Rachel Krevans of Morrison & Foerster. HANDOUT.

Rachel Krevans, the former head of Morrison & Foerster's intellectual property practice who helped lead Apple's ferocious smartphone IP war with Samsung, died Wednesday of cancer at age 60.

She was brilliant, she was funny, she was interesting, she was passionate, she was compassionate, said Morrison & Foerster chairman Larren Nashelsky. She took her work seriously, but she didn't take herself too seriously, and that's what we all strive to do.

Krevans spent most of her three-decade career at Morrison & Foerster, starting in 1985, when she joined fresh from a clerkship for Judge Robert Boochever of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Morrison & Foerster senior counsel James Brosnahan, who worked closely with her, said she began in the firm's tax department and made herself into a patent law expert after transferring to the litigation side.

In addition to leading the firm's IP litigation practice, she had been co-chair of its global IP group and served on its executive committee.

Brosnahan described Krevans as a commanding presence in both the conference room and the courtroom.

If you were going to be cross-examined by her, you might as well give up and settle the case, he said. She would have stayed up all night, she would have mastered the file, she would know what you did wrong in grade school, and she knew how to ask the most withering questions.

But in her personal life, Krevans was warm and approachable, Brosnahan said. She hosted a gathering for summer associates and partners every year, including 2017.

She was also able to win over juries in complex patent fights.

In addition to a billion-dollar jury win Krevans and two other Morrison & Foerster partners scored for Apple, she achieved a rare defense jury verdict in the Eastern District of Texas for the satellite communications company EchoStar, led the pharmaceutical company Sandoz Inc. to a favorable outcome at the Federal Circuit, and just two months ago won a unanimous jury verdict for the University of California, Davis in a patent case involving two of the university's former strawberry breeders.

She told The Recorder in 2016 that helping clear Sandoz to begin marketing its biosimilar version of Amgen Inc.'s Neupogen treatment for cancer patients was particularly significant for her because of her own health situation.

I think it would add a personal dimension probably for most lawyers, she said. This is about life-saving things. When you actually have cancer and you know what these kinds of things cost every two weeks I go in for an infusion and when I get the bill I think, 'Thank god I have good health insurance.'

Bill Lee of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr said he liked Krevans from the moment the two lawyers from competing firms teamed up to represent Apple in its second and third jury trials against Samsung. As he got to know her better, she also became someone he trusted deeply, he said.

I feel as if she had been one of my partners, Lee said. She had this wonderful, wonderful voice that was both dominating and soothing. She went right to the heart of issues.

In an era when powerful female trial lawyers were relatively uncommon, Brosnahan said, Krevans was quite comfortable with that concept. She founded Morrison & Foerster's diversity strategy committee and served on the law firm advisory board of ChIPs, a nonprofit that aims to help advance the careers of female technology lawyers.

In a 2014 Q&A with The Recorder, she said her advice to a woman starting out in the practice would be: Never be afraid, whether you know the technology at the start of the case or not. You can learn what you need to know, and the most important thing to your client will be your good judgment and your ability to make the client confident that you will solve their problems.

In the same interview, the self-identified road warrior named the two houses she had designed and the gardens she had built for them as her biggest accomplishment outside of work. She split her time between Inverness, California, and Bar Harbor, Maine, where she had spent summers with her family as a young girl, Nashelsky said, and she loved being outdoors.

Lee recalled that she was also a huge San Francisco Giants fan.

She was a great lawyer, she was a better trial lawyer and she was a better friend, Lee said.

Krevans is survived by her mother, four siblings and her seven nieces and nephews.

Rebecca Cohen covers the business of law from the West Coast. Contact her at rcohen2@alm.com. On Twitter: rebeccatcohen