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Over the past few months, I've become increasingly pessimistic about the future of Biglaw patent litigation. I need to let my firm know which practice areas I want to do next summer (2L SA), so I've spent days mulling over whether I should spend part/all of my summer trying other practice areas.

I have a BS/MS from a top EE program, bottom of my class at a top law school. Part of the reason I'm struggling with this decision is because I've hardly given any thought to alternative practice areas. I came to law school with my sights completely set on patent litigation, mostly because I worked with patent litigators at a firm before law school and genuinely loved the work.

But if pursuing patent litigation means I'll likely lose sleep over job security in the coming years, I'd rather do something else. I like the idea of general litigation, though I don't think that's a good path given my grades. I emphatically do not want to do patent prosecution, so that probably leaves transactional. But I haven't taken any corporate classes, so I'd have to shake my schedule up next semester if I go with that.

Are my concerns about patent litigation overblown? I tend to be a worrywort and maybe I'm just getting cold feet, but recent trends seem troubling, even though AIA/Alice never fazed me one bit. My firm does a lot of PTAB/IPR work, so that's a bit of a bright spot. Even so, I'm still concerned about the sustainability of all of this shit.

I appreciate any perspectives or input. Thanks for reading!

Dude... enjoy Christmas or hannukah. Do what interests you. It sounds like patent work interests you, so do that. No point projecting trends in the legal market 2 years before you start at the firm.

what's wrong with patent pros

If u want a good lifestyle, just do patent pros. Much closer to a normal 9-5 than I ever heard of elsewhere in biglaw

ballouttacontrol wrote:If u want a good lifestyle, just do patent pros. Much closer to a normal 9-5 than I ever heard of elsewhere in biglaw

Yeah that is increasingly not the case in biglaw firms (where pros attys won't be allowed to bill all their hours in a day, leading to longer days). I wouldn't get into pros in the next 5 years expecting to have a normal schedule (not in biglaw, anyway).

Anonymous User wrote:

ballouttacontrol wrote:If u want a good lifestyle, just do patent pros. Much closer to a normal 9-5 than I ever heard of elsewhere in biglaw

Yeah that is increasingly not the case in biglaw firms (where pros attys won't be allowed to bill all their hours in a day, leading to longer days). I wouldn't get into pros in the next 5 years expecting to have a normal schedule (not in biglaw, anyway).

Go to a firm where billing rates aren't retarded

patent prosecution is not that bad imo

much more creativity involved in the typical office action or claims drafting than 99% of memo writing

much of pat pros' bad rep is due to the fact that most lawyers arent qualified to do it and hate on it just because. kind of like people bashing on sushi and pho before they even try it

as for patent litigation while ALICE on its own is not much, it is definitely a worrying precedent. add the fact that big law firms love to sh*t where they eat...

still wrote:patent prosecution is not that bad imo

much more creativity involved in the typical office action or claims drafting than 99% of memo writing

much of pat pros' bad rep is due to the fact that most lawyers arent qualified to do it and hate on it just because. kind of like people bashing on sushi and pho before they even try it

as for patent litigation while ALICE on its own is not much, it is definitely a worrying precedent. add the fact that big law firms love to sh*t where they eat...

Alice.

patent lit is a horrible idea, unless you can break into PTAB stuff