Top Lawyers: Anna Brook Of Culhane Meadows On The 5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law
An Interview with Eric L. Pines
Staying current. I would say the fifth thing you need to be a successful IP lawyer is to stay current in your field. There are always new cases or legislative proposals, and it helps to keep an eye on those. For example, when a client asks if something they saw on the news will affect their company, you don’t want to be caught off-guard. The easy way to do this is to subscribe to a few intellectual property newsletters, skim the headlines, and check out the ones that are most relevant to your clients’ industries. Sometimes what you see is worth a client alert. Most of the time, it is just useful background knowledge so that you can contribute to a conversation when someone brings up a particular recent development.
The legal field is known to be extremely competitive. Lawyers are often smart, ambitious, and highly educated. That being said, what does it take to stand out and become a “Top Lawyer” in your specific field of law? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law”, we are talking to top lawyers who share what it takes to excel and stand out in your industry.
As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anna Brook.
Anna Brook is a partner in the intellectual property (IP) group at Culhane Meadows, a women-owned law firm. Anna’s work focuses on IP litigation and counseling relating to patent infringement and validity, patent and trademark enforcement, IP licensing and other agreements, and IP due diligence in corporate transactions. Anna holds a general engineering degree from The Cooper Union and a law degree from Harvard Law School, she lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is the “backstory” that brought you to this particular career path in Law? Did you want to be an attorney “when you grew up”?
Growing up, the idea of becoming an attorney never crossed my mind. I didn’t know the profession existed. I was born in Latvia, which at the time was part of the Soviet Union where the legal system was very different than in the U.S. I did not know a single attorney and I don’t recall ever hearing about lawyers.
The first time I learned about attorneys was during a guest lecture when I was a junior in college studying engineering at Cooper Union. An alum came to speak about his work as an intellectual property attorney. The idea of combining my engineering background with writing and speaking opportunities caught my interest and the rest is history. I took the LSAT, went to law school, and became an intellectual property attorney just a few years after I realized attorneys existed.
Can you tell us a bit about the nature of your practice and what you focus on?
I work on a broad range of intellectual property matters with a focus on patent litigation and counseling. I help clients resolve intellectual property disputes both outside of court and in litigation. I also advise clients on IP issues such as infringement and validity opinions, licensing, corporate transactions, and IP due diligence. A lot of my work relates to pharmaceutical patents, but over the years I’ve worked with quite a few technologies.
You are a successful attorney. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? What unique qualities do you have that others may not? Can you please share a story or example for each?
If I had to highlight three character traits that were instrumental to my success, I would say the ability to juggle multiple responsibilities, creativity, and patience.
Over the years I learned to juggle multiple responsibilities and I think it is key to being a successful lawyer and to being more than just a lawyer. You have to be able to juggle at work, in your personal life, and also combine the two. When you are going full steam ahead on a case, it is easy to get overwhelmed if another matter crops up that also requires your undivided attention. I have been fortunate to learn how to prioritize, work on multiple busy matters at the same time, and add personal life to the mix. I had four kids during twelve years working full time at a Big Law firm in Manhattan. That really taught me to juggle responsibilities and not waste time feeling overwhelmed or panicked.
My current firm, Culhane Meadows, is a remote firm that provides a lot more flexibility regarding when I work and where I work, but there are still client and court deadlines, four kids with school commitments and after-school activities, and my volunteer work for the Cooper Union Alumni Association and participation in other organizations. I find myself juggling quite a bit, and I am fortunate that I can keep all the balls in the air most of the time. Someone recently asked me if I get overwhelmed. I thought about it for a minute and replied that I don’t have time to be overwhelmed, I just recalculate when and how I’ll get everything done.
As much as juggling a legal practice and other commitments requires you to accomplish tasks quickly, being a lawyer involves quite a bit of tedious work that has no shortcuts. The second helpful trait I want to highlight is patience. In litigation, you need patience to review documents, to learn the patents inside and out, to work with witnesses, to prepare for court hearings and trial. You need to put in the hours to learn the case and the related technology. This is hard to do when you are juggling multiple cases and life outside of work, but patience is usually rewarded. One example is, I was working on a patent infringement case and we wanted to file for summary judgment of no infringement. To be ready for that, I worked with our expert to go through the manufacturing records for every batch of product that our client made (there were thousands of batches), list all the batches and relevant numbers in his report, and conclude that none of the batches infringed. I had to make sure we collected every record from the client, check every record to make sure the data was in our favor, and then make sure our expert agreed. It was tedious and required a lot of patience. But at the end of the day, this work led to a favorable summary judgment decision, and we avoided the cost and uncertainty of going to trial.
Another important character trait is creativity. Our clients, both lawyers and non-lawyers, know their company and their business very well. They come to us to fill gaps in their expertise or to help solve a problem. We need to add value to their organization and that requires creative thinking. That requires brainstorming and not being afraid to voice ideas that may seem far-fetched because, with others’ input, those ideas may generate a solution. Preparing a litigation strategy is a creative process where you need to input a lot of ideas to figure out the best path forward. For example, you need to decide what kind of evidence and testing will be most persuasive to prove infringement or non-infringement of a patent. You need to find one that is convincing and easy to explain, and that takes a good amount of creativity.
