Top Law Schools

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You'll have a much better chance at the big firms (Finnegan, Fish, general practice) from a top law school.

If you go to a lower ranked school, there would probably be tons of opportunities to prosecute at smaller patent boutiques if that's what you're looking for, especially in DC/NOVA...

Have you thought about working full time as a law clerk while going to school? You could probably get a full time position doing prosecution work for a firm right now. And lots of firms will cover tuition.

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I'm a BSEE as well going straight to law school. Of what I've read is that your undergrad engineering degree and law school rank are the two most important things for getting patent law jobs. The good news (for both of us) is EE is the most in demand degree for patent law right now. Next on the list would probably be patent related work experience along with law school/engineering GPA. Engineering work experience is further down the list. See my link below and search that forum, it provides a lot of good info. Again, this is just what I've mainly seen/read.

http://www.intelproplaw.com/ip_forum/index.php

Spartan,

Attend law school in the region, preferably city, in which you want to practice. This will put you at a significant advantage when the following questions arise in an interview: (1) Why do you want to work in this city? and (2) Why do you want to work at this firm?

On another note, I cannot over emphasize the importance of having passed the patent bar in the career search. This put me at a SIGNIFICANT advantage as compared to others with securing the job I wanted next summer.

Regardless, best of luck in your search!

I'm currently attending a part-time program while working my full-time engineering gig. It's bitch doing both and can be stressful. But I think it would be more stressful doing the full-time route while eating ramen noodles everyday, accumulating massive debt, and thinking about the paychecks you once had.

Had a few interviews via OCI and many of them preferred an EE guy. These firms were boutiques, but they paid ~150k according to the NALP directory.

Hope this info helps, good luck.

hurldes wrote:You'll have a much better chance at the big firms (Finnegan, Fish, general practice) from a top law school.

If you go to a lower ranked school, there would probably be tons of opportunities to prosecute at smaller patent boutiques if that's what you're looking for, especially in DC/NOVA...

Have you thought about working full time as a law clerk while going to school? You could probably get a full time position doing prosecution work for a firm right now. And lots of firms will cover tuition.

This.

Go be a student associate somewhere in DC. EE, patent bar, you'll probably get it. Some will pay for school too. Which does not suck.