Meet The Team: Shajila Aziz, Patent Administrator

As part of our 'meet the team' series, we talk to patent administrator, Shajila Aziz about her passion for IP law and volunteering as a teacher at her local Sunday Islamic school.

Shajila is a patent administrator at Mewburn Ellis, based in the Bristol office, and has been with the firm for four years. With around 12 years’ experience in intellectual property, she is keen to remain in this area of law and is hoping to explore additional training to further develop her skills. “I find IP really interesting,” she says. “I’d love to think I could become a paralegal in the not-too-distant future. I did really well in the introductory patent administration course”. 

Born and bred in Bristol, Shajila loves her hometown and its diversity in particular. “Bristol is where I’ve always lived and I love it,” she explains. “It’s so multi-cultural and everyone is so friendly. I hear people say the north is much friendlier, but I think Bristol is definitely better!”. 

As a single mum to her six-year-old daughter, Shajila spends a lot of time juggling work and parenting but says there’s plenty to do for anyone trying to entertain a small child. “I love spending time with my daughter and there are lots of parks and other activities we do together,” she continues. “Managing childcare and work as a single mum can be a challenge sometimes but I’m really lucky that Mewburn Ellis have been really supportive of me and are very accommodating when it comes to being flexible around childcare or when my daughter is poorly”.

Choosing IP

After more than a decade in the field, Shajila’s passion for IP law is now firmly established, however she did originally consider other career options. “I actually wanted to be an educational psychologist when I was at school, but one of my teachers arranged a meeting for me with a friend who was an Ed Psych and I’m afraid it put me off,” she says. “I think he was about to retire and he was pretty negative about the whole industry so I decided I definitely didn’t want to do that for a living. I took a gap year then started a job in administration for a charity which I really liked, but I had to apply for new roles due to budget cuts and when I saw an IP role, I thought it sounded really interesting, so I went for it”.

But even that role could have led to a different career path as Shajila’s time was divided across two teams. “I was split 70/30 between IP renewals and marketing, and at the end of the second year I had to pick which team to stay in,” she explains. “I wasn’t overly keen on marketing, and I’d realised by that point that I really preferred the behind-the-scenes work, so I chose to stay in renewals and ended up being there for eight years before starting as a patent administrator at Mewburn.” 

Diverse client base

At Mewburn Ellis, it’s the diversity of clients that Shajila finds most interesting. “It’s something different every day and I love the breadth of industries that patents can relate to,” she says. “Clients and their patent portfolios can cover such a diverse range of subjects, from universities or tech clients to medicine. There can also be some really unique inventions,” she continues. “I once worked on an invention for a portable urinating device which was certainly memorable!”

The real enjoyment Shajila finds in her role comes from problem solving. “It can be really satisfying to identify and resolve an issue or error in an application and I really love making sure things are done properly,” she says. “I’m quite a logical and methodical person so having to have that attention to detail, using our systems correctly and ensuring everything is perfect when it leaves our office really suits my personality.”

But this isn’t without its challenges when it comes to managing multiple clients at once. “We work with a large team of paralegals and attorneys and there is always work coming in from their clients so I have to constantly juggle multiple priorities and make sure all the cases get looked at and handled in good time, efficiently and with no errors,” Shajila explains. “The way we work as patent administrators has really evolved in my time here - we have improved the team structure, merged the London and Bristol patent administrator teams and have improved our document management to further streamline our processes.”

Family centred

Describing herself as “a family centred, YouTube obsessed chocoholic”, Shajila spends most of her spare time outside of work with her daughter and other family members but at the weekend, she is a volunteer teacher at her local Sunday Islamic school where she teaches around 30 children. “I am one of the two co-teachers for our Year 3 class, so I do a fair bit of lesson planning ahead of every session,” she explains. “As well as sports and general moral guidance, we learn stories about the prophets and memorise some passages of the Qur’an, so it can be hard work with 30 or more eight-year-olds to keep in line and engaged, but I find it really rewarding.”

With what little time she has remaining, Shajila loves to watch films and is a big fan of food. “I’m obsessed with YouTube and often end up scrolling away but when I do watch a whole movie it has to be a fantasy,” she says. “I love anything from that genre, but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are definitely favourites. I also enjoy my food and Mexican is delicious. I love a classic chicken burrito, as well as traditional Pakistani food like stuffed potato parathas”.

Shajila’s other interest is travel and she dreams of getting away. “Iceland is top of my bucket list,” she says. “I’d love to see the Northern Lights and the volcanoes, but I get really travel sick so I’m not sure if I’ll ever get there. I would love to try if I get the chance”.