Meet the IP Professional: Helen Conlan – Litigation, Technology and the Human Approach

Helen Conlan is a Partner at Stephenson Harwood and an experienced IP litigator whose practice focuses primarily on patent disputes in the technology sector. She has built her career around a passion for technology, strong litigation instincts and a distinctly human approach to clients, colleagues and opponents.

Quick Profile

Name: Helen Conlan
Role: Partner
Firm / organisation: Stephenson Harwood
Location: London, UK
Areas of expertise: Patent litigation, technology disputes, copyright, multi-jurisdictional litigation, mediation and emerging technologies, trade secrets and confidential information

Finding a route into patent litigation

Helen knew early in her legal career that contentious work appealed to her. She trained at Bird & Bird, where the strength of its intellectual property practice gave her the opportunity to explore IP litigation.

What makes her route into patent disputes slightly unusual is that she did not arrive with a STEM background.

“I always thought that I might want to be a litigator,” she explains. Initially, there was a thought that trade marks might be a natural fit, but patents quickly captured her attention. “The strategic aspects of global patent litigation were an immediate draw. I loved the challenge presented by the technical detail and saw that as a great vehicle for extended study.” That meant accepting there would be plenty to learn along the way. Helen still jokingly refers to the technical primers she reads as her “boring bedtime reading”.

After many years there, Helen moved on, and finally landed at Stephenson Harwood, taking the considerable experience gained within an established global patent litigation practice into a new adventure growing a patent litigation offering. “Being prepared to learn from others is important,” she says.

Understanding the technology

Today, Helen’s practice is largely technology focused. For her, doing the work to understand the technology behind a dispute is fundamental and part of the joy.

Once a case begins, she makes sure the whole team gets to grips with the subject. “We sit down and we have a teach-in,” she explains. That teaching might come from somebody within the legal team, the client or an academic with specialist knowledge. The aim is to establish the fundamentals before moving into greater technical detail.

“Never be afraid to ask. Never be afraid to address the simple things. Get the basics right first and then build from there.”

It is an approach she follows herself, despite her seniority. Patent litigation, she believes, does not require someone to know everything from the outset. What really matters is curiosity, a willingness to learn, the confidence to ask questions and an ability to apply what you learn to achieve a strategic objective.

Keeping the commercial objective in sight

The technology may fascinate Helen, but she is clear that litigation cannot be driven by a lawyer’s enthusiasm for the subject. “You do have to keep a lid on your own passions and enthusiasm for simply exploring the latest innovation on a given technology” she says.

Instead, the client’s commercial objective must remain central. That includes understanding the value of the dispute, the constraints on litigation spend and any critical objectives, such as getting a product to market or supporting a licensing programme.

“We’re a service business after all, and above all else we have to act in the best interests of our clients.”

Her role is then to determine “which buttons to press when and where” to help achieve those objectives.

This becomes particularly important in multi-jurisdictional disputes. Technology can move quickly, and lengthy litigation may make little commercial sense if the technology itself has a relatively short lifespan. In other cases, it may be critical to achieve an early judgment. It is an understanding that you must arrive at early on in a matter, to determine the legal strategy.

“We are also the custodians of our clients’ available budget on any given matter, so it is always important to set expectations and to manage the team efficiently – I’ve not met a client so far in my career who is content for us to do otherwise.”

Coordination without ego

The Unified Patent Court has made international coordination even more important.

Helen describes the UPC as “front and centre” of many conversations with clients. Its geographical reach, pace and cost can make it an important part of a wider litigation strategy.

As the court has developed, she has seen the jurisprudence evolve from addressing early procedural questions towards more substantive decisions on points of patent law. The UPC’s speed has also placed greater emphasis on efficiency and close coordination amongst advisors making up the legal team.

Her guiding principle for multidisciplinary and multi-jurisdictional teams is simple: “Leave your ego at home.”

“Everyone has something to bring to the table. Everyone will have a different experience and point of view, and they’re all valid.”

Rather than assuming how a dispute will unfold, Helen prefers to listen first. “Take a beat to just listen to everyone and to spend some time thinking rather than doing. Then, and only then, can you piece together a strategy that addresses your client’s particular needs.”

Why kindness has a place in litigation

Helen has been recognised in industry rankings for qualities including determination, confidence and problem solving. Yet one of the characteristics she talks about most passionately is kindness.

“I treat my opponents in the way I would expect to be treated,” she says. “We all have pressures, we all have deadlines, and sometimes things get squeezed.”