Do you think you have had luck in your success? Can you explain what you mean?
I have. My luck started when my parents emigrated from the Soviet Union to the U.S. and emphasized the importance of education. Luck and hard work got me into Cooper Union and then Harvard Law School. I think the education there opened doors for me and put me on a path to career success.
Do you think where you went to school has any bearing on your success? How important is it for a lawyer to go to a top-tier school?
I think it does. I graduated from Harvard Law School and that enabled me to start my career at a top firm in Manhattan and learn a lot there. Of course, it is possible to have the same opportunity from other law schools, but it is a lot easier to get there from a top-tier school.
Based on the lessons you have learned from your experience, if you could go back in time and speak to your twenty-year-old self, what would you say? Would you do anything differently?
I would tell my twenty-year-old self to be more confident. Younger me did not like to speak up unless I was 100% sure I had the right answer. I thought that others did not speak unless they were 100% sure of their answer either. Over time, I got the sneaking suspicion that this was not the case. That suspicion was, of course, confirmed. I started speaking up more and noticed that I was right even when I wasn’t 100% certain. And that even wrong answers often lead to dialogue that leads to the right answer. It would have been nice to figure that out and start speaking up earlier than I did.
This is not easy work. What is your primary motivation and drive behind the work that you do?
I find the work interesting. I like learning about technology and really enjoy working with my clients. I like solving problems — whether it is how to get the other side to agree to a proposal, address a hiccup in a transaction, or craft a litigation strategy — they are all things that let me be creative and further a client’s interests.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I am working on two litigation matters: a patent case and a trademark case. Litigation is always interesting. You really get to know the technology at issue in a patent case, and the client’s market in any litigation.
Where do you go from here? Where do you aim to be in the next chapter of your career?
I am very much working on the current chapter. I have a good balance now between work, taking care of my family, and volunteer commitments that include serving on the executive committee of the Cooper Union Alumni Association and as co-chair of the Pharmaceutical & Biotech practice area committee of the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms. It is a lot and keeps me busy.
Without sharing anything confidential, can you please share your most successful “war story”? Can you share the funniest?
To me, “war story” suggests a big win at trial or at least some litigation setting, but a lot of successful results are less public and less flashy. I’ll pick one where a client and I worked to avoid litigation and obtain a positive result. The client hired a company to design and manufacture a product for the client. Over time, the relationship did not work out as expected and the client sought to move manufacturing to another company. We were concerned the manufacturer would not hand over the designs our client paid for, and that they may need to reverse engineer their own product, start over with another company, or litigate (all expensive options). With tough and persistent negotiation, we were able to obtain the designs and enter into an agreement with a new manufacturer. So far that new relationship has worked out well and I’m just so happy that the client obtained this result without litigation. This win was less about proving that our position was correct, but more about solving the client’s problem as efficiently as possible.
Ok, fantastic. Let’s now shift to discussing some advice for aspiring lawyers. Do you work remotely? Onsite? Or Hybrid? What do you think will be the future of how law offices operate? What do you prefer? Can you please explain what you mean?
I work remotely. Culhane Meadows has always been a remote law firm. I started at Culhane Meadows in January 2020. When I told people that I worked at a remote law firm, many were surprised to hear this model existed. Now, attorneys working remotely is not as novel or unexpected. However, I am seeing other firms shifting to a hybrid model or phasing out remote work completely. I prefer working remotely. I make the most of the scheduling flexibility and the extra time I don’t spend commuting.
How has the legal world changed since COVID? How do you think it might change in the near future? Can you explain what you mean?
COVID changed how we collaborate. We learned that things we thought absolutely had to be done in-person can now be done via Teams or Zoom, or just email. I often sat in meetings thinking, “This meeting could have been an email, or at most a phone call.” Now there are fewer meetings for the sake of having meetings. There is also more online collaboration, such as improvements and better adherence to using document management software.
These changes are helping build teams across multiple offices or geographic locations. Before COVID, there was a tendency to build a team for a matter from a single office. This would make it easier to walk down the hall or have an unplanned meeting. Bringing in someone from a different office was almost a last resort even if they had somewhat better expertise for a matter. Now with everyone being more comfortable with Teams/Zoom, online collaboration, and attorneys working from home, it doesn’t matter where team members are located. As long as the time difference is not too extreme, attorneys in different cities can meet just as easily as if they were in the same office. This lets firms select attorneys with the best experience for a matter without limiting them to a particular location.
Based on your experience, how can attorneys effectively leverage social media to build their practice?
LinkedIn is a nice way to post about career successes and articles or presentations that show you are an authority in your field.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law?”
