Career insights

 

Lileth Rees

Associate

Ben Chapman

Senior Associate

Natasha Christian

Associate

Ismaeel Karmani

Associate

A typical working day

A typical working day for Harry, a Technical Assistant in the Chemistry team.

Check incoming emails from overnight, review my e-pigeonhole for new communications and check my prompts list for upcoming deadlines. Make a plan for what I want to get done for the day.


Catch up with colleagues at the coffee area as they arrive into the office.

Do some smaller reporting tasks, such as preparing reporting letters, responding to local attorneys in other jurisdictions, and uploading documents for filing at the EPO.


Our weekly catch-up call with our client. We’ll discuss their outstanding deadlines, any ongoing projects, exciting new projects and work coming up, and discuss any questions outstanding from the week’s correspondence.

Meet other trainees in the top floor café (or on the roof terrace if the weather is nice) to have lunch and chat, followed by another all-important coffee.


Read the most recent email from my SMF (Social Mobility Foundation) e-mentee, and reply with my advice on preparing a personal statement, university applications and the professional world.


Prepare a draft response to a communication from a patent office. This will involve reviewing the objections in the communication, the patent application, and some prior art citations, then preparing amended claims and a letter to the patent office responding to the objections. We’ll also need to explain to our client what we have done and why.

Meet with a supervisor to review some work from a previous day, and hopefully get it sent out to the client. Some more work might be required though!


Send my billing instructions to the accounts team, just in the nick of time.


Finish off any outstanding tasks for the day, and prepare to head off home.

Perhaps via the pub.

Diversity & inclusion

We value the contribution of every member of the firm and recognise that diversity of thought is vital to our business, enabling us to approach challenges differently and offer our clients creative and original solutions. Because of this, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves.

We have implemented several initiatives to promote diversity in our recruitment. We recently hosted an open day for Black Heritage students, in partnership with Sanctuary Graduates.

We recognise that everyone has different commitments outside of work such as family or caring responsibilities, and we are very supportive of agile working as a way of promoting workplace equality and inclusivity. Learn more about our approach to Diversity & Inclusion and Corporate Social Responsibility.

 

The application process

Our annual trainee recruitment cycle takes place between July and December each year, with a start date of the following autumn.

Apply now