Prior to this, Alan was a director at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, and before that, he was the chairman of Jeftha-Twala Attorneys, a firm that he built up over a period of three years which offered a full range of services in the corporate commercial sector, property and litigation. Prior to this, Alan was a senior partner at Mallinicks (now Webber Wentzel). As an intellectual property lawyer he served three periods of four years each as an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Specialist on the Standing Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property (SACIP), advising the Minister of Trade and Industry and Government on IPR law reform.