Top Law Schools

i would like to work in IP, maybe more specifically patents because i have an engineering background

is there any one market that is really strong in IP?
maybe,hopefully LA? because thats where id like to end up

would it also be safe to assume that any t14 school would prepare you well for IP?
i know berkeley is ranked at the top, but don't really want to go through
more looking at east coast schools

silly101 wrote:i would like to work in IP, maybe more specifically patents because i have an engineering background

is there any one market that is really strong in IP?
maybe,hopefully LA? because thats where id like to end up

would it also be safe to assume that any t14 school would prepare you well for IP?
i know berkeley is ranked at the top, but don't really want to go through
more looking at east coast schools

What kind of engineering background do you have? [This is probably the most important question]

Your engineering background is more relevant than your legal degree for patent prosecution. Patent litigation is a different story, but that tends to be open even to non-engineering majors.

I am going to try and take you seriously.

There are a few strong IP markets. LA is sort of one, as are DC, NYC, Dallas, Chicago, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley (and to some extend Atlanta). Then of course, there are also a number of smaller markets with a pretty big IP presence. Austin, Charlotte, the Research Triangle (mostly bio stuff), San Diego (again, bio), Denver, a bit in Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, Boston (might argue it belongs in the first list), Phoenix, and the towns around DC come to mind.

As to specifically LA, I know a lot of the national firms who do IP have offices there. You also have a few boutiques. Check out this list of IP firms Lewis and Clark maintains. It is not exhaustive, and I think some of the listings might be out of date. But it is a start. Take away point is you should not have a problem finding firms to apply to (although you might want to widen your search to include SV/SF)

However, why pray tell are you dead set against California schools when you want to end up in LA? That seems silly. Yes, a few schools on the east coast will get you back to California, but it seems odd that you are actively looking to shoot yourself in the foot like this. If you cannot bring yourself to apply to Berkeley, look at the schools class listings. If they offer distinct Trademark, Patent, and Copyright classes, you should be ok. Also look to see if they offer a patent filing or prosecution class. I know Duke has these, but I cannot speak to the other schools anymore.

Santa Clara has a very good IP program along with Cal and Stanford. There is a huge IP market in Palo Alto. It seems that every big firm has an office there.

im a chemical engineer

i chose a college very close to home, and would like to live at least a small chapter of my life away from cali. i may or may not want to stay on the east coast after law school, but i want to make sure that the option of coming back to cali is still there

thanks! ill def check out those class listings
im [seriously] looking at Penn at the moment...