James St.Ville was called to the Bar in 1995. At Gray's Inn, he was awarded the Bird & Bird Award for Intellectual Property, the Moot Society Prize and the Prince of Wales Award. At St. John's College Cambridge he was a Morton Scholar and awarded 1st Class Honours in Engineering, Sir Joseph Larmor's Plate, the St.John's College Prize and the University IEE Institution Prize.

A chartered engineer with commercial experience of electronics, optical communications and engineering, James appears in technical patent, design right, copyright and confidential information actions many of which deal with complex electronics and software. He is regularly instructed in malicious falsehood, trade mark and passing off actions, including domain name and internet disputes and is instructed to appear in the Patents Court, Technology and Construction Court, Court of Appeal, Trade Marks Registry, Patent Office and in front of the Appointed Person. He also advises in relation to intellectual property disputes in commonwealth jurisdictions such as Singapore.

Recent reported cases include BSW v. Balltec [2007] FSR 1 (successful resistance of damaging pre-action disclosure relating to equipment used in the offshore oil and gas industry), IDA v. University of Southampton [2006] RPC 21 (CA), [2005] RPC 11 (ChD), [2002] RPC 44 (substantial patent entitlement dispute), FAPL v. Panini [2004] 1 WLR 1147 (CA) (copyright in football club crests, incidental use), Collag v. Merck [2003] FSR 263 (confidential information and patent entitlement dispute about agrochemical formulations), Rohm & Haas v. Collag [2002] FSR 28 (CA) (agrochemical process patent) and Safari Trade Mark [2002] RPC 23 (alleged non-use of trade mark).