IP Associate

Our IP team is in growth mode and we are looking for an Associate (2-4 yr PQE) to join our team in London.

If you join us you will work closely with our Partners on top quality work handling a mixture of contentious and non-contentious IP matters, supporting clients throughout the lifecycle of their IP rights, whether in multi-jurisdictional dispute resolution or on complex IP agreements.

We can offer a positive and supportive environment for your career development and progression. We believe you should be honing your skills for communication and business development at the same time as your technical knowledge and we will provide you with opportunities to do both plus unrivalled levels of client contact. We operate a meritocracy and encourage conversations around your goals and aspirations so that your efforts and ambitions can be recognised and rewarded.

To be suited to this role you will already be a dedicated IP lawyer, with some exposure to contentious and non-contentious matters. You'll ideally have completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and Practice. Desirable experience includes: application of one or more of the intellectual property rights (patents, trade marks, designs, copyright or confidential information) with a desire to engage in all of the rights; pre-action correspondence; case management; witness evidence; expert evidence; trial; R&D and collaboration agreements, IP licences and assignments and IP due diligence. We particularly welcome applications from candidates with a STEM background or a strong interest in science and technology.

Our London office provides an ideal base for maximising the benefits of collaboration to deliver an excellent service for our clients. We also recognise the value of flexibility and being productive at home. At Shoosmiths we work on a hybrid basis and in this role you can expect a split between home and office.

We place a lot of belief in culture and community, and genuinely think we have something different to offer you at Shoosmiths. This is reflected in everything we say and do from our use of technology to enable effective cross-office working, to our team spirit and culture. We strive to create an inclusive and supportive work place where employees can be themselves at work. We are proud of our active employee networks, the establishment of our Shadow Board and initiatives such as reciprocal mentoring and inclusive leadership training to bring diverse perspectives and recommendations to our leadership team and the firm as a whole.

The team

Our national IP team includes lawyers in Birmingham, London and Manchester. The team is led by six Partners, with National Head of IP Andy Brennan based in Birmingham and Antony Craggs joining most recently in London. As well as specialist IP lawyers, the team also includes Trade Mark attorneys, who provide trade mark filing services to give our clients a one-stop shop for IP services from creation to enforcement.

The team's core areas are brands, technology and life sciences. Within these the team assists clients with the full range of IP rights including trade marks, patents, designs and copyright, as well as trade secrets and breach of confidence. They work with diverse clients from start-ups to multi-nationals across a variety of sectors including telecommunications and digital technologies, biotech and medtech, automotive, advanced manufacturing, retail and universities. Aside from the trade mark filing services, the rest of the team's work is split fairly equally between contentious IP work (involving pre-action resolution and litigation of the full range of IP rights including trade mark disputes, copyright and breach of confidences cases, and major high-tech patent litigation) and non-contentious IP work (including varied IP agreements and advice on wide-ranging issues).

Part of the Commercial Group, the IP team works alongside Privacy & Data, IT&Tech, Energy & Infrastructure, Financial Services and Commercial & Projects specialists. We are proud to have a number of leading practitioners in our teams. We are ranked in the directories for most of our practice areas.

The firm

We are a top 40 law firm with over 200 partners and around 1,500 staff in total. We have 13 locations in the UK and a significant international network including an office in Brussels. Our clients include some of the largest financial, automotive, and technology businesses in the UK.

We champion diversity and inclusion, and our mission is to attract and nurture a diverse group of people and to create an environment and culture that is genuinely inclusive, in which every member of staff feels valued for their contribution. We have been awarded Gold status in the Law Society Diversity and Inclusion Charter in recognition of our commitment to this. We were also the first major law firm to achieve "Gold Standard" Investors in People and most recently obtained the Platinum accreditation.

Shoosmiths is dedicated to protecting the environment by demonstrating high standards of responsibility in all its operations and preventing or mitigating the environmental impacts associated with our activities, products and services.

We are a values-driven business - our values are at the core of the firm and we evaluate how we behave in accordance with these values through a competency framework and a formal recognition scheme where we celebrate and reward examples of living and exceeding our values. This role is considered to be at competency Level 2 in our internal framework.