio said. Pavia & Harcourt touts its attorneys’ fluency in Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

The firm was founded in 1940 specifically to represent Italian companies in the United States - particularly fashion companies, Mattiaccio said. “If somebody’s got a product or a service they want to distribute elsewhere, that’s the firm’s bread and butter,” Skulnik said

Managing partner George M. Pavia did not return calls for comment on Sotomayor’s nomination - nor did he return the Law Blog’s on Tuesday. But he told the Washington Post earlier this month that he had been “instantly impressed” with Sotomayor during the hiring process.

“We worked hard to recruit her,” said Mattiachio. “She had other options.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).