“Being a lawyer is pretty rock and roll”: what3words head of legal on working in-house, IP and knowing when to seek advice

In school I thought I'd be an entrepreneur, retired by thirty. I ran businesses during my A-levels and university. And if it wasn’t for Lindsay Lohan, I wouldn’t be a lawyer.

In 2009 I left university and I felt lost. A week later, my mum, a fashion designer, got a space in Topshop on Oxford Street to sell bodycon dresses and needed a salesperson – so I stepped up.

After a slow start, suddenly the business exploded. We hit a wave of popularity and the dresses were stocked in various Topshops and Selfridges across the country, amongst other places. We were dressing celebrities. When Lindsay Lohan wore one of the dresses, it received blanket media coverage.

Soon after, a large UK-based fashion retailer produced a dress which, in our opinion, was strikingly similar to ours. We felt a real sense of injustice, and Mum instructed an intellectual property lawyer. The designs were like my mum’s children. It was a very difficult time.

I began to research intellectual property law to understand what our lawyer was doing. Looking back, I believe we should never have pursued that case. We eventually settled, but we should have kept our focus on the business.

Looking at our lawyer, I had an epiphany: “I think I could do what this guy does – but better”. The thought surprised me because I didn’t think law was for someone like me. I sat with the other company directors – my mum, my dad and my sister – and told them I wanted to become a lawyer.

It was really hard. When I started my studies, I moved out of my flat in Hoxton and back into the box room at my mum and dad’s house in the suburbs of south London. I set up a whiteboard and got on with it all.

Eventually I got a training contract at Wragge & Co, which was – and still is as Gowling WLG – an amazing firm. Unlike other firms, they didn’t hold my A-level results against me, which had been a real blocker in the past.

It was a strange, beautiful journey. It was the first time in my life I'd committed to something and could say I’d done my best. I burst into tears when the lovely recruiter told me I’d got my training contract.

At one point I wanted to be a drum and bass DJ, but being a lawyer is pretty rock and roll. You might think the profession ‘is not for me’, but it actually is. Law is for everyone. There are so many types of jobs. It’s such an awesome job and I’m very privileged to do it.

When I started my training contract, I'm not sure I even knew there were in-house lawyers. But I did some stints in-house and loved it. I knew I wanted to move in-house, even though I really enjoyed my time on the intellectual property (IP) and advertising team.

People I respected told me to do two years post-qualification in private practice before moving in-house. They said, “it will hone your skills”. So I did. Now I think that advice is wrong. You can hone your skills in-house too. If you want to move, just do it.

I love being part of a business, with everyone working together towards common goals. There is a vibrancy to working with lots of different people.

At what3words, a key element of my job is to do ‘the roadshow’ to make sure everyone in the company knows who I am. It’s my time to say “hello, I’m the lawyer – I'm not scary”. Then I need to understand what each team is trying to achieve.

It’s not just about making people feel comfortable to come to you. You must be proactive and go to them. My objective is not to just spot problems and risks, but to identify opportunities to drive things forward.

A good example of this was our generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) amnesty last year. Conducting GenAI training and developing a policy isn’t enough on its own. You need to know the risks, the advantages and how people are using it. So we said “let us know how you are using GenAI. No one is going to get into trouble”. All sorts of things came to our attention. Without that, maybe some things wouldn't have.

A lot of in-house lawyers will empathise with this. Often problems that come across your desk are because people didn’t come to you earlier. For example, if a contract was signed that no lawyer knew about. This is why continuous engagement across the workforce and even geographies is so important.

IP is still a big part of my day-to-day at what3words. I draft and review our IP strategy. We have patents protecting what3word’s core algorithm, and we have various other trademarks and patents. We also have an external IP council that helps with daily tasks, such as registrations.

I have other ways to get advice if I need it. We have a secondee from our IP lawyers. I have a personal network of lawyer friends in different practice areas and people I’ve trained with.

‘You always need mentors’ is my approach. You might know what you’re doing, but you’ll need someone to bounce ideas off.

If there’s no-one I can go to, then we need external advice. That’s a big focus area for in-house, particularly if you're head of legal. ‘When is it worth paying for advice?’, ‘when is there a particular risk?’. It’s a judgement call.

Ethics goes beyond upholding your legal, regulatory and SRA obligations. I’m very lucky that what3words has an ethical mission, with ethics at its core. We're used by emergency services, and we're trying to help people communicate precise locations. We have good processes and procedures, and an open door policy for discussing issues. It’s an open, safe culture.

I've spent the last year and a half mentoring an 11 year old, referred to me as part of a social service scheme. We would go running, to the zoo, and go on beach walks. When he said he could also be a lawyer, and that he could do anything, it made me proud.

I could list off a load of deals as my successes. But a big one was when I gave lectures at arts and design college Central St Martins on what young designers can do to protect their work. Six years after what happened with my mum’s dress, being able to share the advice we never got, as a qualified lawyer – that felt pretty special.