Day in the life of a trainee

Specialising in the Physics, Engineering, and IT team, Will gets exposure to interesting technological developments across a wide variety of fields.

9.00am

The first thing I do when I arrive to the office is sign myself in, grab a cup of coffee, and pick a desk to work at. Depending on how much work I have to do, I might choose to sit in a quieter area of the firm to make sure I can get my head down and concentrate.

9.15am

Next, I check my e-mails to see if anything new has come in that I need to diarise or arrange to speak to someone about today.

9.30am

Once that is done, I’ll check my notebook where I would have left some notes from the previous day of things I would like to get done, and start working through those tasks. Today, I am working on a response to a communication issued from a Patent office. I aim to book a meeting for the afternoon with the partner on the case, and work on a proposed course of action which I’ll present to them.

12.00pm

I sit in on a meeting with a partner of the firm and a prospective new client to go through the patent system and run through the next steps with them. This doesn’t happen often, but I enjoy getting a first hand experience of this process.

1.30pm

I attend the meeting that was scheduled earlier in the day to discuss the proposed course of action. After this meeting, I take the notes and start drafting a reporting email to the client, and an instructing email to foreign attorneys letting them know what we would like them to do to the application in light of the report we received, to be sent after confirmation from the client.

4.30pm

We received confirmation from a different client that they were happy with a final draft of a patent that I worked on. I haven’t done an official filing yet, so I sit with a colleague as the filing for this patent is prepared, and help with final checks.

5.00pm

Once that’s filed, I draft a quick reporting email to the client to inform them that this has happened; a more detailed email will follow in the next week. Because this came in, I didn’t finish everything I wanted to get done today. I’ll make a quick note of things I want to accomplish tomorrow and finish for the day.