mofo patent pros billables Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know how many hours are expected for a prosecution associate to advance at mofo? Not afraid of work but like to see my family too.

[Anonymous User]

Patent prosecutors are evaluated on billed hours, not billable.

[Anonymous User]

Patent prosecutors are evaluated on billed hours, not billable.

OK...so how many billed hours and how much do your hours get cut assuming you're good at your job?

[Anonymous User]

Patent prosecutors are evaluated on billed hours, not billable.

OK...so how many billed hours and how much do your hours get cut assuming you're good at your job?

Generally, you should try to work within the budget so that you don't get too many hours cut. You should get to over 90% efficiency, but a lot of people have difficulty with that. You either get it or you don't and those who don't just have a difficult time.

It can be a bit difficult at a larger firm since your billing rate would be a lot higher than a boutique. Also depends on the clients the group has. Some clients have uncapped or higher budgets and then gradually lower it over time. But you still can't rack up a huge bill on an uncapped budget.

The people I know or know of who are at larger firms doing prosecution work between 1900-2200 hours. You can definitely feel every hour over 1850 since there's not really any easy, non-analytical work.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. I don't imagine efficiency will be a problem for me. Is the billed target 1850? 1900? And does hitting that number without going significantly over allow you to advance or do you really want to be hitting 2k+?

[gk101]

Thanks. I don't imagine efficiency will be a problem for me. Is the billed target 1850? 1900? And does hitting that number without going significantly over allow you to advance or do you really want to be hitting 2k+?

How the hell do you know now that efficiency won't be a problem for you. You don't even know what the budgets are

[Anonymous User]

2k+? JFC.... 2k as patent pros would be fucking grueling...

[Anonymous User]

2k+? JFC.... 2k as patent pros would be fucking grueling...

Agreed, it would certainly be challenging. Anyone know what the actual expectation is?

[gk101]

2k+? JFC.... 2k as patent pros would be fucking grueling...

Agreed, it would certainly be challenging. Anyone know what the actual expectation is?

From what I have heard, expectations at sweat shop style patent pros places like Finnegan/Oliff/Oblon etc is somewhere between 1850-2000 for billed hours

I should add that pros work at most biglaw firms that I am familiar with have a sweatshop feel because the profit margins are so low.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. I don't imagine efficiency will be a problem for me. Is the billed target 1850? 1900? And does hitting that number without going significantly over allow you to advance or do you really want to be hitting 2k+?

How the hell do you know now that efficiency won't be a problem for you. You don't even know what the budgets are

I think this needs to be stressed. Efficiency depends on your billing rate, budgets, and skill. Skill is somewhat independent of your technical credentials. Having a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and being selected by NASA to be an astronaut doesn't mean that you're going to be skilled and efficient in patent prosecution. You're not going to know if you're suitable at prosecution until you actually do it.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. I don't imagine efficiency will be a problem for me. Is the billed target 1850? 1900? And does hitting that number without going significantly over allow you to advance or do you really want to be hitting 2k+?

How the hell do you know now that efficiency won't be a problem for you. You don't even know what the budgets are

I think this needs to be stressed. Efficiency depends on your billing rate, budgets, and skill. Skill is somewhat independent of your technical credentials. Having a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and being selected by NASA to be an astronaut doesn't mean that you're going to be skilled and efficient in patent prosecution. You're not going to know if you're suitable at prosecution until you actually do it.

Fair enough--I would note that some people will have experience in patent prosecution but might still want to know about hours expectations at various firms.

[gk101]

Thanks. I don't imagine efficiency will be a problem for me. Is the billed target 1850? 1900? And does hitting that number without going significantly over allow you to advance or do you really want to be hitting 2k+?

How the hell do you know now that efficiency won't be a problem for you. You don't even know what the budgets are

I think this needs to be stressed. Efficiency depends on your billing rate, budgets, and skill. Skill is somewhat independent of your technical credentials. Having a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and being selected by NASA to be an astronaut doesn't mean that you're going to be skilled and efficient in patent prosecution. You're not going to know if you're suitable at prosecution until you actually do it.

Fair enough--I would note that some people will have experience in patent prosecution but might still want to know about hours expectations at various firms.

If you have experience in patent prosecution, you would know that efficiency will depend on the people you work with along with billing rate, budgets, and skill. Tough to just assume your efficiency would be fine. With a fixed budget, any time the partner puts in will get billed out which basically means your realization rate will take a hit.

Anyway, I posted the billing (actual billed) expectations above for some of the firms where I know people. As for advancement, from what I have seen at my firm's patent prosecution group, you have two ways to become a partner: 1) You bring in a shit ton of work or 2) you get close to a partner who picks you to be the person who inherits the client if the partner ever decides to retire. Billing a ton of hours is only helpful for advancement if the partners trust you enough to give you work and you hopefully become reliable enough to fall in category 2.