About James & Wells
Our Ethos
Overview
Intellectual property (IP) is a specialist field that deals with
highly valuable assets. IP specialists typically combine
years of tertiary study in such fields as science, commerce and
general law before choosing to specialise in IP law.
Many additional years of study and in-house training in a
specialist IP firm are required to acquire the skills needed to
become a registered patent attorney. James & Wells makes
an extensive investment in up-skilling its team of attorneys and
support staff, to ensure they are at the cutting edge of the global
IP industry.
There are three main reasons for this:
- Quality control
- Risk management
- Cultural fit
Quality control
Our training acumen is legendary and is reflected in James &
Wells employees receiving four of the top six New Zealand Institute
of Patent Attorneys (NZIPA) exam awards in 2010.
The firm's senior staff develop comprehensive and up-to-date
training manuals for each area of expertise, which form the basis
of innovative tutorials and course work.
Support staff are encouraged to attend tutorials and many have also
sat the patent attorney exams.
The firm has developed practice notes to cover every stage of
patent, design and trade mark filings for each country. Regular
information updates are prepared for clients.
To ensure a focus on training in a business context, what we call
'keeping it real', partners provide case study workshops showing
how we provided value for our clients. . Attorneys are
encouraged to join industry groups to keep in touch with issues in
their sector of expertise.
Each office also has attorney meetings (at least weekly) where we
discuss current cases.
And of course we all subscribe to international law updates as well
as maintain our network of associates who are experts in IP law in
their countries. Attending international conferences ensures
we are at the cutting edge of IP law - which assists when preparing
IP strategies for our exporter clients.
Risk management
Handling valuable assets is a serious responsibility. James
& Wells has a dedicated risk management partner who oversees
the firm's extensive internal systems which ensure client rights
are kept safe.
Every employee receives a three-day induction program which places
a strong emphasis on the need to protect clients' IP.
We have created reference manuals (all on our intranet) for each
job sector such as Renewals, International filings and
Secretarial.
We have triple bring-up systems to ensure crucial dates are not
missed. And files cannot be removed from our system unless
signed off by a senior associate or partner.
Every piece of work done by an unregistered attorney is reviewed by
a registered attorney - usually a partner.
Cultural fit
We want to work with people whose company we enjoy, who are
dedicated to our clients, have work ethics we admire and possess an
X-factor in terms of quality of work and attitude.
We value our staff having a balanced work/home life, and have
innovative approaches ensuring this is the case.
Winning the Legal Employer of Choice award in 2006 and 2010
indicates we are getting it right.