IP work can be divided into two main areas: hard and soft intellectual property. ‘Hard' intellectual property relates to patents, while ‘soft' intellectual property covers trademarks, copyright, design rights and passing off. IP barristers advise on issues that range from commercial exploitation to infringement disputes and agreements that deal either exclusively with IP rights or with IP rights in the wider context of larger commercial transactions.

Like many IP law specialists, Miles Copeland studied sciences rather than law at university - in his case, natural sciences at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He realised reasonably early on in his degree that lab life was not for him and looked at various career options, completing different internships which included a number of minipupillages.

"The Bar certainly appealed most," he recalls. "I discounted management consultancy, as at the junior end you seemed to do very menial tasks, and that was also my thinking with solicitors. The other appealing factor was that I saw friends who were becoming junior solicitors and they were being told what to do, when they could work and when they couldn't, how late they had to stay and when they couldn't go out - all those kinds of things. I hadn't really understood the advantage of being self-employed at the Bar until then. I suspect that as a solicitor it gets better fairly soon. But at the Bar, I've certainly always enjoyed the ability to work when I want. I'd rather work at the weekends than late into the evenings."

After university, Miles did the CPE at City University, went on to do the BVC at the Inns of Court School of Law and was called to the Bar in 2004. However, it was when he started his pupillage at specialist IP set 3 New Square that he considers his legal education really stepped up a gear. "It was quite a lot of hard work," he says. "But it was actually much better training than I had received at university, and I think I would include the conversion course and the BVC in that. It was a much more hands-on, much more intensive education than I received at anything since school. And it's non-stop. I think when you first start working after having been at university, you're slightly struck with quite how non-stop it really is. Certainly in pupillage, you're also being judged every moment."

As a pupil in an IP set, Miles suggests you are likely to spend time drafting pleadings and opinions, which are then checked over by your pupil master. The pressure really starts when you become a junior. "The big difference is that when you draft the pleading as a pupil, your pupil master makes changes and then sends it out, so it's kind of stress free. One of the things that really struck me when I started work at the Bar - and it's one of the most stressful things - is that it's your name at the bottom and it has to go out into the real world with hopefully no mistakes on it. I always think about people who do other jobs where it's just a corporate approach and the world never knows who drafted a particular document or who made the mistake. And it's quite scary when it's you and only you. You take all the glory, if there is any, and all the blame."

The kind of work that a junior IP barrister can expect is generally divided into two broad categories, explains Miles: you are either supporting senior colleagues in a big patent trial or handling smaller matters on your own. "Generally, my practice involves being a junior on a big patent trial, where you are either trying to revoke a patent or say that somebody else infringes your patent. That involves working with the expert witnesses and the solicitors, attending meetings, talking about the case and assisting the expert in settling their opinion once they've produced the draft. That's a very significant part of the work.

"The rest is advising smaller clients on disputes, which don't usually involve patents. The way it tends to work out is that you're a junior in a big patent case, because it's worth a lot of money, but you work on your own in a case that's about dress designs or handbag designs - fashion industry stuff, generally, or assisting people who have been accused of either infringing somebody else's copyright or passing off their business. That normally involves advisory work, drafting letters and pleadings either to defend the client or to start proceedings against them."

The preponderance of advisory work in this area means that IP barristers perhaps do not spend as much time on their feet early on in their careers as those in other fields. "At the junior end, there's not that much advocacy on your own," Miles acknowledges. "I am in court from time to time, but certainly not every week. What tends to happen is that I'll have perhaps six or seven big trials every year, which will occupy me in court as a junior for a week or two at a stretch. But outside of those appearances as junior counsel, I'll probably only do a handful. Increasingly more so as I'm now five years forward, so I'm getting more and more of the half-day hearings on things on my own - hearings in front of the Patent Office or the Trademark Registry, or direction hearings in front of masters in relation to bigger trials."

As a result, Miles suggests that perhaps IP might not be the right fit for those eager for lots of courtroom drama from the word go. "I would say if you want to be on your feet every day in your first six months, IP is not for you. However, if you are somebody who is going to enjoy working on the same case for a long time, rolling up your sleeves and getting to grips with it, with only a couple of big cases on the go, then IP is probably for you."

More generally, Miles thinks that many hopefuls could improve their chances at their pupillage interview by showing that they have an understanding of how chambers and clients survive as businesses. "I think it's quite important to make sure that you come across as a real commercial possibility. You've got to look like you're not just an academic, but somebody who's business savvy and is actually going to deliver results and bring some money into the chambers. It will also help to show that you understand what your client is about."