We offer a supportive and sociable team-based working environment that provides you with everything from exceptional training to an opportunity to work with a diverse range of clients.
A typical working day for Harry, an Associate in the Chemistry Team.
8.30am - Arrive at work
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.
9.00am - Coffee
Catch up with colleagues at the coffee area as they arrive into the office.
9:30am - Reporting/quick tasks
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.
11:00am - Call with client
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.
Midday - Lunch
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.
1:00pm - SMF e-mentoring
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.
1:30pm - Draft response
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.
4:00pm - Meeting with supervisor
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!
4:55pm - Billing
Send my billing instructions to the accounts team, just in the nick of time.
5:00pm - Final tasks
Finish off any outstanding tasks for the day, and prepare to head off home.
6:00pm - Head home
Perhaps via the pub.
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 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. We are constantly looking to improve this while maintaining our much valued Carpmaels culture of collaboration and originality.
We believe that the steps we are taking will ensure that Carpmaels & Ransford continues to be a supportive and healthy workplace for our employees.
