Intellectual Property Legal Assistant

FULLER IP Intellectual Property Legal Assistant Docketing, Practice Flow, and Legal Operations Employer: Fuller IP Law Location: Phoenix, AZ (275 N. Gateway Dr., Suite 107) - hybrid, or remote within approved U.S. jurisdictions Type: Full-time · Pay: $25-$35 per hour - starting range Schedule: Regular availability during Arizona business hours About Fuller IP: Fuller IP Law is a values-driven intellectual property firm serving both patent and trademark clients. We help innovators protect and grow the value of their ideas - from breakthrough therapeutics and medical devices to advanced materials, software, hardware, and valuable brands. We are especially interested in candidates with patent or trademark support experience - or the demonstrated ability and interest to learn both. We are small enough that what you do matters and busy enough that there is always something worth learning. What this job actually is: Every day, a large volume of email comes into our patent, trademark, and foreign-filing workflows - from the USPTO, WIPO, clients, and foreign law firms around the world. Someone must look at each item and answer a short set of questions under our playbooks: Does this create a deadline? Does it need to be docketed? Who owns the next action? Does it confirm something we were waiting on? Should it be escalated? That is the heart of this job. It is email management, data management, and document management, done carefully, with enough understanding of intellectual property to know where each item goes. It also includes checking that our docket records are accurate, supporting routine patent and trademark prosecution workflows, tracking outbound foreign filings, and helping our team keep client reporting on time. We want to be straight with you about two things. This is high-volume work, and it will be yours. You won't be one of five people splitting an inbox. If the volume of that sounds energizing rather than alarming, keep reading. Much of it is repetitive by design. The same careful steps, every day, because that repetition is exactly what protects our clients from missing a deadline that can't be recovered. The people who thrive in this seat find real satisfaction in a clean docket and an empty inbox. You’ll work directly with our Legal Operations Manager and a Patent Agent. They will train you, set priorities, and make the legal and procedural judgment calls. You are not expected to arrive knowing every patent, trademark, foreign-filing, or maintenance-fee workflow. You are expected to learn quickly, follow the playbook, and ask whenever the right next step is unclear. What we care about more than years of experience: We are not counting your years. We are looking at what your experience actually involved. Someone who has spent two years as the only person responsible for a complicated, high-volume system - who is a motivated self-learner, built their own checklists, and made it work - is more prepared for this seat than someone who spent fifteen years doing one narrow task on a large team. We know that because it's how the people you’d be working with learned this job. So, tell us about the time you had to figure something out on your own. That story matters more to us than your title or your tenure. What you’ll be doing: Reading and triaging patent, trademark, and foreign-filing correspondence from the USPTO, WIPO, clients, and foreign associates, then routing, acting, or escalating under established procedures. Entering and updating docket records accurately and flagging anything inconsistent for review. Auditing docket entries and matter status against source documents. Tracking outbound foreign filings through established stages - estimates, instructions, acknowledgments, filing confirmations, and reporting - and flagging any mismatch for review. Supporting timely client reporting across patent, trademark, and foreign-filing matters, including our two-business-day reporting standard. Assisting with routine patent and trademark prosecution formalities, including assignments, declarations, powers of attorney, and related recordkeeping. After training, supporting maintenance-fee and annuity workflows under established procedures and escalating exceptions rather than guessing. Preparing recurring status and deadline reports from established templates and escalating legal or procedural questions to our attorneys and patent agents. Once you’re up to speed, lending a hand across the Practice Flow team where it’s needed most that week. Helping us improve the checklists, workflows, and automation that support all of the above. What we’re looking for: Substantive experience in a detail-heavy, deadline-driven role. Legal or IP support is very relevant, and these candidates will be given top priority. Strong experience in data or database work, medical billing, insurance, compliance, claims, logistics, or operations coordination may also translate well. We care more about what you owned and improved than your title or total years. Interest and ability to support both patents and trademarks. Experience in either area is welcome. Mastery of both is not required, but curiosity, adaptability, and willingness to learn both are. Comfort with high volume. You’ve handled a lot of incoming work and have a repeatable method for making sure nothing is lost. Demonstrated attention to detail. You can give a concrete example of catching an inconsistency and explain how you checked your work. High digital fluency and adaptability. You learn new systems quickly and are comfortable working in electronic workflows throughout the day. A habit of asking. You use sound judgment about when to act, when to verify, and when to raise a hand. Reliability, follow-through, and teamwork. When something is yours, it gets handled or clearly handed back. You take directions well and work well with the people around you. Helpful but not required: experience with patent or trademark prosecution; docketing or AppColl; USPTO Patent Center, Trademark Center or TSDR, or WIPO systems; foreign filing or PCT procedures; maintenance fees or annuities; or paralegal or legal studies. We do not expect one candidate to bring all of these. Where this goes: We are growing, and this seat grows with us. Your first year is about mastering the shared inboxes, docket-audit routines, and supported patent and trademark workflows. Over time, strong performers can expand into broader prosecution support, foreign filing, portfolio maintenance, and process improvement. How success is measured: Fuller IP Law runs on EOS. Our weekly scorecard covers deadline integrity, accurate docket entries, clean patent, trademark, and foreign-filing tracking, on-time client reporting, and low rework. Maintenance-fee and annuity work is measured when assigned. We discuss expectations regularly, so they remain clear and constant - never a surprise at an annual review. Our core values, and what they look like here: Open and Honest. With truth there is freedom. If something was missed, we want to hear it early, from you, without fear. Team Approach. With unity there is strength. Nobody here wins alone. How Can I Help? We see the need and move, together. The best people on our team notice what's needed before being asked. Humbly Confident. Do your work well and keep learning. Live a Fuller Life. We want you to have a real life outside this office, and we build our workload expectations around that. If those read like the way you already work, you'll fit here. What we offer: $25-$35 per hour - starting range. Placement within the range is based on the substance of your experience. Health, dental, vision, and 401(k). Professional development and continuing-education support. Hybrid and remote options depending on location. Genuine work-life balance, and a team that means it. The chance to help improve and automate real systems while keeping meaningful human quality control. Work involving innovative technologies and clients around the world. #J-18808-Ljbffr