Five minutes with … Dana Northcott, INTA President 2024

Managing IP is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Gardens, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Five minutes with … Dana Northcott, INTA President 2024

Dana_Northcott_2.jpg

Dana Northcott, INTA’s 2024 president and associate general counsel for Amazon's IP team, talks about her work for the association

Welcome to the latest instalment of Managing IP’s ‘Five minutes with’ series, where we learn more about IP lawyers on a personal as well as a professional level. This time we have Dana Northcott, INTA’s president for 2024 and vice president and associate general counsel for Amazon's IP team.

Someone asks you at a party what you do for a living. What do you say?

While I may wear many hats, I'm first and foremost a brand attorney. I help colleagues within our Amazon businesses name products and services that enrich our customers’ lives and eventually become iconic brands, such as Alexa and Kindle. It’s incredibly rewarding work!

Talk us through a typical working day.

There is no typical day when you get to work with as many facets of the business as I’m lucky enough to. Everything starts with Amazon’s mission of being Earth’s most customer-centric company and my team and I work to help further that mission.

What are you working on at the moment?

Throughout the year, we look to iterate and evolve on new technologies, products, and services. Right now, I spend a lot of my time sitting at the table with different Amazon businesses and talking to them about what it is they're trying to do. My goal is to help transform that idea into a tool that delivers great solutions for our customers.

I am thrilled to also serve as the 2024 INTA president. One of the big goals for 2024 is to work on the next four-year strategic plan [for 2026-2029]. It may seem early, but these strategic plans are incredibly important as they guide all INTA activities during those four years. I’m also excited by my presidential task force, which will look at how brands communicate around sustainability.

Does one big piece of work usually take priority or are you juggling multiple things?

I am always juggling multiple things—which is even more true now! My day includes all of what I do with Amazon and then I’ll shift and put on my INTA president hat. I enjoy moving between my responsibilities on both fronts throughout the day.

What is the most exciting aspect of your role and what is the most stressful?

The most exciting aspects of my job are also the most stressful. I get to work with every single aspect of the Amazon business so I can start my day in China talking about the Amazon Web Services brand and then jump over for lunch in Latin America to talk about brand restrictions, and then end the day in a strategic meeting in Seattle talking about what digital projects and services are coming.

The variety is both challenging and rewarding.

Tell us the key characteristics that make a successful IP lawyer.

Whether you're an IP practitioner or not, always lead with humility and curiosity.

I think the second most important thing is to remember you are not just a lawyer, you are a part of the business, and you are also a customer. In my view, successful IP lawyers (whether in-house or at a firm) first ask how they can move things forward from that perspective and only then move on to the legal issue.

What is the most common misconception about IP?

This is a generalisation, but when most people think of IP, they tend to think only of patents. But IP is about protecting property of the mind and there are so many different ways to bring ideas to life beyond just inventions. IP is thinking about ideas holistically, with different forms of the law protecting different kinds of ideas.

The broader misconception I’d love to correct is that lawyers are always fighting!

So much of what we do is about protecting what customers are going to find the most meaningful.

What or who inspires you?

People who are on top of their game, whether they are creative legends like Taylor Swift, phenomenal athletes like Roger Federer and Mikaela Shiffrin, or journalists like Walter Isaacson. Folks who are pursuing their passion are the people we can learn from.

If you weren’t an IP lawyer, what would you be doing?

I love to read and want to share how you can travel the world in the pages of a book, so I would love to be a librarian in an elementary school to help children get passionate about reading. I read several books a week. It’s not just a joy, it also satisfies my curiosity to learn a bit about everything, which is why I read a wide range of books.

My other passion is skiing, so perhaps I would be part of a ski patrol. We could combine my passions. Ski at sunrise and introduce kids to the joy of reading for the rest of the day! That would be magical.

Any advice you would give your younger self?

Don’t be in such a hurry. Learning along the way is really important. I raced through school. Taking a longer break at each educational step would have given me a lot more information and resources as I developed my career.

I would tell myself to take a gap year and then at least five years before starting law school.

more from across site and SHARED ros bottom lb

More from across our site

MBIP principals Andy Mukherji and Ellen Reid discuss the firm’s combination with Jones Tulloch and reveal why younger firms stand to gain from AI demand
IP and commercial lawyers help ITV Studios acquire majority stake in Spanish production company Plano a Plano
The newly merged firm, formally announced on August 4, will have a combined revenue of around $3 billion and 40 IP partners
Managing IP will help mark IP Inclusive’s 10th anniversary by co-hosting a new podcast series covering diversity, equity, and inclusion within the IP profession
Tim Gilman, who joined Kasowitz alongside three other partners, says he is excited to be part of the firm’s ‘elite’ litigation team
A backlash against a White House video promoting deportation and Casalonga opening a new office in Düsseldorf were also among the top talking points
The firm has brought on board two counsel and an associate to complement two previously revealed partner hires
Bradford Newman, who has joined the firm’s new Silicon Valley office as head of complex technology disputes, discusses plans to build the practice group and attract local talent
Managing IP summarises the highlights from the IP STARS rankings for copyright and IP transactions work, the final firm rankings release of the year
Developments included the first judgment from the Nordic Baltic division, an injunction covering the UK, and a new code of conduct
Gift this article