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I'm Sarah Webb and I am a partner in a law practice I specialize in commercial contract work with particular expertise the intellectual property I did enjoy school I think a Joyce Cohen type grown up I think growing up was quite tricky study of teenagers and his boys and alcohol and couldn't really say so I was very distracted with all of that but I was hard work I was found maths quite easy and enjoyed maths I went very quickly at math I also enjoyed languages probably geared more towards the science side and then my a-levels I did showing applied math and biology and then English I largely chosen because their subjects I enjoyed well that any focus on a career at all and the ones I flipped thought I could get the best results I started in law largely because a very old friend of mine just have to be around for the weekend and I was doing my yoga for and I've got maths maths on there I wanted to be a math teacher and I enjoyed maths affair laughs easy he said oh I don't know I want to do that and he was already doing a law degree in that all I think actually you'd be good at the law you've got the same analytical skills that you need further maths and you're quick and you're bright and and you might I think it'll probably enjoy it so I literally tippex at the akka forum and changed it to law they start doing one or degree and then follow the traditional route and straight through to law college and then was lucky enough to get training contracts or articles of the where in those days when I first qualified I startups commercial litigator because that was the area of law that interested in most certainly in the early 90s when I qualified it was much more generalist so you had a rewrite mixed bag contract disputes intellectual property disputes a little bit of personal injury work and a debt collection and corporate warranty claims music forward I could see that the legal market was changing and I recognized it was a need to specialize in something I did a further qualification in intellectual property which was one of the subjects that I've really enjoyed at university also my background was on the maths and science side so the analytical sciences side of my brain personally was attracted to that I enjoyed it and I found it and thought it's doing intellectually stimulating are then moved firms after about them some 15 14 15 years at one practice which was quite a long stint and certainly now I'd be very long stint to say stay somewhere to another big city firms that specialize in such property while I was there there was an opportunity during a lull in when my court cases to do us a comment in the business development team so I did that and that's one of the things I think whilst it was pretty gruesome to start with because it was a massive learning curve I learned a lot from that I learned a lot from uvd and then moved across to another small practice was there ten years Anish practice which specialized in third sector as a charity work and public sector work and commercial work and a business team I went and I headed the business law team and then after a few years I was then running the governance and commercial department more recently I've just joined this patch that where I am now and I've been here six months and back into the client works I'm really enjoying commercial commercial contract work and internship property so legal qualification and I don't really I went down the traditional route but I certainly think these days a lot of my assistants I've had are history graduates or biotech graduates or English graduates and so not sort necessary but obviously you need to do the conversion and then you need to you need to and secure a training contract which is quite challenging in relation to intellectual property I would really recommend a further qualification in that because it's it's highly technical and I think attempting to advise on it without knowing your way around the legislations why should you learn a bit at university you only touch the surface I think so certainly I'd recommend I'd recommend that the intellectual property world has a number of professional bodies but they tend to be their trademark ages and patent agents as well as other super which is charged into Institute of patent agents and they do have nominated associates who are non patent agents so certainly I think an accreditation or recommendation to them is worthwhile looking into but probably more than that I think is securing repeat work and recommendations and referrals from existing trademark agent patent agents because actually in practice that works more effectively than any label if I start you have to have a high energy certainly these days it's hard work and hard graft and tenacity this is all personality traits roles and skills actually analytical skills for sure the ability to analyze and sift out the relevant facts that are then fit into the law that you need to apply strong communication skills the ability to influence I think I think is it a certain certainly more so now than when we were able to hide behind the law books a degree of emotional intelligence because the young business is coming through that we're going to advising or they're quick thinkers they're intuitive and I think it's much more important that you understand them and understand how the operation and working with with these young businesses coming through is not something they don't just want the standard a law letter the standard overlord advice so nimble on your feet ability to spot detail I think an IP detail and I think I think I said this before I think probably a sense of humours required is so because it's graft it's a real graft the business acumen is a big one these days so I am genuinely passionate about clients businesses I enjoy I I really do enjoy learning how the businesses are run and how they're financed and how how they're managed and I think that is something that most lawyers should certain senior noisy's they should be taking an interest in well they need to it's absolutely fundamental so of course it's changed over the years certainly when I started out it was much slower so the post would come in there were no computers and therefore if you wind back what you'd be doing effectively a client would come to you with a problem and say for example a contract dispute where one of the terms have been has been breached and you received a contract you'd review it to advise the client so by comparison these days what will happen as an emails gets winged over to you they they have a contract one speak to in the next half an hour and so I think you have to have the ability to think more quickly you have to have the ability to be less you don't always need to go over the top you need to know the law quickly enough so such that you can just apply it quickly to the facts you need to know what questions to ask we need to have an ability to hold the confidence of a client on a daily basis you're reading your emails you're talking to clients you're managing meetings and you're looking at auction business develop so invariably the REIT there'll be something in the
Thanks for your comment Danae Peerzada, have a nice day.
- Nilsa Okuna, Staff Member
hey everyone welcome to JD careersoutthere where we bring you career advice from fellow lawyers and non-practicing lawyers to help you find a pet that excites you and achieve success and happiness in your career I'm Marc Luber and today we're exploring careers in intellectual property law we're talking to Michael Keller who's an intellectual property partner at Neal Gerber and Eisenberg in Chicago here's a little look at our discussion where he tells us what an intellectual property lawyer does well I'm an intellectual property lawyer and what that means is I basically help people protect their ideas their inventions and their identity help them protect them against competitors and establish themselves in the market place so then are you doing both trademark work and patent work I am actually I'm fortunate enough as an IP lawyer to have a pretty broad practice so I practice in patents trademarks copyrights rights of publicity and I also crossover in both litigation transactional and counseling so I have a pretty dynamic and broad practice area which keeps things fun yeah sure you can't get bored for juggling all that that's great um what's the coolest part about this I would think that the greatest thing is that you're helping people with new creative ideas and bringing them to life and protecting those is that right that's exactly right I mean I started out in schooling as an engineer and decided I wanted to do something more in business and this career has really allowed me to do that because I get to be on kind of the inside with companies helping learn their new innovations figuring out their marketing strategies figure it out where they're going with their products and then how to protect them how to protect their identity their brands and so I'm kind of on the forefront of what companies are coming out with and what they're doing and it keeps things exciting and get to the first peak if you're on the patent side particularly or on the trademark side where you're you're trying to gain protection before somebody goes to market and so you kind of get the inside scoop before the public does often that's exciting it like that all right you can watch a full episode of Michael and I going more in-depth into years practicing IP law at jdcareersoutthere.com Michael's going to tell us more about what he does how you can do it how you can break in and how to succeed once you're there you could take a shortcut to the site by going to jdcot.com 10th filled with great advice thanks again for watching everybody I'm Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you again soon take care you
Thanks Hugh your participation is very much appreciated
- Nilsa Okuna
About the author
I've studied sociology of globalization at Marist College in Poughkeepsie and I am an expert in military education and training. I usually feel silly. My previous job was quality control inspector I held this position for 29 years, I love talking about dog walking and puppetry. Huge fan of Cole LaBrant I practice waterskiing and collect match-related items.
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