Senior Attorney

Job Description

Job Description

Senior attorneys usually get one of two choices: big-firm structure with little real ownership, or going solo and building everything alone. This role is neither. You own your matters and client relationships, and you have a team, a steady pipeline, and a managing attorney who works with you as a peer.

Trestle Law is a boutique intellectual property and business law firm. The clients we serve are founders, creators, and brand-driven businesses that treat their IP as a strategic asset, not a checkbox. We are not a high-volume filing shop. We help clients protect, structure, and monetize what they’ve built.

To apply

Submit your resume and a short note (under 200 words) about a matter you owned from start to finish and the decision in it that mattered most. We won’t review applications without the note.

Compensation and benefits

$185,000 to $225,000, depending on experience. The firm offers its employees benefits such as healthcare and dental, 401(k) with company match, PTO, paid sick leave, holiday closures, and discretionary bonuses.

How we hire

• Application and short note (see above)

• Written exercise

• Interviews with the managing attorney

• References

About Trestle Law, APC

We help founders, creators, and established visionaries protect what they’ve built, structure strong businesses, negotiate smart deals, and turn intellectual property into valuable assets. Our culture is high-performance and high-trust. We work hard, expect excellence, and care about clients and each other. We are thoughtful, decisive, and growth-oriented, and we don’t do bureaucracy.

$185,000 - $225,000 yearly

What you’ll do

• Lead matters across IP, business, and select federal litigation, including trademark and copyright disputes, TTAB proceedings, licensing, and commercial contracts

• Serve as primary counsel to clients on brand protection, monetization, deal negotiation, and dispute strategy

• Supervise paralegals and staff on trademark and copyright work, reviewing strategy rather than drafting line by line

• Mentor a junior attorney who already runs litigation matters

• Work with the managing attorney on firm strategy, client experience, and growth, including a premium advisory offering for high-value clients

What the job actually looks like

• Fully remote, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific

• About 1,500 billable hours a year, a realistic target

• A mix of fixed-fee and hourly matters, managed against a budget

• We generate our own pipeline. Origination is welcome but not expected

• Time tracked in Clio in 0.1-hour increments. We also use SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, and Word

Who you are

• 8+ years of practice, with substantive experience in IP, business, and commercial federal litigation

• California bar in good standing

• Strong drafting and negotiation skills, with a track record of moving complex matters efficiently

• Experience supervising and developing junior attorneys and staff

• Comfortable taking verbal direction, owning matters end to end, and making independent judgment calls

• Able to handle several deadline-driven matters at once without losing track of any of them

• Willing to ask for help early, and good at knowing which questions to ask

This role is probably not for you if

• You want big-firm structure, layered review, and a narrow lane

• You prefer to wait for direction before moving a matter forward

• You’re looking for part-time or interim work

• Fixed-fee work and budgets make you uncomfortable

Required

• Soft IP focus (trademark, copyright, trade dress)

• TTAB experience

• Experience advising founder-led or creative businesses

Trestle Law serves founders, creators, and established visionaries across the country. We help clients protect what they've built, structure strong businesses, negotiate smart deals, and turn intellectual property into valuable assets.

Our culture is high-performance and high-trust. We work hard, expect excellence, and care about clients and each other. We are thoughtful, decisive, and growth-oriented.