Rachel Elizabeth Hay

I'll research this attorney before drafting the summary.

Let me dig deeper into her firm bio and the tracked case.

Let me check the case outcome, her IPR experience, and the trial result mentioned.

Rachel Elizabeth Hay — Corr Cronin LLP (Seattle, WA)

Specialty / focus areas. Hay is a commercial litigator, not a specialist patent practitioner. Corr Cronin's own bio describes her practice as spanning "all aspects of civil commercial litigation," with emphasis on complex tort, constitutional, and regulatory matters; her Best Lawyers "Ones to Watch" (2026) recognition is in Commercial Litigation. The sole patent matter in which she is tracked, Starbucks Corp. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd., concerns software and cloud-infrastructure subject matter — the patents at issue were asserted against use of open-source platforms (Apache Kafka, Hadoop, Cassandra, HBase, RocksDB) and cloud hosting (AWS, Azure), i.e., computer architecture/software rather than Wi-Fi standards, pharma, or mechanical arts. Nothing in the public record shows a technical degree, USPTO registration, or patent-prosecution background; that should be treated as unverified rather than assumed either way.

Side preference. The tracked data (0 plaintiff-side, 1 defendant-side) is too thin to establish any real side preference — it reflects a single matter, not a pattern. One nuance worth flagging: in that case the "defendant" caption is a technicality of posture. Starbucks filed the action as a declaratory-judgment/anti-troll suit, so Hay's clients, Valtrus Innovations Ltd. and Key Patent Innovations Ltd., were the patent-owner side resisting a challenge by an operating company. Her role was Local Counsel, meaning she supported out-of-state lead counsel (PHV counsel from elsewhere) on Washington practice and filings rather than directing strategy.

Firm context. Hay is a litigation associate at Corr Cronin LLP, a Seattle boutique trial firm founded in 1999 that handles commercial litigation, IP disputes, product liability, and professional liability defense. Before joining the firm she was a judicial law clerk — for the Hon. Thomas O. Rice (U.S. District Court, E.D. Wash.) and the Hon. Laurel H. Siddoway (Washington Court of Appeals, Div. III) — and earlier a judicial extern for the Hon. Robert S. Lasnik (W.D. Wash.). No prior law-firm employment is indicated; she does not appear to be in-house.

Notable cases, PTAB, bar/education. The only tracked patent matter is Starbucks Corp. v. Valtrus Innovations Ltd., No. 2:25-cv-01859 (W.D. Wash.), which raised patent-misuse/UPEPA issues and drew parallel IPR activity involving Valtrus's patents (the IPR petitions were filed by others; the record does not show Hay participating in any PTAB proceeding, and I found no IPR/PGR appearances under her name). Hay entered a notice of withdrawal of counsel on January 21, 2026, so she is not counsel of record in that case; the litigation was subsequently terminated/stayed, and I could not verify a substantive outcome attributable to her. She was also a member of the Corr Cronin trial team that secured a 2025 trial victory for AHP Servicing — a commercial matter, not patent. Bar/education: admitted in Washington (2022); J.D. with Honors, University of Washington School of Law (2022); B.A. magna cum laude, Western Washington University; no other bar admissions found. (Note: the docket also names "Rachael D. Lamkin" as Starbucks's counsel — a different attorney, not to be confused with Hay.)