How Patent Attorneys Start their Career at HLK (1)

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How Patent Attorneys Start their Career at HLK
3rd March 2021 By Natalie Owen, HR Advisor
At HLK we employ a variety of roles that are well
known to college leavers and university
graduates everything from solicitors to
marketing executives, administrative assistants
to trademark attorneys. We wanted to shine a
light on how HLK support the transition from
graduate to trainee attorney, and what it looks
like at the beginning of a career that is
generally less well known a career as a patent
attorney. This is a specialised legal
profession, qualified to advise clients on
patents and help them secure patents around the
world. At HLK we firmly believe that being the
best firm that we can be is only achievable when
everyone in every role feels valued, integrated,
and motivated to perform at their highest
possible level. For us, this is a business
imperative! We recruit talented, committed
people who care about service quality and help us
build great client relationships. As an IP firm
we are invested in the careers of our
attorneys. Every year a cohort of trainee
attorneys start their IP career with us we
commit to ensuring that those who drive progress
have their creativity protected and talent
rewarded. We recruit graduates from across the
country who are enthusiastic, with their
academic backgrounds in science and technology.
Year on year we receive more and more
applications for the roles of trainee patent
attorneys, and yet it is a career path still
unknown to many students so wanted to provide
insight into and promote an amazing career as a
patent attorney at HLK! Training is the first
step and can last upwards of 4 years. Luckily for
us, at HLK training is in our DNA. In the 1860s,
our original founders, Haseltine and Lake,
believed in training and they trained the next
generation of patent attorneys, many of whom went
on to be at the forefront of the patent
profession. We have continued this tradition of
training, launching our Academy in 2013 an
in-house training school set up to support the
early stages of patent training. This is the
foundation from which our trainees kick- start
their career and we receive great feedback.
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Theres a real focus on training here, which
means that the focus for trainees is on
developing your skills so that youll become a
better attorney, rather than on billing time and
simply passing exams. There is a really
supportive and collaborative atmosphere at the
firm, and everyone is happy to help and answer
questions. However, the support and mentorship
continue long after trainees graduate from the
Academy. We host follow-on programmes, providing
trainees with the opportunity to consolidate
core skills and consider some challenging new IP
issues in greater depth. We have found that this
approach yields great results for our trainees in
their exams to become qualified attorneys in the
UK and Europe.