Community of Solo IP Practitioners

This is a blog on which readers are obliged to comment. Its purpose is to create a sense of community for those Intellectual Property Practitioners who practise independently or in very small firms or even as the only IP person in a larger firm or organisation. There is a Facebook group but some members feel uncomfortable on Facebook - please tell me why?
The net is not geographically limited so neither is this blog.
In London we have had several face to face meetings and the next one takes place on 14 February 2008 at the Hall of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys at 95 Chancery Lane. The guest speaker is Duncan Bucknell who is coming all the way from Australia. He is a solo IP Strategist and publisher of the IP Think Tank blog.
He will discuss some recent trends in IP Strategy across the globe and what to watch in 2008. He will give us an insight into how the sole practitioner can promote a practice offering strategic advice to top of the range clients based on expertise, freedom from conflict and the promise that work will not be delegated.
A roundtable discussion will follow. All participants can share their concerns about working alone and the solutions they may have found work to provide the comfort that clients holding the decent legal budgets need to forge their relationship with a network of hands-on solo practitioners rather than Baker & Mackenzie.
We shall also be welcoming Gavin McGivern from Sweet & Maxwell who helped organise the Westlaw subscriptions. He will be showing the Lawtel Precedents and if anyone would like a trial password to see what’s there, just ask even if you can’t come to the meeting.
All this and you can still make it to a romantic venue to meet your beloved for 7:30. For the rest there are some decent drinking establishments in the vicinity to continue the debate.