You have been involved in the profession a good deal of your life so I will bow to your expertise and experience. However I do feel the posts by sman998 about taking cases on "contingency" seem to belie your assumptions.

Also what you say does not make too much sense to me. My wife is a Senor Vice President with a national, top 5, bank. She is a banker with many large clients, some of whom are nationally known and whose names you would recognize. Her bank has a policy, strictly enforced, that when you leave the banks employ you are forbidden to contact the clients you have except to call them and inform them you are leaving your present employment. If you try to solicit them to retain their business with a new bank within a year you are immediately taken to court. My wife informs me this a policy followed in one form or the other by most banks.

This factor alone keeps clients where they are. They are "CLIENTS OF THE BANK" not clients of an individual banker. True some clients do follow their banker but that is THEIR choice to do so after being informed of the departure of their banker, NOT BECAUSE OF ANY SOLICITATION of the banker. Also, and this is very telling, even with a fantastic relationship with a competant banker, most, almost all, clients stay with the bank, not the banker.

That's why I am disagreeing with your above post more as time goes by. The posts by sman998 confirm it in my mind.

Sometimes I like to play things out, go the next step, etc....If you are correct in your assumptions that these new IP attorneys (and most of the ones we have found out about have been IP attorneys) hired by DM were done so as "Rain Makers" and they were bringing their clients with them, then WHY isn't there one big massive "biggie" law firm out there with all/most of the "RAINMAKERS" empoyed by that firm???? It would seem to me that a very wealthy attorney or law firm could simply increase it's business, thereby it's profits by identifying the top Rainmakers and their clients and simply state, "We will double/triple your salary, prestige, and give you a corner office on the 40th floor with Catherine Zeta Jones as your secretary and a "large" human being with a massive physique as your chauffer/bodyguard.

As I stated I am ignorant of how law firms operate but the fact there are a lot of Rainmakers out there, either in small firms or larger firms that could be "gotten" by a DM tells me there is some restrictions on moving "willy nilly" around, putting your Rainmaker status up for the highest bidder by bringing those lucrative clients with you. It doesn't seem, from my knowledge base, that is occuring.

However, I do agree all the new hires by DM are probably not because of EDigs' case but the posts by sman998 point out the growing acceptance and use of "contingency" is growing and the average return is "HUGE" HUGE, HUGE... DM did not take on EDig because of any other reason than those huge, expected settlements. And if we are all correct in our assumptions there are 174 or more companies who are will be filed against then a need exists for lots of bodies to do the work.

DM is most likely ramping up its patent infringement section. But EDig's case is a big one with many needed IP attorneys. No one has answered my question as to how many are needed to handle one case. Just how many would be needed to handle 174 cases?

As sman998's posts about "contingency" acceptance by attorneys it is my contention that I fully agree with Minister that most of these attorneys hired by DM will have some connection to EDig. It just makes sense to me.....