Jack Shepherd, Associate
My first impression of my new colleagues is perhaps best summed up by something I’ve uttered internally in more or less every meeting I’ve had so far– “wow, [insert name of any Carpmaels employee] really knows their stuff!”. I actually can’t think of anyone in the firm, from technical assistant to partner, whom this doesn’t apply to. Learning and development at all stages of your career appears central to the Carpmaels ethos. It was the main reason I wanted to move here as a newly-qualified attorney, and the firm certainly hasn’t disappointed.
This often takes the form of regular seminars and legal updates. However, in more day to day life it happens through being able to work closely with your colleagues, often in larger teams, in order to get the best result for the client. You learn a great deal as a result of this process, and I certainly have in the small number of weeks I’ve been here.
Before moving to Carpmaels, something I hadn’t yet experienced in my career was working in a team larger than simply you and the partner or senior associate overseeing the case. In this regard, my first substantive piece of work was on a complex opposition involving far too many documents for two people alone! I was quickly introduced to a technical assistant, who knew a great deal more about the underlying technology than I could ever aspire to. However, it was good fun exchanging legal and technical ideas. In a few days we were holding impromptu brainstorming sessions, in which we tried our best to understand a few ambiguous conclusions made by the authors of a prior art document. We never quite got to the bottom of some rather odd data. However, with the oversight of the senior associate in charge of the case, we were able to get a draft out which led to a happy client.
Even on more routine patent prosecution work, the extent to which one gets to work closely with more senior colleagues is enviable. People have been more than happy to make time to answer my queries, ranging from more mundane procedures-related queries, to in-depth discussions of case law. All in all, everyone in my new firm has proven friendly, helpful, and generally spectacular at their job!
