Special Features

Wyatt B. Durrette Jr.

A virtual law firm.

Let that sink in for a minute. No office. No jostling for parking spaces. Meetings in real time with colleagues and/or clients across the country over the Internet.

Meet the XDL Group.

Richmond lawyer Wyatt Durrette may be pointing the way to provide legal services in the future.

Durrette, a veteran litigator and three-term member of the Virginia House of Delegates, started the XDL Group earlier this year. The idea is to be a “virtual intellectual property boutique.”

Or as the group says at its slick Web site, www.xdlgroup.com, “your IP light cavalry.”

In addition to Durrette and his associate, Christine Williams, members in Virginia include Charles M. Allen of Glen Allen and James Creekmore of Daleville. Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and New York also are represented. A lawyer in Oregon who is also a member of the California bar is the newest addition.

Durrette said the concept grew out of the observation by his friend Dale Hogue of South Carolina that few true intellectual property lawyers have much courtroom experience. On the other hand, few top litigators are skilled in the nuances of IP law. Durrette and Hogue illustrate that dichotomy, with Durrette having vast experience as a litigator, including a successful patent trial in Minnesota recently, and Hogue having spent much of his career advising clients on IP matters.

With outposts in eastern Texas, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and the Eastern District of Virginia (home of the Patent and Trademark Office), the XDL Group has a presence in three intellectual property hotbeds. Durrette said the firm operates truly virtually with no central office and face-to-face meetings of the members only a few times a year. But modern technology makes it possible for group members to confer frequently and manage cases together even if they are not in the same physical location.

The group has “the manpower, the womanpower, the brainpower” to try “a case that would be difficult for any one of us to handle,” Durrette said.

The group has had its Web site only since May, and Durrette said he is encouraged by the amount of traffic it is getting and by the response of prospective clients.

Durrette said the group has had serious discussions with several of those clients, but no one has retained it yet. Most of those prospective clients wanted the group to take on their cases on a contingency basis, which the group has been reluctant to do. The group has considered hybrid compensation arrangements, however, he said.

Biography

Education: B.S., Virginia Military Institute, 1961; L.L.B., Washington & Lee University law school, 1964; M.A., Johns Hopinks University, 1966

Practice Areas: Commercial and Complex litigation, IP litigation

Achievement: Started “virtual law firm,” the XDL Group

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