Who says that being a lawyer isn’t rock ‘n’ roll? So, there might not be many hotel rooms to smash up along the way to professional success, but one young lawyer has found her dream job in the one place she perhaps least expected. Richard Draycott meets Thorntons lawyer Lesley Paterson as she recovers from handling legal issues for her sixth T in the park music festival in July.

It’s a fair assumption that while the 80,000 or so T in the Park festival goers leapt around to the sounds of Snow Patrol, Razorlight, Mika, The Fratellis, The View, et al, few if any will have given the slightest thought to who had arranged for the rows of portaloos to be readily on hand for when the Tennent’s had taken its toll.
That said, while 79,999 people were merrily moshing away and giving little thought to the convenient proximity of said portaloos, one particular festival goer had substantial insight into exactly what goes on behind the scenes when putting together the largest music festival in Scotland.
Thorntons partner Lesley Paterson is the solicitor that handles many of the contractual negotiations for T in the Park through her clients DF Concerts and The Big Day Out, who have organised the festival for the last 12 years. And after all the contracts are signed, the artists are signed up and the tickets are sold out, it is Paterson who is the on-site lawyer during the festival weekend, on call to deal with any last minute legal emergencies.
Paterson says: “DF Concerts and Big Day Out have it all running like a well oiled machine. They really know what they are all about now, but there are always going to be legal issues that need to be sorted out around a festival of that size.
“Prior to the weekend there are numerous contractual issues to deal with and they can be anything from sponsorship of the event, as there are now a number of sponsors involved, to the less glamorous side of things such as the provision of portaloos, catering outlets, merchandising stuff and, of course, there are some arrangements that have to be put in place with some of the artists as well, so it’s quite a varied package.”
Paterson has been involved with T in the Park since she arrived as a newly qualified solicitor at Thorntons in 2001 following the completion of her traineeship with Bell and Scott, the commercial property firm in Edinburgh.
Paterson had studied at Dundee University and on completing her diploma left her hometown to head to the big bad city. However, after completing her traineeship in the capital she actually considered giving up the law altogether, that is until a fortuitous meeting with Thorntons partner and highly respected property specialist Professor Stewart Brymer, who mentioned that intellectual property law might offer her the stimulating and challenging work she was seeking.
“I had a great traineeship at Bell & Scott,” says Paterson, “but I suppose commercial property was not really my thing. I mentioned to Stewart Brymer that I was looking to go in a different direction and he said that Thortons had an IP law team and before I gave up on the law I should have a look at some of the interesting work they were doing in that area.
“When I looked a little closer I couldn’t believe the quality and range of work Thorntons was doing in the area of IP, and for some great clients too. I was really interested in the clients they had – from universities to NHS Trusts and quite a lot of companies in the creative industries – so I gave it a go and really enjoyed the work. One thing I also loved about Thorntons was that even as a newly qualified they were really interested in my ideas for business development and allowed me to dedicate some time away from my chargeable hours to focus on that.”
But it is the creative industries and more particularly the music industry that really gets Paterson fired up and practically leaping out of bed in the morning.
One area that she is becoming particularly adept at, especially through her work with T in the Park, is copyright infringement, as the festival as a brand in itself becomes ever more valuable as an asset to T in the Park founder Stewart Clumpas.
She says: “The organisers of T in the Park are very protective of the brand. The brand is huge now and I’m sure it is worth a lot of money on the balance sheet so they take infringements of the T in the Park marque very seriously. Even the smallest infringements dilute the brand and if one infringer gets away with it and is allowed to carry on then it just encourages others. We look out for bigger commercial infringements, such as people setting up T in the Park websites on which they try to sell huge amounts of tickets or try to sell unofficial T in the Park merchandise such as DVDs and T-shirts.”
And it is Paterson’s love and belief in the Scottish creative industries that really drives her to go above and beyond the call of duty, as she gets involved with lobbying the Scottish Parliament to invest in the business infrastructure in Scotland to allow Scotland’s musical artists to remain in the country as their career takes off.
She says: “The infrastructure in Scotland for the creative industries has got better and is more credible than it was, but we are still losing too much work to London. Scottish acts are coming under increasing pressure to use a London-based management company, London-based lawyers, London-based accountants and for them to re-locate to London. That ultimately means that although the act may have broken in Scotland all the money is being taken out of Scotland. So I am involved with the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party working group and have also been assisting the Scottish Music Futures initiative to try and help build the infrastructure that we need in place here.”
So apart from hanging out with the stars at T in the Park, what else excites Paterson about the law?
“I think the reason I really enjoy my job is because I am working with creative people all the time and they are right at the cutting edge of whatever they are doing. There is always someone who has developed a new piece of medical instrumentation and are about to launch it to the market, or just now for instance, I am working with a computer games company on a launch in Japan. For me the buzz is seeing something like that successfully launched, knowing all the contractual work that has gone into getting it to that stage. Also, I have been working with a band that has been really struggling to find success in the UK but they have just charted twice in Japan’s MTV chart. So when you see your client go from writing their song to seeing it performed and chart, or write a piece of software and for it to become successful on the other side of the planet, it is really exciting.
“The shape of the music industry is changing. Someone may not be a household name in the UK but they may have secured a really successful licensing deal in Japan, for instance. The new technology now available to distribute and market music is contributing to the way the industry is changing. You don’t need to get that big record deal anymore to sustain a good living from music. Many of the people I work with are not household names but write music from computer games or for the TV, or even write the ‘hold’ music for a Bank’s helpline, but they all make a good living from their music.”
Paterson was made a partner on 1 June 2006 and is now building the IP team for Thortons, which currently consists of three lawyers and a trainee. So, despite almost turning her back on the legal profession Paterson has found her vocation. Does she have any advice for future trainees?
Of course she does.
“I’d say to any trainee, don’t just write off a firm because they are not in either Edinburgh or Glasgow. They might be based in Dundee, Aberdeen or Inverness but that doesn’t mean they won’t be doing a good level of work for a varied range of clients. You really have to investigate the client base of these firms. Geographic location is becoming less and less important, so if I were going to give any advice it would be to focus on the client base more than where a firm is based.”