I have some news to share with you all.
After many years I'm leaving Freeth Cartwright LLP and IMPACT to take up a new role as head of IP & disputes within the in-house legal team at Experian. The company has been a client of the firm's with which I have worked very closely for over 13 years and it will be great to have the chance to develop things from a different perspective.
I leave here at the end of October and I'm having a couple of weeks off before starting my new role in the middle of November. Now that the end of the month is rapidly approaching, and I'm using up the last odd days of holiday, it feels like the last few weeks have just disappeared and it seems strange to be leaving the firm after so long. I started as a summer placement student in 1990 before my solicitor's exams and started as a trainee proper in 1991.
It has been a great place to work and I've loved being the person who wanted to do IP when the firm was so much smaller (I think that there were only about 13 or 14 partners when I started and now we have 70-ish) and ending up being the person that has been partner in charge of a great team of IP & IT lawyers working for a brilliant range of clients and doing a wide range of types of work.
When I was a trainee I wanted to get some experience of doing IP work and I was lucky enough that the firm secured me a secondment to the IP team at Lovells in London for part of my training. I shall always be grateful to David Latham at Lovells for the time that I spend working with him way back then (my son was only a few months old and he's off to university next year!).
I've become expert at some strange topics during my time here, including slurry separators (Farmers Build -v- Carrier) and mortuary equipment. I've also been grateful to the support and encouragement of my partners that has let me develop this area of practice and to be able to indulge my interest in how IT shapes the ways lawyers practice. Starting this blog has been fascinating and enjoyable experience and once I've settled into my new role I suspect I'll be starting up a new one of my own.
One of the nice things about having been at one firm for a long time is that can build up stronger relationships with clients and colleagues. I love it when you can get to have some banter with clients and this is an example of a gem of an email that I got from one client when I told him my news that reflects this sort of thing:
"Sorry to hear that they've finally booted you out, but you had a good run, and we all know that you got away with it for a lot longer than you expected"
Anyway, I'd better wrap this post up now. If you want to find my contact details in the future then keep an eye on my page on LinkedIn because I'll be updating that as soon as I've started at Experian.
Finally, I'd like to thank all our readers and everyone else out there in the blogosphere for the encouragement and support that you've all given to this blog. There are too many to list you all - and I didn't want to this to turn into any more of a "luvvies.." speech than it already has done.
Cheers,
PS - if you are in Nottingham on Friday, 26 October then I'm having a leaving bash at Via Fosse in the upstairs bar that overlooks the canal from 8pm - pop in and have a pint.
We'll be sorry to see you go! (Of course, we'll slag you off on the blog after you've left)
As you know, the offer of being a guest blogger for IMPACT is there.
Posted by: Alex | 24 October 2007 at 03:25 PM