It's spring! Time for the International Trademark Association’s Annual Meeting

10,000 black and blue suits, with nametags, in your city’s downtown? 

Must be INTA AM.

Every year I go to the International Trademark Association’s (INTA) Annual Meeting (AM). The Association bills the AM as the premier trademark event for networking, continuing legal education, and committee and client meetings and provides two social events: the Opening Reception and the Finale. The Opening Reception is generally at the Convention Centre and fairly lame. The Finale is usually at a museum and, depending on the museum, can be very good.

Here I am at the Meissner Bolte reception in Berlin in 2008. 

 

My Ladies – you know who you are

INTA AM is a chance for me to get together with all the lawyers I work with on a regular basis who are scattered throughout the world.  I have been meeting with some of them for more than 20 years. Me and my lady friends meet for breakfast or lunch and eat, drink, talk some shop but mostly, as one of them once said, bitch about our husbands (JK honey!) and laugh, or cry, about the antics of our kids.

Oh yeah, there’s some Continuing Legal Education

There are three days of educational programming but it’s hard to fit that in between the two hour breakfasts, quickie mid-morning meetings with unknown but potential new contacts, two hour lunches and reception hopping that starts around 4pm and goes on into the wee hours of the morning.

At the Wax Museum, Washington DC, 2012

Lawyers gone wild

The highlight of the Annual Meeting is the receptions that private law firms and some service providers throw. Since there are many receptions going on simultaneously, my attendance at any given reception is based on 1) venue, 2) host or 3) location. There are certain receptions I always attend because a friend is a host and I want to support them; location and venue are irrelevant. Otherwise, I generally will forego a reception in a hotel to attend one at a restaurant, museum, art gallery, sports venue or other interesting spot.

It's all in the details

As I work out my schedule for INTA AM in Dallas, Texas May 5 - 8, 2013, I plan to offer some tips on getting the most out the annual meeting.   I hope you'll enjoy the blogs and find them helpful.