Knowing the technology. To succeed in the field of intellectual property, you need to be ready and willing to learn the technology at issue. Each new matter presents an opportunity to learn and become an expert in the relevant technology. For example, it is vital in patent litigation that you have a deep understanding of the technology because you have to work on strategy with your client, communicate with experts as they prepare their opinions, and be able to explain the science to judges and juries. Years ago, I worked on a case relating to a patent for laundry detergent and really immersed myself in learning about the ingredients in detergent and their functions. Our expert was a former detergent scientist who worked at Procter & Gamble and was a wealth of information. I still know more about laundry detergent and various formulas than I ever expected to know, and I check out new products when I see them at the grocery store.
Clear and effective communication. You also need to be able to communicate clearly. Successful IP lawyers need to know how to explain complicated issues in clear and simple terms. Judges and juries have a limited amount of time and do not have a science background. Your job as a lawyer is to explain all the science and convince them that your position is correct in just a few hours. You also need to be able to effectively communicate with clients. As science-oriented lawyers, we often want to put everything and the kitchen sink into a memo. But that is often not helpful to a client. Communications should provide actionable advice and highlight any major problems and recommendations for how to solve them. You can still provide that memo to the client for their files (or keep it in your files), but you need to lead with something more useful.
Good business acumen. This applies more broadly than just intellectual property, to succeed as an attorney you need to have good business acumen. This comes up quite often when negotiating agreements. As a lawyer, you want the best legal terms for your client, but often you are not in the position to get what you want. Business realities dictate when you need to compromise. For example, I recently helped a client who was a smaller company with a proposed agreement with a much larger partner. There were less-than-ideal terms in the agreement, but we quickly learned that the larger company would not budge on any of those terms. We considered the legal implications, but at the end of the day we had to focus on business interests. The upside of entering into the agreement as-is far outweighed trying to negotiate further and likely dooming the deal.
Active listening. To be a top lawyer, you need to be a good listener. Above, I said being able to communicate is important, but those communications are shaped by what your clients, colleagues, and opposing counsel say. You need to take your clients’ concerns and objectives into account. Providing advice in a vacuum is often not helpful. You may have a great argument for a case that you are working on, but the same position may be harmful to the client in another matter that may be more important to the business. Listening to your client’s concerns is key to being aware of the big picture. Listening to your colleagues and members of your team is vital because that lets you take a broad range of ideas and expertise into account. Even if you are a top lawyer, lots of people know more than you and you can learn from them. Finally, you need to listen to opposing counsel to understand their client’s concerns and objectives so that you can craft a solution that works for everyone in a transaction, or to end litigation through settlement. And active listening helps with business development too, such as when someone mentions they have a legal problem.
Staying current. I would say the fifth thing you need to be a successful IP lawyer is to stay current in your field. There are always new cases or legislative proposals, and it helps to keep an eye on those. For example, when a client asks if something they saw on the news will affect their company, you don’t want to be caught off-guard. The easy way to do this is to subscribe to a few intellectual property newsletters, skim the headlines, and check out the ones that are most relevant to your clients’ industries. Sometimes what you see is worth a client alert. Most of the time, it is just useful background knowledge so that you can contribute to a conversation when someone brings up a particular recent development.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this. :-)
My friend Aliya. We haven’t seen each other since I moved from Manhattan to New Jersey in 2019. We are both busy lawyer moms. When I’m in Manhattan I usually run in for a meeting and catch the first train out to deal with after school activities and our schedules have not aligned. We text and talk on the phone, but we really need to catch up in person. I may be missing a chance to speak with someone really great, but lunch with a famous person might be awkward or disappointing. Aliya — I know you will read this, so let’s make it happen.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Eric L. Pines is a nationally recognized federal employment lawyer, mediator, and attorney business coach. He represents federal employees and acts as in-house counsel for over fifty thousand federal employees through his work as a federal employee labor union representative. A formal federal employee himself, Mr. Pines began his federal employment law career as in-house counsel for AFGE Local 1923 which is in Social Security Administration’s headquarters and is the largest federal union local in the world. He presently serves as AFGE 1923’s Chief Counsel as well as in-house counsel for all FEMA bargaining unit employees and numerous Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs unions.
While he and his firm specialize in representing federal employees from all federal agencies and in reference to virtually all federal employee matters, his firm has placed special attention on representing Veteran Affairs doctors and nurses hired under the authority of Title. He and his firm have a particular passion in representing disabled federal employees with their requests for medical and religious reasonable accommodations when those accommodations are warranted under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA). He also represents them with their requests for Federal Employee Disability Retirement (OPM) when an accommodation would not be possible.
Mr. Pines has also served as a mediator for numerous federal agencies including serving a year as the Library of Congress’ in-house EEO Mediator. He has also served as an expert witness in federal court for federal employee matters. He has also worked as an EEO technical writer drafting hundreds of Final Agency Decisions for the federal sector.
Mr. Pines’ firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas and has offices in Baltimore, Maryland and Atlanta, Georgia. His first passion is his wife and five children. He plays classical and rock guitar and enjoys playing ice hockey, running, and biking. Please visit his websites at www.pinesfederal.com and www.toughinjurylawyers.com. He can also be reached at eric@pinesfederal.com.
