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After much thought, I've decided to sit out a year instead of applying to law school for Fall 2013; the reason being that my chances of getting into a T1/T2 LS are severely diminished given that I would be taking the LSAT for the first time in February.

I want to pursue patent law, and I recently graduated from a good school with an engineering degree with a respectable GPA.

I want to pad my résumé by working and to put a ton of effort into boosting my LSAT score. What type of work opportunities exist for an engineering grad with future plans of attending LS to practice IP law? Should I settle for a firm that specializes in areas other than IP law, or would it best serve my purpose to strive for work at an IP firm? I want to get my foot in the door and to be able to get hands on experience in my desired area of practice.

Thanks for your input!

I'm also planning on going into patent law but did apply for the Fall 2013 cycle and will probably start law school in the fall. I think the best thing you do before or while you're job searching is to pass the patent bar. If you pass the patent bar you can try to get a patent agent job (although that's tough with no experience) which will provide great IP work experience before and/or during law school. Another option is to work as a patent examiner for the USPTO, which only requires a BS in science or engineering and doesn't require the patent bar. I would personally worry first about the LSAT, second the patent bar, and then third work experience if you can find it. Any IP job requires the patent bar besides an examiner position anyways, and getting it out of the way before law school will be an advantage going in and should help you at OCI. I have no interest as working as a engineer, but you might, so that's always an option too.

The above is very credited.

Also, working at a law firm won't give you much more of a boost than any other kind of work of a similar kind, though it may give you an in with that particular firm, and it may change your mind about going to law school.

IP students with substantive science work, particularly in engineering (2-7 years from people I know who are now doing IP law) have a real leg up interviewing for IP law gigs. I think getting engineering work and maybe sitting out more than one year doing that, if you can, would be more beneficial (in all sorts of other ways I won't get into here, too) than working at a law firm.

Taking more than one year off would also help you with the LSAT.