One of the best things about working at Mewburn Ellis is being able to work with such a variety of different people in different business areas.
As you will no doubt have noticed there are a reasonably large number of patent and trade mark firms out there. So how can you choose between them, and why might you think of working for us?
We are one of the larger firms with four offices spread around the UK and a fifth in Munich with over 330 people in total. We have grown to this size relatively rapidly from beginning as a small family firm.
During this growth we have been careful to avoid losing the collaborative atmosphere and friendly feel that is often found in smaller firms. We believe that we have managed to achieve this growth without introducing an impersonal corporate feel to the firm.
Part of our success in this area is down to our commitment to our training of new Attorneys as they enter into the profession, in fact over 70% of the Partners here were trained at Mewburn Ellis. This has led to a relaxed, informal environment and a true sense that everyone can contribute to the success of the firm in some way.
The firm has also invested heavily in modern infrastructure, particularly in office IT, and run paperless files for all of our work. This helps us to provide a fast efficient service for our clients and keeps the firm ahead of many others in this respect.
We are well recognised in the industry for our commitment to training new Attorneys, for our success in helping people through to qualification and for the quality of the work we do. We typically recruit 12 new Trainees each year across all technical backgrounds, which is a relatively large number for firms across the profession.
This means that our Trainees have a strong peer group and they can support and learn from each other during their training. The large numbers of Trainees here benefit from our well-established training programme that is designed to supplement their day-to-day training with a series of in-house tutorials. These tutorials are given by Partners or senior associates in the firm and provide invaluable assistance in preparation for qualifying exams and also training in other more commercial aspects of the job.
Our unique office rotation scheme during training means that our Trainees benefit from working directly with different Partners in the firm and in different locations. This provides two distinct benefits.
First, it allows the Trainee to experience different ways of working and with a variety of different types of client and to adopt the practices that work best for them.
By doing this, our Trainees can develop their own personal way of working without feeling obliged to adopt the practices of a single training Partner or mentor.
The second benefit is that working in a few different offices before settling down in one location keeps the firm feeling unified which can be a challenge for a multi- office business.
From day one, our Trainees are placed in the same office as their mentor (not the case in all firms) which might sound daunting, but actually allows you to pick up good practices just by listening and being directly involved with the work that your mentor is doing.
This also helps to lower any perceived barriers between Partners and Trainees in the firm which has real benefits in terms of the training experience. It also provides a more interesting and intellectually challenging environment for the Partners doing the training.
At Mewburn Ellis, the work you do as a Trainees is sent out to clients in your own name from the outset, this encourages ownership from day one but don’t worry! This is after discussion and checking with your mentor.
While this may sound trivial, it does not happen in all firms. We think that it is important that our Trainees have the opportunity to interact directly with our clients at an early stage so that they develop the important client care and business interaction skills that they will need when they qualify and are working more independently. This also means that our Trainees take responsibility for their work and feel directly involved in each case that they handle.
In terms of career progression, the partnership here continues to grow, and we still recruit people who we think have the capacity to eventually become a Partner in the firm. At Mewburn Ellis there is a relatively fast route into the partnership following qualification if that is something that interests you.
Where possible we try to arrange for our Attorneys to have the opportunity to spend a period of two to three months working in a foreign patent or trade mark firm with the aim of learning more about the law in that country and developing close contacts with the firm. This is typically arranged shortly after qualification. Recent placements have been in the US, Japan, Korea, and China.
