Flann
Lippincott

Designer Attorney Speaker Educator

A restless curiosity defines my approach to life. I’m a designer with two law degrees, a law professor with a business background, an attorney who thinks in pictures, a speaker who adopts the language of her audience, and a race car driver who has found peace in the challenging world of motorsport.

Racers put their lives on the line every time their car or bike heads out on track. The level of preparation that’s required to reduce the risk-to-fun ratio is immense – similar to the preparation that’s required to lower risks to one’s design-based business in this world of effortless misappropriation.

Designers are yearning for the practical legal information they need to manage their intellectual property assets and attorneys. My mission is to provide this foundation through my new educational venture, GET TRACTION.

GET TRACTION is for the designers who put their creativity on the line when making the world a more beautiful and harmonious place.

Designer

Touching Lives

Design transforms ideas into visual stories that have the power to touch people in a place that words cannot reach.

I’ve designed interiors, fashion, luxury and mass-market consumer products, packaging, trade show booths, logos, advertising, and marketing materials. I’ve recently added race cars and helmets to my selection of canvases with the help of graphic designers who know how to capture the intensely personal experience of wheel-to-wheel racing on behalf of their clients.

The design brief for my race helmet was to celebrate the moment that I lost my fear on track, which took 3 years of hard work on my driving, fitness, nutrition, hydration, mental state, and management of a life on the road. The moment came hard and fast when I was hit on both sides simultaneously by two competitors at the apex of a turn in a National Championship race. “Old me” would have backed off, intimidated, but instead I slammed the throttle and left them behind in their surprise that I would make such a move.

“Awesome sauce!” exclaimed my coach when he saw the action on the in-car video. I didn’t remember doing it – it was instinctive – unconsciously competent, at last! With those details in the talented hands at Savage Designs, the story now unfolds around the sweeping arc of my race helmet.

The feeling when a designer knows that they have successfully transformed an idea into a compelling visual story is exquisite. To a client the skill is priceless.

My current venture, GET TRACTION, helps designers protect their fearless creativity in a marketplace where companies will harm competitors whom they don’t respect. It’s time to help designers build up the respect that their designs deserve.

Attorney

Intellectual Property
& Licensing

I transitioned from design to law when I realized that I needed to become the general counsel of my product design firm. My design patent had been infringed but my “big law” attorney was as problematic as the mass-market retailer that had infringed the patent. Feeling helpless, I took a course in business law at the local community college but was hungry for more. As I pursued my first law degree I soon discovered that it’s not easy to ship products 9 to 5 after Black Friday while studying for exams, so I closed my design business and pivoted full-time to the fascinating world of law.

My law firm Lippincott IP has helped businesses protect their intellectual property and contractual relationships worldwide for over 14 years. Clients came from the art, design, jewelry, consumer product, industrial, software, non-profit, and financial services industries.

The firm also helped our clients assert their intellectual property and contractual rights in federal court, usually against multi-national corporations that mistakenly assumed the “little guy” wouldn’t dare take them on. My clients were prepared, however, so their basic $65 copyright registration, or simple design patent, summoned the cocky infringers to the negotiating table.

I have truly loved helping my clients, but am winding down my practice to empower design entrepreneurs with the knowledge and confidence that they need to compete in the marketplace with their intellectual property. These courses are the resources that I wish existed when I was CEO of my design firm. GET TRACTION offers fun yet practical online courses and coaching in design law and licensing for designers, companies, and institutions that seek a creative solution to their training needs.

Speaker & Educator

Changing Lives

One of the highlights of my law career was the time I gave a closing argument in a copyright infringement case in front of a federal appellate judge for a litigation training program. Afterwards, the judge told me that during my argument the other new attorneys’ faces fell, because I “showed them how it’s supposed to be done.” Given that I had only just graduated from law school, she asked me how I did it.

“I teach business and law,” I replied. “I’m used to standing in front of 25 design management students at 9:00am, trying to keep them awake and focused while teaching contracts and IP.”

“Oh of course!” she exclaimed. “Teaching!”

I added: “And I am a designer, so that is why I thought to bring real props (a camera on a tripod) to enhance my argument for those jury members who think visually or experientially.”

The restless curiosity that drives my creativity compels me to seek out opportunities to solve problems in novel ways. As an attorney with years of experience in business and design, I strive to convey abstract legal principles in the language of my audience: from lawyers to design entrepreneurs to design educators to trademark and patent examiners at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

It is immensely satisfying when I see the “aha” moment in the eyes of a student, or feel the anxious entrepreneur relax, or inspire a school to take action. This is my true calling.

GET TRACTION offers creative online workshops and courses that are crafted to give designers the confidence they need to effectively manage the intellectual property that drives their business forward.

Design Law Education on the Go

→ Discover how to lower risk, fear, and costs and increase revenue and peace of mind.

→ Get behind the wheel of your intellectual property with GET TRACTION.

Workshops

Courses

Coaching