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IP background. will prob end up in silicon valley

to go in-house at a tech company or something, is it better to have a corp or lit background?

Anonymous User wrote:IP background. will prob end up in silicon valley

to go in-house at a tech company or something, is it better to have a corp or lit background?

corp.

it's hard to go in-house with a lit background, b/c not that many companies can justify a full-time position dedicated to managing litigation. only very large companies like Google have those positions.

there are far more positions that deal with corp, tech transactions, patent prosecution, ip portfolio, etc.

If you are stuck doing litigation what is the best practice area if this is of interest?

I would say Corp. I work for a F500 Bank and did an intership this summer with our Corp In-House and we have maybe 3 attorney's with a litigation background and only one handles any substantial litigation work load. The rest are all have transactional backgrounds specializing in various fields that translate to the work the bank does. I worked on a fair amount of IP work and found that it seems that they farm out as much of it as possible because of the tedious nature of the work. Then again we are a bank so the IP work was secondary to regulatory requirements, Frank Dodd Act etc.

Following up on this what are typical exit options for litigation folk? Is it just gov't/DA/US Attorney or do litigators have other options?

Anonymous User wrote:Following up on this what are typical exit options for litigation folk? Is it just gov't/DA/US Attorney or do litigators have other options?

in my view gov't and US attorney jobs are a little too good to be called "exit options."

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Following up on this what are typical exit options for litigation folk? Is it just gov't/DA/US Attorney or do litigators have other options?

in my view gov't and US attorney jobs are a little too good to be called "exit options."

They are "options" for litigation people who want to "exit" a firm. I've met plenty of attorneys that were litigators for a firm for a few years and then went to a gov't agency or US Attorney's office.

Anonymous User wrote:Following up on this what are typical exit options for litigation folk? Is it just gov't/DA/US Attorney or do litigators have other options?

Are these options for IP Lit folks?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:IP background. will prob end up in silicon valley

to go in-house at a tech company or something, is it better to have a corp or lit background?

corp.

it's hard to go in-house with a lit background, b/c not that many companies can justify a full-time position dedicated to managing litigation. only very large companies like Google have those positions.

there are far more positions that deal with corp, tech transactions, patent prosecution, ip portfolio, etc.

Slightly different for IP lit. There aren't a lot of people out there who do only IP transactional work (not prosecution), and IP is more inextricably intertwined with litigation than other corporate work. As a result, IP litigators have an easier time going in house than litigators generally.

I've noticed a substantial number of openings for in-house attorneys with patent litigation experience over the last 2 years. Still less than patent prosecution though.

Also, in most tech companies you will be doing a variety of legal work unless you're at a larger place like Intel, Apple, HP, etc. where you have a much narrower role within the legal department. Lots of large companies only have a 3-10 in-house attorneys, so a former patent litigator may also be dealing with employment law issues.