Top 20 accounting firm Citrin Cooperman and Michael Best & Friedrich, an Am Law 200 full-service law firm, have formed a strategic alliance to provide intellectual property strategy and management consulting for middle-market companies and private equity funds in the life sciences, technology, manufacturing, and other sectors.
The alliance connects Michael Best’s IP practice—including Best LuminEdge, the firm’s proprietary platform for mining global patent and IP data into clear, decision-ready intelligence—with Citrin Cooperman Advisors’ Management Consulting practice, which advises middle-market and private equity-backed companies on strategy, growth, and exit readiness.
Together, the firms will help clients develop IP strategies that are built into overall business and growth planning from the outset, rather than treated as a separate legal exercise late in a company’s lifecycle.
“Clients increasingly need to understand not only whether they own and protect their IP, but how that IP supports their competitive position and long-term business strategy,” Jonathan Hughes, managing partner of management consulting for Citrin Cooperman Advisors, said in a statement. “This alliance gives us another way to help management teams and investors connect those questions and make better-informed decisions across growth and transactions.”
Too often, IP strategy and business strategy are developed on separate tracks, and IP due diligence stops at confirming ownership and status—leaving significant commercial, competitive, and valuation opportunities and risks unaddressed.
The alliance helps to close this gap in two ways:
- IP-integrated growth strategy: Helping companies align decisions around IP—what to file, when, how to protect it, and how to monetize it—with their broader growth strategy, competitive positioning, and eventual exit plans.
- Integrated IP and commercial due diligence: Combining Best LuminEdge’s IP and competitive intelligence with Citrin Cooperman Advisors’ commercial and operational due diligence to provide private equity funds and acquirers a single, integrated view of a target’s IP position. The capabilities are particularly relevant for IP-intensive sectors including life sciences, technology, and manufacturing.
“Traditional IP diligence often answers important legal questions, but investors and management teams also need to understand what an IP portfolio says about a company’s market position, competitors and future opportunities,” Christopher Austin, intellectual property co-chair and equity partner at Michael Best, said in a statement. “Combining Best LuminEdge intelligence with Citrin Cooperman’s business and transaction expertise allows clients to put that information into a broader commercial context.”
The alliance is effective immediately, with joint engagement teams available to mid-market companies and private equity sponsors across the U.S.
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