To celebrate Cleary Gottlieb’s 75th anniversary, alumni around the globe are taking time to reflect on their experiences at the firm.
Brett Dakin, Acting Executive Director and General Counsel at Child Mind Institute in New York, shared his thoughts below.
What lessons did you learn at Cleary that prepared you for your future career?
Working in the intellectual property group at Cleary was great training for working in-house at a charitable organization. For one thing, given the special significance of intellectual property assets at a non-profit—including, at the Child Mind Institute, several patented technologies, and, at the Rainforest Alliance, the little green frog seal—the protection and licensing work I did at Cleary has been directly relevant. But beyond that, I ended up handling a lot of issues as an associate that were not limited to intellectual property, including employment, data protection, and strategic collaboration agreements. And needless to say, the rigorous attention to detail and sink-or-swim approach for which Cleary is renowned has served me well no matter the setting!
To learn more about Cleary’s global alumni network, click here.