Name: Daniel Brook
Firm: Hogan Lovells
Position: Partner
Trained at: Hogan Lovells
In Hot 100 for: Eli Lilly’s landmark patent trial against Actavis. Read his full Hot 100 profile.
What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee?
I was a trainee at Hogan Lovells. During one of my seats, my supervisor gave me a model London bus with an instruction to remember that my future should always be said to be in London.
Who has been the most influential person in your career? Why, and how have they helped you?
The most influential person outside of my family is probably the partner that I worked for having qualified, Nicholas Macfarlane. He provided me with confidence and opportunity.
What was the best career decision you ever made, and why?
I’ve not made many – I’ve only ever been a lawyer at Hogan Lovells. That is probably too sweeping. I have turned down offers to go elsewhere, and I’ve never regretted doing so. The people you work with are crucial to job satisfaction and I like the people I work with.
I did also decide that medicinal chemistry was not my long term plan while on my masters and I don’t regret the swap to law. I still get to use my chemistry occasionally.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get to where you are/do the job you do?
That depends to a large extent on where they are currently. However, I think you have to enjoy your work if you are going to stick with it and make any kind of success of it.
What work or career-related project or activity would you really like to do, but don’t have time for?
I’d like to shadow a judge and be involved at that late stage of a set of proceedings without the benefit of the months leading up to trial learning about the issues.
We run mock trials for some important trials and use former judges to assist us with that process and the feedback from the former judges is always fascinating on how they see the case.
