I had no intention of doing law. My father was a detective in the Scottish flying squad. I wanted to join the police.
I got a traineeship at Dundas & Wilson where I was the only female trainee. I was also one of the very few that hadn’t been to public school. People were nice but it did feel very odd.
In my first year as a trainee I had to accompany a partner to the New Club Ball, a posh private club in Edinburgh, which didn’t allow women full membership. I was sent to Dundas’ basement with a book called The Swinging Sporran and spent three days learning how to dance. Borrowed my mum’s long dress and off I went.
I was offered a position at Dundas & Wilson but Dickson Minto was just setting up and offered me more money. I was the only female lawyer working there and the youngest associate. The firm had a rule that women couldn’t wear trousers. I slept in the first morning and later discovered I had on two different blue shoes – one with a two inch heel and one with a three and half inch. I spent the whole day walking lopsided.
The Premier Brands management buyout from Cadbury Schweppes landed, but no one knew anything about IP so I was sent to London to learn about trade marks. I was three months’ qualified and brought a book – an introduction to trade mark law – and was to negotiate with Slaughter and May partners. Luckily for me they helped me through it.
Once I turned up at a meeting at Cadbury and there was this great long table with just me on one side, and the Cadbury Schweppes GC, the finance director, two Slaughters partners and a bunch of associates all on the other side. I was told to simply disagree with everything they said. No idea why. I just said: ‘We are not accepting that, it’s iniquitous.’ Every time I think of that moment I go bright red.
I vowed I would never move to London – my life was in Scotland, all my interests and hill-walking. But then a love interest, that soon disappeared, prompted me to move to McKenna & Co.
I got headhunted by Bristows and became a partner. I was doing IP on corporate deals. Bristows predominantly had litigators and they realised they needed someone for the transactional piece, and it grew very quickly. It taught me how to sell myself rather than sitting in my ivory tower.
I was asked to join Freshfields after four years. I had no intention of ever moving to a big corporate firm. But my first meeting with Anthony Salz, Ian Terry and Alan Peck was such a pleasant experience, I was soon smitten.
There were only two Freshfields associates who were not on their notice period and it was a case of building up the team. This was wild and hard work. I didn’t have time to give up.
I was sent to Dundas’ basement with a book called The Swinging Sporran and spent three days learning how to dance.
It was far harder in those days to make friends with other women in the profession. You were so conscious that if life at home was hard with the children, you didn’t want to come into the office and talk about it, because your female associates were expecting you to be there for them. You didn’t want to admit this to your male partners because you had to just put on your pinstripes and be one of them. It was a lot lonelier then.
I had my kids after I made partner. It was the first time Freshfields had an international practice leader who was pregnant, so I felt like a great novelty. Seven months pregnant and flying to meetings in Cologne wearing a shirt that didn’t quite fit.
In theory I had slightly more control as a partner, but I felt like everyone was expecting me to get on and prove that I could do the job. I had to manage it so meetings would take place earlier in the day so I was home seeing my children, reading them a story and putting them to bed.
I remember walking through corridors at 6pm and feeling all eyes were on me but I had a very stark choice: it was this or never see my kids.
I didn’t realise until I started doing this type of work the importance of human connection. When senior women are reserved and don’t speak about how they manage, all this does is give younger women the impression that you have to be superwoman. There were all these myths like: ‘Oh, she never saw her kids until they were 18’, and, ‘she has 24-hour nanny cover’, and it wasn’t true. I didn’t know my female partners very well at that point so it is a great joy to get to know them now.
My most recent satisfying case was for a pro bono client – Women’s Aid – which wanted to create a database of women killed by men in England because of the desperate need for more statistical information about domestic violence. This ended up on my desk because my team had the expertise of Freedom of Information Act requests. I have never seen so many associates – mostly women – wanting to be part of one case. It hit a chord. It is Freshfields’ largest ever pro bono case.
IP has got more interesting as the years have gone on. There is a digital aspect – how do you protect IP rights in the digital space? IP and tax is currently a hot topic. IP and competition law issues are really fascinating with technology screaming ahead.
I have lots of goals. I need to finish climbing all the Munros in Scotland. I had climbed around 85 when I left so have a good 200 left.
Avril Martindale is a partner in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s IP/IT department
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk