Dexterity Talks with Catlan McCurdy

In September I had the pleasure of interviewing Catlan McCurdy, Founder & Principal Attorney of McCurdy Laud (https://www.mccurdylaud.com/), a US-based law firm.  McCurdy Laud is a firm of traditionally-trained lawyers with untraditional perspectives on IP and tech-oriented legal services. 

Catlan, thank you for agreeing to this interview.  I see you started your own practice, McCurdy Laud in 2021, can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?

I wanted to practice law in a way that provided me with more work-life flexibility but didn’t result in sacrificing the interesting and complicated legal work I enjoyed. Often the trade-off for taking less work is that the work you receive is boring and low stakes. I had my first son whilst a partner at a major law firm.  We were very busy during the pandemic working constantly, and I got to the point where I was considering leaving the law.  But I really like what I do as a lawyer, and I realized that I didn’t want to stop working.  I just wanted to work less hours for a year or two and continue to do interesting work during that time while I took care of my family. That led me to decide to start my practice. First as a solo practitioner, and now as a law firm of 5 attorneys.   

At McCurdy Laud, we offer legal services in a different way than big law firms.  We provide really high-touch legal support in this specific area of IP / Tech, covering both transactions and litigation.  As we focus exclusively on that, I can be involved in every matter, and ensure we are delivering the five-star service our clients deserve.

At a big firm you are incentivised to bring in as many matters as possible then hand those matters off, leaving you with less contact with clients.  I like the hands-on practice of law so I enjoy that I can now continue to practice law in a way that is personally and professionally satisfying.  Our specific subject matter focus also means I have time available to live a balanced and full life outside of work.

It is great that you’ve been able to develop a practice in that manner.  I looked through your bio and I was excited to read about your experience as counsel at NPR back in 2016.   I am a big fan of public radio, how was that experience?

It was a great experience in so far as I was able to support an organisation that I loved. 

I grew up listening to NPR in the car, in the house, and my mum even played it in the stables for an anxious Thoroughbred of hers. I loved working on the music contracts for Tiny Desk and supporting the NPR Board. NPR has a fantastic cafeteria, complete with honey from the rooftop beehives, and working in the same building with reporters I’ve heard on air for years was inspiring.

On the flip side, being in-house in that organisation required my time to be more focussed on project management than legal service. I felt generally more responsible for getting things done by pulling all the stakeholders together, which is something I enjoy doing in support of my legal services, but not as a primary focus.  Eventually, I decided it was time to go back to a big law firm and focus on continuing to develop my legal skill set.

In-house legal is such a different role to private practice.  I actually started my own career in-house at a major university here in Australia.   It turned out to be great training for what we do now, as in Australia many start-ups are spun out of or have a close relationship with universities.  They will often stay on the cap table and remain involved.  Is it similar in the US?

I would say it is not that similar.  If a US start-up has a connection to a university, it is more likely the result of grants, or organized by a group of students who may have met at university.  It is not as common that universities would be involved in equity funding for a startup.

Government grants can have a long lasting impacts on start-ups, as the organization is usually required to give the funding government body a licence to IP developed via the grant.

Additionally, Federal grants, as opposed to state grants, are typically subject to ‘march-in’ rights.  They provide that if you as a business are not commercialising the IP according to certain standards, the government body can come in and take over the IP rights to license to another entity.  Despite their prevalence in grant agreements, I’ve yet to encounter the use of the rights. 

They sound like good examples of where the threat of reliance on legal rights can be enough to encourage the behaviour they are seeking to encourage

That is right.  It does make it a little difficult when trying to articulate risk to clients of the rights they’re granting.

For Australian lawyers it’s been interesting reading about the FTC bans on non-competes.  Our federal government is considering this issue and potentially a similar ban here.  What impact is that having?

Actually, the FTC ban has not affected too many of our clients.   That is because most tech-firms are based in California, which has found non-competes invalid for a long time.

Likewise if you are a tech firm in a different state, you know that to attract the best talent you will need to offer equivalent terms to those offered to Californian employees.  In that way California is often the tail that wags the dog in the U.S.

That being said, there are a few industries that I imagine will be significantly impacted.  Optometrists here are oddly militant about enforcing non-competes.  I recall I was once getting my eyes checked and the optometrist had flown in for work to Minneapolis because her non-compete was so restrictive that she could no longer find any employment within driving distance of her home in northern Minnesota.

For U.S. lawyers working with clients entering the Australian market, we have been interested to hear about the recent changes to your unfair contracts regime.  Is that having an impact?

I think we are watching with anticipation to see the increased scope tested in court.  The guidance from the regulator is still relatively high level, which can make it difficult to advise clients, beyond suggesting a conservative approach. 

For U.S. lawyers, the scope of the new unfair contracts regime is unusual in terms of the businesses that have been included and that the Australian government measures by world-wide revenue and world-wide employee count.  That results in the law impacting most of our clients considering entering Australia, even those not selling directly to consumers.  We will also be interested to read about how the expanded regime is interpreted and enforced.  

For my final question, can I ask what do you most enjoy about your role?

Seeing clients succeed.  I’ve worked at multiple law firms, and I am lucky that my very first client has followed me across those firms as my career developed. 

It’s great to see clients from their first steps in business, through the growth of their teams, up to talks of being acquired and, if they are lucky, ending it all with some drinking on the beach money.  It is significant to be trusted with their work, and I truly appreciate the long-standing relationships I have with my clients. Nearly 100% of my work is from referrals, and I don’t take that for granted.   

I admired a partner I worked with in DC, and I asked how it was that she worked with such good people as clients.  She said ‘I decided to make the clients I like my friends, and all of my friends my clients’.  That approach has been a great rule of thumb for me in my career.

Catlan McCurdy, thanks for speaking with us!

Dexterity Talks is a web series of interviews with founders, investors and advisors in the Australian (and now international!) start-up scene.  This interview was conducted by Pippin Barry (BA, JD), an Australian lawyer and the principal of Dexterity Law.