Mary-Clare is an associate in Penningtons Manches Cooper's IP, IT and commercial team in Oxford. She advises on a range of commercial agreement, intellectual property and data protection issues.

Through her current part-time secondment position as in-house legal counsel to a leading life sciences biotherapeutics company, Mary-Clare has gained experience of assisting with confidentiality, material transfer and outsourcing agreements, and has negotiated the terms of numerous collaborative proposals and services agreements. Outside of her secondment role, she assists with drafting licences, assignments and a range of commercial agreements, as well as advising on contentious trademark matters and domain name disputes.

Having joined Penningtons Manches Cooper as a trainee in 2019, Mary-Clare qualified as a solicitor in 2021. As part of her training, she was seconded to the British Athletes Commission where she worked as in-house counsel over the course of the Tokyo Olympics. She has an active interest and role in both the firm’s life sciences and sports teams, as well as the sustainability group. She graduated with a degree in French and classics before converting to law, and speaks fluent French and basic Italian.