A Week in My Shoes
Dundee and Angus Chamber of Commerce run a fun blog whereby members describe a week of activity with a bit of a shoe twist. It's amazing the sheer variety some people cram into a week. This was my contribution for election week.
Monday – bank holiday interrupted to pop into Entrepreneurial Spark business incubator to see a couple of companies I’m mentoring – still no need to dress up, jeans and trainers will do – not many people in so able to get away with just seeing those who had booked a meeting. One company wanted to discuss branding and trademark options and how to take their brand international. The other wanted to discuss clarifying ownership of ideas they developed as students with their former university before starting work with another university that is interested in helping them take their ideas further. Planned evening call with a US law firm to discuss a licensing and development deal postponed so good to kick off the shoes and put up the feet 
Tuesday – teaching mediation to DLA’s trainees on behalf of the WS Society today. Gosh the rain is coming down in stair rods! No way are the posh suede shoes going out in this so scruffy ones on and decent ones in my handbag as I rush for the bus. Lovely day with the trainees – always a nice friendly bunch here though as ever a couple are a bit shy at role play- never mind they’re being paid for their legal skills not their theatricals. Thankfully the rain is off for the trip home. Just time to clear the worst of the emails and emergencies before dinner.
Wednesday – planning a peaceful day in the office – no appointments – so no one can see what’s on my feet – maybe I can try and soften up some fairly new shoes under the desk? Lots of phone calls to catch up on though. Pleasant variety of things to do today – revise a master service agreement for the provision of compound design services to a Japanese company, sort out a loan rearrangement for a chemical company pending completion of efficacy trials, contact a potential licensee for a veterinary product client, “tartanising” a contract for an English firm, and of course the postponed telecon with the US lawyers. Funny the things people get excited about - they didn’t believe me about the current issues regarding execution in counterpart and asked me to send then evidence of the position so that they could make up their own mind but with only two parties I don’t really see the problems with signing in the traditional way. Weird! I thought we had more important issues to concentrate on resolving.
Thursday – should be down in our Durham office for a couple of days but need to be home to vote so an early sprint to the polling station and then on to the station for the train to Newcastle for a networking lunch. Can’t believe I forgot about the election when I set all this up. Why is it that when you are in a hurry you always get “ Microsoft Outlook not responding” when you try to print off your itinery and then it takes forever for the laptop to close down? Sensible shoes as quite a walk from the metro station to the hotel. Train’s a great place to get some uninterrupted drafting done. Quite a flurry of CDAs and consultancy agreements but nice to get them out of the way. Also have to sort out a manufacturing contract for a product that is still in development – time to get out the crystal ball. Not sure how useful the new contacts will prove to be but who knows. Great lunch at the Marriott Seaborne and really enjoyed the “mocktails” – a pleasant change from the ubiquitous orange juice
- Well who got much sleep last night? I assume we’re all feeling a bit wabbit this morning. Working from home so no need for shoes! Nonetheless still work to do and on the happy front a few invoices to send out. Couple of clinical trial contracts – need to be careful when contracting with foreign doctors to abide by local anti corruption rules as well as the vagaries of patent law in case they come up with a new invention. With a foreign contract too there is often the diplomatic issue of how far to go with fixing the English to ensure clarity but not insult by being pedantic. Advice on a client investment pitch that needs to be rewritten before I can send it to potential investors and then just assignments from founders into their new company of the key intellectual property before I can call it a day for the week. Finished the day at the Roman law group listening to an interesting talk on the law of succession and a very jolly dinner afterwards.