At the Bar

Laura Laemmle, a new partner at Patton Boggs, likes to reflect on her past life as a music major at Northwestern University. She still thinks that Dmitri Shostakovich rocks, for instance. "He wrote great orchestral music," Laemmle says. "The harmonies were amazing, the melodies, very, very beautiful." The Soviet composer's tendency to write large parts for the brass instruments especially appealed to Laemmle, who played the trumpet throughout high school and college. The trumpet was her second choice; when choosing an instrument to pursue, in the fourth grade, she had wanted to play the trombone. But her arms were too short. "I thought trumpet was the next coolest thing," says Laemmle, who came to Patton Boggs in August after nearly live years as a litigator in the civil division of the Justice Department's fraud section.

Leaving her musical pursuits behind, Laemmlc earned a law degree from Georgetown University and began a legal career in Washington in 1996, when she joined the firm McKenna, Long & Aldridge. During her four years there, she mostly dealt with fraud cases, handling both criminal and civil lawsuits. The casework often exposed her to health care issues as well. "What I really liked was putting the two of them together," Laemmle says. As a trial lawyer for the Justice Department, Laemmle worked primarily on false claims, developing an expertise in fraud issues involving the pharmaceutical and medical-device industries.

One of the assistant directors in her office at the Justice Department was Larry Freedman, who joined Patton Boggs in February as a partner tasked with heading the firm's practice on health care fraud and abuse. Laemmle joins Freedman and partner Harry Silver in her new role at Patton Boggs, where she is eager to deepen the firm's work in health care litigation. "The idea of helping build a practice group was really exciting," says Laemmle, who wasn't looking to leave Justice when Freedman suggested that she consider joining him at Patton Boggs earlier this year. "This just sounded like a great opportunity. You've got to take it when it comes."

Laemmle, 35, chose an early-August start date so that she could settle in at a time when Washington was relatively quiet. "I wanted to be ready to roll once September hit." -M.K.

Another lawyer who has music in him, Chris Katopis, is a new counsel in the Washington office of Drinker Biddle & Reath. Katopis dealt with the rights of songwriters while working for the late Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., and he expects to continue working on music issues in copyright law in his new job. "That's one of my first loves, having worked for Sonny Bono, and getting a real taste for the music industry and public policy," he says.

Bono hired Katopis as a legislative assistant in part because of Katopis's experience in working with songwriters and other artists at Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. "I tried to find members of the Judiciary Committee that were looking for help, and Sonny was setting up his office at the time, and it just worked out. They said, 'You had worked with songwriters and musicians before, why don't you take a shot at this?' " Katopis later became Bono's legislative director, and after Bono died, Katopis served as legislative director for Rep. Mary Bono, R-Calif. He also served as counsel for the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property.

At Drinker Biddle, he'll work in the Intellectual Property Practice Group, serving in both a legal advisory and a lobbying capacity on intellectual property and copyright issues. In his job, he says, he will be "very much interested," in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where he most recently worked as director of congressional relations. "There are a lot of major patent-law issues in the pipeline that affect everyone, from biotech to Internet."

Katopis, 37, grew up in New York City and graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He later earned his law degree from the Temple University School of Law. He is currently an adjunct professor at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law. -G.S.