Apple-Samsung Patent War Pits Two Legal Stars

As Apple and Samsung Electronics dig in for weeks of jostling in a federal courtroom, the contrasting personalities and tactics of their head lawyers are adding to the drama.

On one side is 65-year-old veteran Harold McElhinny, who represents Apple and came of age well before the dot-com boom. He has been involved in a number of high-stakes intellectual property cases, including Fujitsu's fight against International Business Machines in the 1990s and Pioneer's battle against Samsung's television subsidiary in the past decade. Defending Samsung is 49-year-old Charles Verhoeven, an Iowa native who is soft-spoken and intense. He gravitated to patent cases in the mid- 1990s as an associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, where he is a partner.