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I graduate in a year with an engineering and an English degree from a no-name school with average grades and no research experience. I understand from an outsider’s perspective how prestige-driven one’s legal career will likely be. Because of my lack of that understanding before recently, and my upbringing, I just don’t have the right pedigree for a legal career. (Instead of doing research and focusing on grades during semesters, I have been working 30 hrs a week waiting tables and building up other great ECs.) Furthermore, when I graduate, I will enter the oil industry as a field engineer, where one typically works 100 hrs a week, but does nothing prestigious. So, despite the fact that my dream since 19 has been (and still is) to practice patent law, is it written on the wall that I should just climb the corporate ladder?

It's a bit early for drunk posting isn't it?

Just climb the ladder bro.

You are way overestimating the importance of anything you do pre-LS. Prestige mostly means where you go to law school, what grades/honors you get, and where you get hired out of law school. Sure, if you've accumulated a bunch of prestige points going into law school, that's nice, but in no way required.

IP student here with a technical background (BS/MS in Engineering). The poster above me is incorrect for Patent Law. If you're talking about non-patent legal jobs, anything you do before law school will not be as important as your law school or your 1L grades.

However, Patent Law is different because your technical background and experience prior to law school is what makes you marketable within the industry during and after finishing law school. Prestige of your technical background will matter if you're not an EE/CS, since firms have their pick of applicants and the patent market is saturated (albeit less saturated than the overall legal market).

To mitigate the effect of your UG alma mater, you need to go to the best law school as possible and/or try to do other things to strengthen your background. Industry experience certainly helps in this regard since you're technical skills are stronger than law students with no experience. Working for a tech company that is a major client of an IP law firm also helps tremendously.


As for climbing the corporate ladder - it's overrated. Most jobs that can be obtained with just a B.S. usually require some sort of advanced degree to move up into the valuable positions anyway. Industry jobs are also very repetitive (although you can make the same argument for legal jobs). The decision to attend law school should be a cost-benefit analysis. If you can get a great financial package from law school, it may be worth it to switch to Patent Law to substantially increase your income potential from an engineer. However, if you can't manage to get a scholarship and need to take out $150K+ in loans, it may be better to stay at your current job.

Good luck!

A. Nony Mouse wrote:You are way overestimating the importance of anything you do pre-LS. Prestige mostly means where you go to law school, what grades/honors you get, and where you get hired out of law school. Sure, if you've accumulated a bunch of prestige points going into law school, that's nice, but in no way required.

Yeah, but with my 3.25 and some great LSAT I'll get into bottom-prestige law school (wishful thinking). That's not so good ha.

collegebum1989 wrote:Working for a tech company that is a major client of an IP law firm also helps tremendously.

I wasn't aware of that. Halliburton isn't inventing a lot.

Post removed.

Kafkaesquire wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:You are way overestimating the importance of anything you do pre-LS. Prestige mostly means where you go to law school, what grades/honors you get, and where you get hired out of law school. Sure, if you've accumulated a bunch of prestige points going into law school, that's nice, but in no way required.

Yeah, but with my 3.25 and some great LSAT I'll get into bottom-prestige law school (wishful thinking). That's not so good ha.

My UG gpa was lower than that and I attend a T20 with scholarship and was also accepted at Cornell.

It's not necessarily your company's patent filings that make you attractive to a law firm, but whether your company is recognizable enough to impress a client.

Kafkaesquire wrote:I graduate in a year with an engineering and an English degree from a no-name school with average grades and no research experience. I understand from an outsider’s perspective how prestige-driven one’s legal career will likely be. Because of my lack of that understanding before recently, and my upbringing, I just don’t have the right pedigree for a legal career. (Instead of doing research and focusing on grades during semesters, I have been working 30 hrs a week waiting tables and building up other great ECs.) Furthermore, when I graduate, I will enter the oil industry as a field engineer, where one typically works 100 hrs a week, but does nothing prestigious. So, despite the fact that my dream since 19 has been (and still is) to practice patent law, is it written on the wall that I should just climb the corporate ladder?

Forget law school! You should ride that oil train, friend! Great industry!

Law is truly wretched. Patent law included. And law is not prestigious. Business leaders treat lawyers with utter contempt.

Get a job with your engineering degree. You can re-assess in a couple years if you still want to go into a bunch of debt to be a patent lawyer.

star fox wrote:Get a job with your engineering degree. You can re-assess in a couple years if you still want to go into a bunch of debt to be a patent lawyer.

+1. The oil industry is great right now and starting there will get you lots of money and a better idea of what you want to do with your life. I say do that and put law school on the backburner for now. If after a year or two you decide to pursue law school again, it will still be there.

Since 19? So your dream for like 2 years?