Harper James bolsters IP team with three new hires

Harper James, the commercial law firm purpose-built to enable entrepreneurial and ambitious businesses to succeed, has bolstered its intellectual property and trade mark practice with the appointment of three new hires from top-50 law firm Blake Morgan LLP. The new appointments form part of the firm’s ambitious plan to double its number of lawyers by hiring 60 new solicitors by 2025. 

With a combined experience of over 50 years and listings in Managing IP’s IP Stars and World Trademark Review’s WTR 1000 – Ben Evans, Jill Bainbridge and Claire Bowers all specialise in an array of areas within intellectual property and trade mark law, and have advised businesses of all sizes, from start-ups through to multinationals. 

Partner and head of trade marks, Ben Evans, is a dual-qualified solicitor and Chartered Trade Mark Attorney with over 15 years’ experience in the industry. Specialising in brand strategy, trade mark clearance searching and world-wide trade mark protection, Ben deals with trade mark applications before the UK and World Intellectual Property Offices as well as internationally through a network of agents. Much of Ben’s practice includes coordinating complex filing projects and dealing with contentious proceedings. 

Intellectual property disputes partner Jill Bainbridge has over 20 years’ worth of experience in IP protection, strategy, and IP dispute resolution both nationwide and internationally in relation to the full spectrum of rights, including trade marks, patents, copyright and more. Jill also has particular expertise in reputation management. 

Claire Bowers, CITMA-qualified trade mark paralegal, has nearly 15 years’ experience in handling the day-to-day management of UK, EU, and International trade mark registrations. 

Commenting on the appointments, Ben Evans says: “It’s great to be joining what is already an incredibly strong intellectual property team at Harper James at a really exciting time. The firm is growing rapidly and seeing increasing client demand for intellectual property advice and in particular brand protection assistance. We bring substantial experience and expertise in brand protection having looked after trade mark portfolios for household names on a worldwide basis for many years.” 

On the growth of Harper James’ IP team, founder and CEO, Toby Harper, comments: “The calibre of talent we continue to attract at Harper James is amazing and we’re thrilled to welcome Ben, Jill and Claire on board. Their combined breadth of experience and unique skillsets mean that we’re able to broaden our intellectual property and trade mark offerings even further to our existing clients and expanding client base.” 

In addition to welcoming the new appointments within its intellectual property team, Harper James was also listed in the Intellectual Property Office UK’s top 100 trade mark representatives (by number of applications filed) as of August 2023.