Social mobility: widening the circle

Julia Florence, the immediate past-president of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys, recalls some of her formative experiences and discusses her ideas of how future IP lawyers can be supported and encouraged.

Let me start with some disclaimers: I am a product of social mobility, I am a member of IP Inclusive, the organisation which champions inclusion and diversity throughout the IP arena in the UK and I spent the majority of my career as an in-house patent attorney.  

My views will no doubt be shaped by all three of these facts, and I don’t pretend to speak for everyone. Indeed, this article will focus mainly on social mobility in the patent profession.

Although my grandparents were firmly working class, and my parents’ education was interrupted by the war, they were able to join the post-war teacher training schemes and I grew up in a family which put a high value on education—my grandmother’s constant refrain was “when you grow up and go to college”, which planted that thought firmly in my mind. So I had both opportunity and encouragement.