It's hard to tell what's going on with the recent trend of attorneys leaving firm partnerships to join similar concerns or strike out on their own. Regardless of why, we can now add Richard Sanders and Tara Mooney Aaron to the list.

On July 1, the Aaron & Sanders law firm will open offices at 2400 Crestmoor Ave. in the heart of Green Hills. The firm will focus entirely on technology and Internet law.

Sanders is a former partner at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis. His expertise is technology, intellectual property and Internet law, specifically the practice of defamation and privacy law and related subsections. Aaron is a former member of the intellectual property and technology service practice group at Stites & Harbison, where she concentrated on copyright, trademark and transactional matters related to software, technology, music and intellectual property issues.

"We believe the technology community in Nashville is growing slowly, yet steadily and imperceptibly," Sanders said.

Aaron and Sanders’ decision comes on the heels of several others who’ve left large law firms recently. In April, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings hired former Waller Lansden partner Brett R. Carter, and Paul Hayes and Paul Gontarek left Waller Lansden to join local estate planning firm Howard & Mobley. In January, Bradley Arant recruited veteran litigator and Waller Lansden partner Lela Hollabaugh.

Sanders, a Silicon Valley native, attended the University of California, Berkley, and graduated from Vanderbilt's law school in 2000. Prior to joining larger Waller Lansden, he learned about the operations of small firms while working with divorce attorney Mary Frances Lyle during the summer of his second year at Vanderbilt.

"That was a really good experience for me to get to see the inner workings of a small firm," Sanders said. "Although I decided not to pursue divorce law, I learned a lot about the day-to-day running of a firm."

Aaron, also a Vanderbilt law grad, spent time in entertainment law before her practice morphed into technology law. "Online streaming, internet distribution of music and licensing, are all part of both the entertainment and technology law fields," she said.

The two said they're not worried about landing clients. Sanders pointed to several technology companies in Nashville, such as Emma, Horton Group and Centresource as examples of the city's blossoming technology industry.

"These companies are all content providers and I think represent the future of technology growth here," Sanders said.