©2019. Published in Landslide, Vol. 12, No. 2, November/December 2019, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.
December 01, 2019 Profiles in IP Law
An Interview with Li-Hsien (Lily) Rin-Laures, Founder of RinLaures LLC
Dr. Li-Hsien Rin-Laures, known to clients and colleagues as “Lily,” is a renowned biotechnology and pharmaceutical IP strategist. She discovered her passion for patent law after graduating from Northwestern University Medical School, when she applied to be a secretary at an IP boutique and then went on to become a patent agent, a Harvard Law graduate, a Federal Circuit clerk, and general counsel at a publicly traded biotechnology company. Now a consultant, Lily draws on her nearly 30 years of patent law experience to help biotech and pharma clients achieve their IP and business goals. Over the years, she has obtained patents covering nine different FDA-approved drugs and provides strategic advice on due diligence, licensing, partnering, and IP aspects of public offerings. Her expertise and leadership have garnered praise from clients, peers, and the media. In this interview, Lily shares some of her wisdom and experiences in the IP arena.
What was it like transitioning from medicine to a career in law?
The two fields are similar in that they are both logic-based, high-pressure fields where your decisions are complex and depend on many different factors. Learning to write was the hardest part of transitioning. At first, I had to write a lot more than I was used to, and from the viewpoint of an advocate. Then, I had to learn to write a lot less than I was used to, yet convey the same meaning.
In addition to honing their writing skills, what general advice would you give to law firm associates?
Get as much exposure to clients as you can so that you can understand how legal issues are viewed from a client’s business perspective. It will help you no matter where you end up. As a law firm partner, you will ultimately be taking the lead on counseling clients and bringing in business. If you go in-house, you will start as a better advisor to your in-house clients if you know more about how clients think and the questions they ask.
Speaking of going in-house, what should law firm associates do to improve their chances of landing an in-house job?
The best skill to acquire is the ability to analyze and strategize from the client’s perspective. The best advisors are not merely good lawyers, but are also strategists who look at the big picture and who use the legal tools at their disposal to meet their client’s ultimate business objectives. First, you need to understand who your internal clients are. Then, you need to put yourself in the client’s shoes and understand the relative context of the legal question to the company’s business priorities, budget, internal and external deadlines, risk tolerance, and impact on other issues like financing, public reputation, etc. It can mean thinking about more than just the one legal question you’ve been asked about, thinking about creating legal solutions rather than legal obstacles, and recommending practical solutions instead of legally perfect advice that is impossible to implement. It can also mean presenting the options in a way appropriate for the audience, e.g., a senior business executive, a scientific researcher, or a sophisticated in-house lawyer/peer. These skills are important whether you are at a law firm or you are in-house counsel dealing with in-house clients.
An equally important skill to acquire is the ability to communicate with the client—to figure out how to gain their attention and ask questions to get the information you need to do your job. It is really sad to do due diligence on a patent portfolio and realize that the patent doesn’t cover the intended product because the technology evolved over time and the client didn’t keep the lawyer up to date. This can happen whether the lawyer and client are both in the same building or in different cities.
In your experience, what’s a more important skill, the ability to strategize, or to pivot in response to change?
Both are equally valuable, and I can’t really choose between them. You need a long-term plan and a clear idea of the client’s priorities, so that you can make day-to-day decisions and recommendations in a way that keeps everyone on track to meet objectives. However, you also have to be able to reevaluate your goals and strategies in response to changing circumstances or an unexpected setback. Ironically, if you’re really good at what you do and mostly meet with success, you might not have to deal with an unexpected setback until later in your career. The ability to pivot in response to changing environments may be a mid- or late-career skill.
What’s the most valuable skill you’ve gained in the past five years?
The most valuable skill that I have gained recently is the ability to run a small business with a small team on my own, without a large team of support staff. Cloud-based applications and software for email, telephones, document management, billing, and human resources make this so much easier now than even a decade ago, leaving me free to do the legal work that I love.
What did you take away from your time as general counsel of a publicly traded biotech company?
That role was an unexpected opportunity that had a significant impact on my career. I gained insight into the pressures that in-house counsel face and the types of questions they have to answer. The exposure to the responsibilities of running a company—as part of the executive team—greatly improved my ability to provide business-oriented legal advice to clients. I saw how legal advice fit in with the science, clinical, and regulatory issues, with financial considerations, and with the overall business.
When it comes to nonbillable work, how do you decide where to invest your time?
Be purposeful when investing your time, and be passionate about the activities you choose to do. If you don’t like doing it, don’t do it, because the likelihood of gaining a new client for any particular hour that you’ve invested in a nonbillable activity is relatively slim.
If you do invest time in becoming an expert on a legal or technical issue, try to reuse or leverage that investment. For example, write about the issue, speak about the issue, and reach out to prospective clients with useful information. Think about a slightly different aspect of the issue, perhaps in a different field or from a different type of client’s perspective, and write about that. Then you can get multiple opportunities out of one project.
Do you have any tips on leveraging billable and nonbillable activities to earn new business?
Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic formula. Obviously it’s important to provide superlative client service, so that clients remember you and refer you to others. Keep up with recent legal developments so that your advice is sound and up to date. Make sure clients appreciate the great work that you have done, and don’t downplay your expertise and difficulties you encountered. If you invest time and energy to really understand the business and the best interests of clients or prospective clients, that investment can be rewarded when they think about engaging you for the next matter.
On a related note, it’s also important to keep up your connections in an authentic, nonartificial way. For example, if you see an article or seminar your contact might be interested in, forward it. If you are part of an industry or legal organization, forward opportunities from that organization to contacts who might be interested. Or if you happen to be in the same city, reach out to have coffee and reconnect. The best connectors have a real desire to get to know others and be helpful to others. When I was in-house, the law firms that came by and offered free useful information or presentations were the ones I remembered. When you get a gift, you remember it.