Interested in being a patent lawyer in LA. What should I do? Forum

[economist]

Hi everyone,

I'm a 4th year undergraduate Chemical engineering major and I'm interested in becoming a patent attorney. Because I decided this pretty late, I rushed a lot of things, so my law school choices are fairly limited. I need some help deciding what I should do next year.

So my first option would be to go to law school, either Loyola LA or Santa Clara (I prefer California). Santa Clara is really strong in Intellectual Property law, but Loyola is in LA, where I want to work in the future. I know that both of these schools are not ranked very high, so I'm not sure about job prospects and I know they're both regional. If I waited another year to bolster my application, maybe I could get into a better school like UCLA or USC law, but that's not guaranteed, so it really could just be a waste of time. Another option could be going to graduate school for Chemistry or something similar and then attend law school. Would a graduate degree increase my job prospects in the future?

I'm really not sure what to do. Anyone have any advice? Thank you everyone in advance.

[BigFatPanda]

Assuming the economy recovers in 3-4 years, you really shouldn't worry too much given your background: in good times, patent attorney gets pay bigLaw salary no matter where you went to school, as long as you don't screw up in your classes.

Go to Santa Clara, its IP curriculum will do wonders for u. I have no idea about Loyola so i am not gonna comment.