Womble Bond Dickinson's specialist, award-winning intellectual property team works with clients to protect, maximise and monetise their technology and intellectual property assets across a wide spectrum of industry sectors. The highly regarded team led by James Love, whose experience spans more than 30 years, has expertise across the full range of IP rights, and works on complex IP transactions as well as IP disputes. The team also advises on clearing, registering and maintaining trade marks and designs internationally.

The busy team, centred in Leeds, supports offices in 8 locations across Britain, and works with our team of over 150 qualified IP lawyers and patent agents in 23 offices across the USA.

We now have an opportunity for an IP solicitor to join the growing team. You will be working on all aspects of intellectual property – patents, trade marks, copyright, designs, passing off, database rights and confidential information – advising clients on both contentious and non-contentious matters. 

What does the ideal candidate look like?

We're looking for somebody with 5–7 years post qualified experience as a UK (England, Wales or Scotland) solicitor, working in IP law. The candidate should have experience with IP litigation and disputes across IP rights, as well as with drafting and negotiating IP agreements (such as assignments, licences, confidentiality agreements and research and development agreements). Experience with trade mark and design prosecution and maintenance is a bonus.

The ability to demonstrate a proactive attitude to work, commercial pragmatism, and a strong team ethos will be equally as important. Candidates should also be able to demonstrate skills in delegation and supervision at this level.

To be successful in this role, you'll need as a minimum:

• At least 5 years post qualification experience as a UK (England, Wales or Scotland) Solicitor.
• Experience in IP litigation and disputes.
• Experience in drafting and negotiating IP agreements.
• Experience with a firm with a strong IP reputation, or from a suitable in-house position.

What makes it great to work here?

We continually work hard to create an open culture that sets us apart from other firms. Our culture gives us much more of a human feel, emphasising that we're more than just suits!

As signatories to the Mindful Business Charter, it's important to us that our people are able to maintain healthy and happy lives, both in and out of work. We have a number of resources and initiatives designed to support health and wellbeing and we're very happy to talk flexible working, full-time or part-time working patterns.

Through our DEI initiatives we create an environment in which difference is valued. We have an Diversity Equity & Inclusion Group, led by our Board Sponsor, which works with our colleague networks (we currently have firm supported networks for race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage, LGBTQ+, disabilities, families, and women's career development and we're in constant dialogue with our people about how we expand our networks to better support everybody). Find out more about DEI at WBD here. We encourage applicants from all social backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are committed to ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible to all. If you have a disability or long term condition and need us to make any adjustments to give you the best possible recruitment process, please let us know by contacting the recruiter on the right hand side of this page. Please also let us know if you need this job advert or the application form in a different format.

We will offer an interview to candidates with a disability or long-term condition who meet the minimum criteria for this role. You can opt into this scheme within the application form. Your response to this question is only used for this purpose, is only visible to the recruitment team and is not used for data monitoring. 

We are an in-house recruitment team and will always aim to fill our roles directly in the first instance. If you're an agency, please click here for ways that you can work with us.