Eight Ways to Nurture Talent in a Profession Under Pressure

Recent reports have shown that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep young legal talent in both the workplace and the profession. Young legal professionals seek flexibility and support from their employers, especially regarding concerns of work-life balance, diversity and inclusion (D&I), and opportunities for growth. World Trademark Review interviewed Finnegan partner and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Esther Lim to discuss steps firms can take to nurture young legal talent. 

Intellectual property (IP) law firms must nurture talent from a young age by introducing IP law as a career path early in their education. Esther said, “Having information early on is key to shaping someone’s future.”

She explained that in 2018, Finnegan hosted a Girl Scouts IP patch program, in which children could create their own inventions and draft mock patent and trademark applications with the help of USPTO representatives, federal judges, and Finnegan lawyers:

“It was a fantastic programme...It made me realise that it really starts early on, igniting that interest in science–especially for girls, who tend to drift away from STEM subjects for whatever reason–and introducing them to women judges who decide IP cases or scientists or lawyers who work with scientists to help them protect their inventions.”

“It’s hard to be what you can’t see...By teaching young women and bringing this awareness early and often, there’s confirmation that they can pursue whatever they’d like to.” 

Esther suggested that law firms should work with universities to build a more diverse STEM pipeline. She explained, “It’s harder to find very diverse talent in IP because you’re often already limited to people who have STEM degrees and in certain areas of STEM there’s a significant disconnect in terms of diversity.” 

She also suggests that law firms should consider recruiting candidates from non-traditional backgrounds outside of schools they have traditionally recruited from in the past. Esther explained that law firms need to recognize their bias when recruiting and give talent a “fair chance to succeed.” She said:

“The traditional metrics of predicting success are not really fool-proof...Some of the best candidates that I have seen succeed and thrive come from non-traditional backgrounds, such as lesser-known schools maybe, but have strong, well-rounded life experiences, where they have had to struggle and fight to get to where they are.”

Read “Eight Ways to Nurture Talent in a Profession Under Pressure“