Youngest female managing principal in Twin Cities area's history approaches law like life

By Liz Wolf Dolan Media Newswires MINNEAPOLIS, MN--At just 36 years old, Ann Cathcart Chaplin has made a name for herself nationally; she's a skillful intellectual property litigator, she's the first female managing principal at law firm Fish & Richardson - and she's the youngest woman managing principal to run any major Twin Cities law firm, ever. It's quite a success story, especially considering Cathcart Chaplin's modest background. Born and raised in the small town of Marine on St. Croix - population 540 -her father was a janitor and her mother a public-school music teacher. Money was tight, so Cathcart Chaplin started babysitting at age 10. She's been working ever since. "I was very determined," she recalls. "We were raised that we could do anything, and we would go to college. Also, because things were tight, I didn't want to have to worry so much when I got older. I wanted to be fully self-sufficient." With that motivation, Cathcart Chaplin spent her last year of high school as a full-time student at the University of Minnesota through a state law allowing high school students to attend college free. And she received a scholarship to help fund the rest of her education. Cathcart Chaplin also worked four jobs simultaneously to pay for college - running a Scandinavian shop, waitressing, fundraising for a nonprofit theatre company and working at the Washington County Court Administrator's Office - while juggling a full load of classes. After graduating from college, summa cum laude, Cathcart Chaplin was accepted by Harvard Law School. She worked to put herself through law school and borrowed money. "I soaked up the opportunity," she says. "Law school trains your mind." Cathcart Chaplin spent her first summer in law school working in the public defender's office in Stillwater, but realized that public defense wasn't a good fit for her. "I'm terribly maternal," she says. "I cared so deeply for my clients. In that setting, there were so many people who needed a different help than I could give them. They needed drug treatment or psychiatric help. I wanted to fix it, but couldn't. I didn't think I could do it long term. It drained me." She decided to pursue civil law instead. The next summer, she landed an internship at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP and was introduced to intellectual property litigation. She fell in love with it and knew that was the direction she would pursue. "I worked with inventors and lots of startups," she says. "I worked with patents and learned about whole new areas. Every case was so different." Her cases ranged from medical devices to chemicals. After graduating from Harvard, cum laude, Cathcart Chaplin joined Robins, Kaplan as an associate in their IP litigation group. In 2001, she was recruited by Fish & Richardson, the nation's largest intellectual-property law firm, where she worked on patents, trademarks and copyrights and did lots of litigation. "The whole focus of the firm is intellectual property, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity," she says. She was promoted to principal four years later and went on to co-lead the firm's litigation group, where she was responsible for overseeing all cases, managing attorneys' workloads, and reviewing job performance. She also served as a recruiting principal. On Jan. 1, she was promoted to managing principal and continues litigating and representing clients. Cathcart Chaplin has made her mark serving as co-counsel for many high-profile, high-stakes intellectual property litigation cases for big-name clients including 3M, Cargill, Chevron Philips Chemical Co., Terumo and Fidelity. She recently took on the world's third-largest chemical company, INEOS Group Ltd., on behalf of Chevron Phillips in a complex trade-secret misappropriation and breach of contract case. Despite all of her successes, Cathcart Chaplin says she still gets butterflies before cases. "But it's all about the preparation," she says. "You have to do a lot of research and become an expert. You also have to be a strong lawyer to litigate these high-stake cases and really understand the needs of your clients." Published: Thu, Jul 29, 2010

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