Trademark Operations Manager

Fenwick & West LLP; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 115,000 - 173,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Life Insurance

Health Savings Account

Flexible Spending Accounts

Wellbeing program

Discretionary bonus

Job summary

Fenwick & West LLP seeks a Trademark Operations Manager to lead the administrative and operational functions of the trademark practice, guiding paralegals and support staff, and optimizing workflows in alignment with leadership.

This role combines people development with process improvement in a hybrid, US-based setting, ensuring high-quality service across trademark matters and collaboration with attorneys and leadership.

Qualifications

• Comprehensive expertise in U.S. and foreign trademark prosecution processes.
• Proven people-management experience.
• Experience with trademark docketing and practice management systems preferred.
• We're embracing AI and innovation in how we work.
• Strong written, verbal, and organizational skills with discretion and professionalism.
• Minimum of 6 years in trademark prosecution operations with 3–4 years in leadership.
• Bachelor's Degree required.

Responsibilities

• Provide leadership and management of Trademark Paralegals, including performance management, workflow planning, and team accountability.
• Monitor billable targets and productivity metrics for Trademark Paralegals.
• Lead onboarding, training, and ongoing professional development for Trademark Paralegals.
• Directly manage the Trademark Transfer Specialist, including oversight of transfer-in and transfer-out processes.
• Directly manage the Trademark Practice Assistants and oversee all related administrative workflows.
• Create, maintain, and update trademark paralegal manuals and workflow documentation.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performance team culture focused on accountability and continuous improvement.
• Oversee and optimize trademark workflows to ensure timely, accurate, and consistent execution of matters.
• Monitor workload distribution and reassign resources to meet needs and deadlines.
• Identify bottlenecks and implement process improvements to enhance efficiency.
• Collaborate on a resource page for trademark professional staff.

Skills

Trademark prosecution

Docketing systems

Team leadership

Process optimization

Legal operations

Communication

AI in legal work

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Tools

Trademark docketing software

Practice management systems

Job description

Job Description Summary

The Trademark Operations Manager is responsible for leading the administrative and operational functions of the Trademark practice. This role provides leadership and management to trademark support staff, ensures efficient workflows, maintains high-quality service delivery, and partners with trademark attorneys, paralegals and leadership to support business objectives. The Manager will play a key leadership role in developing team members, optimizing processes, and driving consistency and accountability across trademark operations. This position can be based in any of our U.S. office locations and offers a hybrid work arrangement, allowing you to work both from home and at your designated Fenwick office. The frequency of in-office work will be determined by business needs and guided by your department's directives.

Strategic Leadership & Planning

• Provide leadership and management of Trademark Paralegals, including performance management, workflow planning, and team accountability.
• Manage and monitor billable targets and productivity metrics for Trademark Paralegals.
• Lead onboarding, training, and ongoing professional development for Trademark Paralegals.
• Directly manage the Trademark Transfer Specialist, including oversight of all trademark transfer-in and transfer-out processes.
• Directly manage the Trademark Practice Assistants and oversee all related administrative workflows.
• Create, maintain, and update trademark paralegal procedural manuals and workflow documentation.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performance team culture focused on accountability, engagement, and continuous improvement.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee and optimize trademark workflows to ensure timely, accurate, and consistent execution of trademark matters.
• Monitor workload distribution and proactively reassign resources to meet business needs and deadlines.
• Identify operational bottlenecks and implement process improvements to enhance efficiency and service quality.
• Collaborate with the trademark practice support lawyer to develop and maintain a resource page for trademark professional staff, ensuring content stays current, well-organized, and useful to the team.

Leadership & Team Development

• Serve as a key liaison between trademark attorneys, paralegals, practice leadership, and support teams.
• Monitor developments in trademark law, USPTO practice, and relevant procedural rules; assess their impact on the team's operations, forms, and workflows; implement necessary changes; and communicate updates to the team, providing training as needed.
• Provide operational insights and recommendations to leadership to support staffing, capacity planning, and business growth.
• Support change management initiatives and lead the implementation of new processes, tools, or organizational changes.
• Model strong leadership behaviors, including clear communication, coaching, accountability, and professional integrity.

Desired Skills & Qualifications

• Comprehensive expertise in U.S. and foreign trademark prosecution processes, docketing systems, and trademark operations infrastructure.
• Proven people-management experience, including leading, coaching, and developing teams.
• Experience with trademark docketing and practice management systems preferred.
• We're a team that embraces AI and innovation as part of how we work.
• We're looking for people who are curious about new tools, willing to experiment, and open to evolving how they do their best work.
• Outstanding written, verbal, and organizational skills, with discretion and professionalism in handling confidential information.
• Reporting to Senior Trademark & Copyright Practice Support Manager, the ideal candidate will have minimum of 6 years of experience in trademark prosecution operations, with at least 3 - 4 years in a leadership capacity.
• Bachelor's Degree required.

Benefits and Compensation Details

At Fenwick, we believe that our partners and employees are our most important asset. Helping you and your families achieve and maintain good health - physical, emotional, and financial - is the reason we offer a comprehensive benefit program. We provide benefits to eligible employees under plans such as Healthcare, Life Insurance, Health Savings Accounts, Flexible Spending Accounts, and Wellbeing. Except as otherwise required by law, temporary employees are generally not entitled to these benefits. The anticipated range for this position is: $115,000 - $172,750. Depending on the role, the actual base salary offered may depend upon a variety of factors, including without limitation, the qualifications of the individual applicant for the position, years of relevant experience, level of education attained, certifications or other professional licenses held, and if applicable, the location in which the applicant lives and/or from which they will be performing the job. A discretionary bonus for eligible employees may also be available based on performance. Additional information about employee eligibility for benefits and discretionary bonus will be made available upon request.

Our Story

For more than five decades, Fenwick & West has helped some of the world’s most recognized companies become, and remain, market leaders. From emerging enterprises to large public corporations, our clients are leaders in the technology, life sciences and cleantech sectors and are fundamentally changing the world through rapid innovation. Having worked alongside such progressive and cutting edge companies for so long, our culture has come to reflect the entrepreneurial spirit of our client base. Unlike traditional law firms, we move at our clients’ speed and have earned the reputation as a go-to law firm for growing companies that need insightful, strategic counsel to help tackle the challenging issues that arise when the law cannot keep up with their pace of innovation. With the same passion for excellence and innovation reflected in our client base, our firm is making revolutionary changes to the practice of law through substantial investments in proprietary technology tools and processes. Our clients demand—and deserve—new ways to receive best-in-class legal services more effectively. At Fenwick, we are proud to be shaping our legal services to do just that. We are proud to have been named one of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area for the twelfth year.

Fenwick & West LLP is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and, as such, conducts all employment-related activities without regard to unlawful consideration of race, religion, color, marital status, national origin, age, sex, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, genetic characteristics or any other classification protected by applicable local, state or federal employment discrimination laws. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all. If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application, pre-employment testing, or a job interview, please contact [e-mail] or [e-mail]. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.