Enforcing trademarks at Calvin Klein
On the first day of my externship at Calvin Klein, as I pushed through the crowd on New York’s Eighth Avenue, I was still in shock that I had been given the opportunity to work in the legal department of such a high profile company.
On that first day, I was full of emotion and concerns: What would my boss be like? Did I have the skills needed to do the work? What kind of work would I be given?
As I first stepped onto the twelfth floor of the Calvin Klein offices, with its white walls, white couches, black desks, concrete floors and employees dressed in some shade of black or gray, I could feel my anxiety build with each click of my boots across the factory floors. Also, the irony that a woman whose daily fashion choice was “What hooded sweatshirt would go with what pair of jeans?” was going to work for one of the most revered fashion designers in the world was not lost on me.
Thankfully, and fortunately for Calvin Klein, my externship involved only legal issues and not fashion design. All the anxiety that I felt on that first day eventually disappeared. During the externship, I was able to exercise the skills that I learned during my first two years at Pierce Law and to develop skills that I would need in the future to practice trademark law.
My anxiety was eased primarily by the fact that I had a great advisor and mentor, Attorney Dawn Buonocore-Atlas. I truly feel that I was given the opportunity to learn law in a way that students cannot in a traditional classroom setting. Being thrown into the middle of a large corporation’s legal department could have been a trying experience, but with Attorney Buonocore-Atlas’ supervision and direction, I gradually became more and more confident with my understanding of Calvin Klein’s legal needs and was even able to take on some of the legal work and responsibilities myself.
>> continued in the Winter 2008 issue of Pierce Law magazine