Approaching a case with kindness does not mean being any less committed to a client’s position. “What I want to see in an action is mutual respect for the position a party adopts, detailed consideration of the merits of that, and a reasoned pragmatic approach to finding a commercial solution. I will always fight my corner, but not simply for the sake of it.”

Constant outrage in litigation simply serves to reduce impact when something genuinely matters. “You don’t win any prizes (or cases) for being the angry litigator.”

Interestingly, Helen had once been on the opposite side of a major case from Eifion Morris, now Stephenson Harwood’s CEO. “We were opponents, but as it turned out, we’re now Partners,” she says. “So maybe that kind, considered approach to litigation does pay off.”

Building a practice around people

Helen’s career has not followed a completely conventional path. Some years after becoming a Partner, she took an extended period away from work when her son was born. “People thought that strange,” she recalls. “But it was super important for me.”

Returning meant rebuilding her practice. Her approach has centred on understanding people as individuals, whether clients or members of her team.

She recalls an associate who moved from private practice into their first in-house role. As a leaving gift, Helen offered “one question a day”. The associate could call about anything from a patent issue to uncertainty about presenting to the board. Years later, that former associate has become a client and is leading the patent group for a multinational business.

The approach also works well as Helen helps to build out Stephenson Harwood’s IP team. Former colleagues have joined Helen in the patent litigation team and in the trade mark prosecution space. “Investing that time in those individuals – whether clients or colleagues – and understanding what they needed, that’s what’s important to me.”

What does a successful outcome look like?

For Helen, success in litigation is not automatically synonymous with achieving a single favourable court judgment. The position is often more complex than that in multi-jurisdictional patent disputes.

At the beginning of a matter, she asks clients a deceptively simple question: “What does OK look like at the end of the day?”

The answer can depend on cost, time, commercial value and wider business priorities. Helen describes those factors as pieces of a jigsaw. Once assembled, they reveal the target the legal strategy needs to aim for.

And those objectives cannot simply be established once and then forgotten. “Businesses change. They’re living things, they move on.” Its important to check in along the way. That is especially relevant in technology disputes, where the commercially useful life of a product may be relatively short and where you may well be battling on many jurisdictional fronts. “Client’s really don’t want to spend the entire life of a product fighting about it, they want to have some time to work up the next valuable innovation, to keep the business moving forward.”

In mediation, Helen has even developed an informal test for recognising when settlement may be close. “I can generally tell that we’re near settlement when both sides of the table are sufficiently grumpy,” she laughs. “No one side has everything they want.” Sometimes a result everyone can live with is a more meaningful measure of success.

The technology keeps changing

The constant opportunity to learn is one of the things Helen enjoys most about her career.

AI is inevitably creating new questions around areas including patentability and copyright. Beyond AI, she is watching developments in quantum computing and the intersection between technology and life sciences, including AI-assisted drug discovery.

Green technology, clean technology and renewables are another growing area, while defence technology has also become increasingly significant.

Her career has introduced her to technical experts across numerous fields. “It opens doors to learning about all sorts of interesting innovations. That’s what I love about being an IP litigator – it is all about the technology you get to play with.”

Outside the office

Away from litigation, Helen’s favourite way to spend her time is with her seven-year-old son.

Her work has clearly rubbed off on him. On a recent trip to Nuremberg to make gingerbread, he wanted to know whether the recipe was a trade secret. “He knows all about trade secrets and patents,” Helen laughs.

He also enjoys technology, though Helen believes he is likely to be more suited to the life sciences side of patent litigation after he decided to give a school presentation about nanobots made from DNA. “He will have to speak to Jon or Paul in my team” Helen laughs “they both have a depth of knowledge on the life sciences side of things”.

Looking back with different eyes

Asked which landmark IP case she would most like to observe, Helen chooses something much closer to home. She would return to one of her earliest cases as a trainee but view it through the eyes of the experienced litigator she is today.

It was a damages inquiry following an infringement action concerning a patent for deep sea pipe laying vessels. This was before electronic disclosure, meaning plenty of time spent working through boxes of physical papers – some of which had been stored on pipe laying platforms in the middle of the ocean. “I’m pretty sure as a trainee I didn’t have a clue what was really going on,” she admits.

Yet those early cases inspired her. More than 20 years later, her route into patent litigation also offers an important message for those interested in the field but without a technical degree.

“You absolutely need to have that litigation instinct,” Helen says. “Then you need to be prepared to put in the hard work to learn – be interested and not frightened by the technology.”

Or, as she puts it rather more simply, be prepared to do the “boring bedtime reading”.

Connect with Helen

LinkedIn: Helen Conlan
Company Website: Stephenson Harwood

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