I have never seen myself as a diva at what I do.

In episode 62, Sham chats with Emmanuelle Ragot about her path into IP law, what makes her team successful, her views on failure, and the role that art plays in her life.

Background:

Hello everyone. It gives me great pleasure to speak to a phenomenal attorney at law and also one of my best friends – Emmanuelle Ragot! Emmanuelle is a partner at Wildgen Luxembourg Law Firm and she also heads their Data Protection, Intellectual Property and Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice group. Wow – quite the portfolio. Also, very importantly and one that is of particular interest – she heads Wildgen4Innovation – which is a legal hub for start up businesses. And she now heads Wildgen Art and Finance!  Emmanuelle delivers training, speaks internationally, and is quite the key player in the IP world! She is ranked internationally as leading expert in IP but also in Data and Technology Media Telecommunications in Legal 500 and Chambers ( both international editors) for international clients .Welcome to the show Emmanuelle.

I don’t think experience replaces academic and education.

Show notes:

  • First of a all, it is a technical role. As an attorney at law in charge of IP, you have to deliver proper and a high level of quality of work as a lawyer and the second part is heading the team.
  • She heads a team of five people, requiring huge collaboration and working with a team – including developing people.
  • IP is work related to trademark, patent, copyright, design and model, advisory and litigation work.
  • The lawfirm she works with was established a century ago and hosts over 16 nationalities.
  • They are able to work from Luxembourg as well as international, multi-juridictional matters in different countries – not limited to the EU – also the US and Asia.
  • The work she does is important, on the macro economic perspective, IP is regarded as high value, they are tangible assets, everyone is involved in making sure the entire process.
  • It was always the future of the economy but now with digital economy, it is key, at the core business of economy – more than ever.
  • Emmanuelle did not necessarily start her career with a specialisation in IP. She started more generally – trained as a litigator. At the beginning of her professions, she was with people who were ‘old fashioned’- hence did not encourage her to pursue her education further.
  • She struggled hard, she took a break and left and went into an education programme into intellectual property.
  • Emmanuelle believes it is crucial to have academic prowess as well besides just experience. There is no alternative to either.
  • She was initially lost but really motivated to do something meaningful. Law was meaningful to her. She liked meeting people who were clever, people who were faithful.
  • She was attracted initially by criminal law. She really liked the pressure, the passion. After a while, she felt she did not anticipate lasting longer. She kept litigation as a strong tool.
  • She eventually moved into IP, also given her family background, which is also is a sector where there was a strong discrimination, imbalance between people who knew about the sector and did not know. Given her own wealthy social background, she was always aware of the importance to improve the level of fairness for artists in the level of  identification of the rights of the people in relation their creation and their IP.

With my team, my work is their work.

  • She thinks, with her team, they focus on their clients – to discuss all elements of the potential things that could come up. Build confidence, have a great relationship with clients. She sees her team as friends in terms of developments of the clients’ business.
  • She is amazed at people thinking she and her team are super clever when they are not!
  • One of the things her team is strong at is research and quality of research – the level of quality that is required internally is super high.
  • She does not like spending time in figures. She has an excellent finance department for those things.
  • She thinks success as a measurement of the success of her clients. For at least the last seven years, her team has seen a success rate of more than 90 percent in their litigation.
  • What this means simply is that advise people not to litigate when they do not need to. Not running after just hourly figures.
  • When they do advise to litigate, they are sure of winning.
  • She considers being asked to speak at international conferences also as a measure of success.
  • She sees it all as a valorization of everyone’s work and their abilities.
  • Her team also strongly supports with all the entrepreneurship efforts in Luxembourg, a lot of pro bono work, network creation, events at their premises. Her team is also very active with all female empowerment activities.
  • She has also been involved in fundraising events and a number of entrepreneurship, cyber security events and activities in Luxembourg. Professionally, through her team, they are definitely helping with various elements.
  • Failure – failure, you learn from it – not a failure anymore. More disappointing is when you are in a long term relationship at work, and you see things going in the wrong direction, people are not open enough to involve their lawyers early enough. She sees it ridiculous that people see lawyers just as someone who would harm them. Sometimes it is just too late.
  • Emmanuelle has always had art as part of her life. She is always surrounded by it and got more involved with it – and is now more involved in contemporary dance. She writes weekly reviews on Luxembourg’s contemporary dance scene.
  • Writing on the emotion of dance can provoke, implicit references to movies and theatre, she finds super interesting.
  • She advises everyone to listen to Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give up and don’t give up!            

You may not be 100% right, but at least get an understanding of the world and how it works.

Connect with Emmanuelle:

Email emmanuelle.ragot@wildgen.lu

Website www.wildgen.lu