Loeb & Loeb puts on new suit with its fashion group: firm hopes to better serve clients such as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan.

THE law firm Loeb & Loeb LLP announced last week the formation of a practice group focused specifically on the apparel and luxury goods industries.

The firm hopes the section, which is called the Fashion and Luxury Brand Industry Group, will allow it to better serve clients such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and True Religion Brand Jeans while also better positioning itself to solicit work from other apparel and luxury brand companies.

The industry-specific practice group will be made up of Loeb & Loeb attorneys in New York and Los Angeles who are familiar with transactional matters, intellectual property litigation and other areas of legal expertise commonly used by apparel and luxury goods companies.

"The high-end brand and fashion apparel business is an industry where there are obvious synergies across many practice areas." said John Frankenheimer. chairman of the Los Angeles-based firm. "The aim is to find places where we can serve clients across a multitude of needs, whether it is branding, licensing, intellectual property protection. corporate work or finance."

This sort of interdisciplinary practice group is not new to the legal profession. Industry targeted practice groups that focus on hospitality, advertising and entertainment, among others, are commonplace at national and regional law firms.

Law firms have even found it beneficial to form interdisciplinary groups that focus on entire countries or regions of the world such as Israel, France and Latin America.

Loeb's decision to set up an apparel practice follows a similar move by Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, which formed a fashion and apparel group last year.

James Williams, the Loeb & Loeb partner who will head the fashion and luxury brand industry group, said the industry's "tremendous growth" in part prompted the firm to establish the group.