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I know some IP law firms employ law students (2L/3L) part-time.

How accessible are these positions? Are they rare?

How does the hourly rate compare to what an associate would make?

EDIT: In DC.

How rare is hard to say, but I did it and know a handful of others that did it in the NY market. It is the exception, not the rule. Pay is between 50-80 an hour, though obviously YMMV.

I got and worked one of these gigs my 1L year. Between $60-70/hr. T20 school, BSEE. Not NY market though.

Not sure why anonymous.

Willing to PM me?

Anyone else?

$60-$70 sounds unbelievably high for a part-time law clerk. $70/hr for a 35 hr work week breaks down to about $130k/yr, which is 1st year associate/SA pay. Frankly speaking, law students are not worth that much to firms. Firms pay SAs high salaries for the summer as a means of enticing them to come back full time after school. They aren't getting the same amount/quality of work out of summers as they get out of associates, so the firm is technically losing money on them. SAs are long term investments.

If firms do hire part time for IP work, it's usually going to be for patent prosecution or other transactional-type work. The hourly rates I've heard of in my market are around $30 for part-time (post SA) work. The only exception I can think of is perhaps if you're doing patent prosecution work and you have a registration number with the patent office (i.e., you passed the patent bar), but this will entirely depend upon the firm's needs.

I had one of these positions in the DC market. My estimate is 40-60 average.

Minneapolis. $45/hr both pre and post summer. Have a registration number, but I don't think this makes a difference at my firm.