Beyond Support: Client lead paralegals and superior client care

Picture the most important communication you’ve ever sent. You could have been applying for a job. Perhaps you were pouring your heart out to the one that got away. Maybe you were providing urgent instructions to respond to an office action. Whatever the situation, I think your easy rest likely depended on the knowledge that your message – sent by email, letter, carrier pigeon, etc. – was going to find its way into the right pair of hands.

The importance of clear, accurate communication lay heavy during my first few months with EIP. My IP Assistant post seemed to carry a lot more responsibility than my previous roles: scanning with a smile on supermarket tills or taking (mostly) disgruntled calls alongside hundreds of other agents, all of us stretching across rows and rows of desks overlooking Cardiff Central station. That said, those roles also involved a degree of attention and precision, so perhaps I just knew from the off that I liked EIP a lot more and thus wanted to prove myself as right for the role. I can recall the jolt of nerves when sending emails to internal and external clients, even once they’d (of course) been checked over by somebody much more qualified. Research should be undertaken on the thoughts that cross your mind during these moments: are there any spelling mistakes? Have I attached the wrong communication? What if I’ve accidentally written and inserted a haiku, alongside the request for client instructions?

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It is with thanks to the excellent guidance of mentors and colleagues that, four years later, I am a Client Lead Paralegal for two of our large clients. Maybe I’m feeling sentimental; maybe it’s progress review period. Either way, when reflecting on how I felt at the very beginning of my career in IP, I am struck by the difference in terms of how confident and knowledgeable I now feel, as well as how much I enjoy the responsibility that accompanies being the primary liaison for said clients and our associated paralegal teams. While the above spell of navel gazing describes a personal journey, it also maps the growth of EIP more broadly, particularly in terms of how the paralegal role is positioned within that development. From the moment I started working here, I heard my new colleagues talk about the people being one of the reasons that make EIP a great place to be. It’s a bit of a cliché; the people on my team at the call centre made the job bearable (just). However, clichés are so because they are grounded in something like truth, and four years on I can confirm that the people that make up EIP really are something. And I’m not just talking about some of the (Olympian? Other-worldly?) bowling stances thrown or karaoke numbers belted at staff socials. No, what strikes me is the care, diligence and genuine passion that I witness all around me, across departments, fields and areas of expertise. The paralegal team is no exception.

The introduction of the Client Lead Paralegal indicates EIP’s recognition of the shifting role of paralegals and how our skillsets situate us beyond the realms of ‘support’ or secretarial work. (On a slight and yet related tangent, the title ‘secretary’ always makes me think of the TV series Mad Men. While there is something enviable in the heady glamour shrouding that series, the gender politics (to say the least) are not desirable in the slightest. Also, someone gets run over by a lawnmower in the office. That part is very much unrelated to ‘support’ staff but does reinforce the point that some things are better left in the past.) All of that said, a change in the title or description of a role itself does not necessarily entail a change in the culture or attitudes wrapped up in that role. Our head of Client Services, Lucie Jones, has been instrumental in raising the profile of paralegals both within her role at EIP and as chair of the CIPA Paralegal Committee. Her background as an IP paralegal no doubt propels her ethos regarding paralegals as intelligent, resourceful and strategically minded individuals. While the above could always have been said about EIP’s paralegals and the profession as a whole, Lucie’s leadership has shone a light on the fact that ‘support’ is a reductive way of framing the work that we do. This prior situation of paralegals, perhaps inevitably, also fails to utilise the skills at play across a given team. If we are not viewed as capable, we will not be treated as such.

There is a tendency to view personal development – the accumulation of knowledge, confidence and experience – as a solo process, however I think that confidence in particular is grown and refracted through interactions with colleagues and the trust that they bestow upon you to do a good job. With confidence comes the ability to jump into a new task or responsibility. When that task is completed well, overcoming challenges and new information along the way, you gain knowledge, experience, and even more confidence. The development of the Client Lead Paralegal role inspires that first burst of confidence, which itself stems from trust – the belief that we can handle difficult and time-sensitive queries and tasks, and can be relied to complete them autonomously. I can remember, at university, sitting across from my undergraduate dissertation supervisor as she said a sentence that has stuck with me throughout my writing and working life since: you take your work seriously and you take yourself seriously. That maxim is applicable here, too. Being taken seriously and trusted to take on complex matters and communicate with clients directly prompts you to take yourself even more seriously. In other words, if you’re given a lot of responsibility, you inevitably become more responsible, more diligent, and pay more attention to detail.

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Crucially, therefore, the introduction of the Client Lead Paralegal is a leap towards improving EIP’s already excellent client care. To return to my opening reverie – all those emails, Teams messages, love notes flying about into the ether – it is much more reassuring to know that administrative and process-related requests are going to one key point of contact. And this contact isn’t an anonymous person behind a desk. No, the Client Lead Paralegal concerns themselves with being an expert about their client. I look at the team around me and know that we are more than safety nets; we are specialists. We inspire and curate efficiency and consistency, and we have high standards. From creating tailored weekly reports and coordinating key documentation to building bespoke, time-sensitive reporting around specified needs, we know our client processes so well, that we are always looking to find ways to improve, making their lives easier and their patent portfolios outstanding.

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Here’s to taking the work seriously and taking ourselves seriously.