Biomed phd - patent law career opportunities?
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 1:45 pm
Within a year and half or so I will be graduating with a PhD in neuroscience. I graduated with a 3.85 from my undergrad university and currently have a 3.98 GPA in my graduate program. I haven't taken an official LSAT yet (planning to within the next couple of months), but I have gotten to the point where I'm regularly scoring in the 170s on timed practice exams (I know this is only a proxy for the real thing, but every standardized test I've ever taken I've scored in the 95th+ percentile. Studying for the LSAT so far has gone well...actually kind of enjoy the logic stuff, good way to kill time during my commute to work 
).
Ok now that all that is aside, I guess my basic question is whether pursuing a career in patent law is advisable. I keep reading about how terrible the market is for lawyers and about people coming out of law school hundreds of thousands of dollar in debt only to find few job opportunities (and even the few that are available don't pay enough to truly cover debt payment and have a half-decent lifestyle).
As someone who has never been in debt (thanks primarily due to scholarship money, and obviously PhD students get a stipend for living expenses, etc), the thought of even dealing with debt from living expenses during law school, let alone tuition expenses, is rather daunting. Taking on something like that, for me at least, would be contingent on the idea that there is something worthwhile waiting at the end of the whole experience.
I personally think I would really enjoy patent law, and actually be quite good at it, based on my interests / work experience / work skills, so this is less of a "would being a lawyer be right for me?" question than it is a "how terrible of a time is it to go to law school?" type question.
I've considered studying for the USPTO registration exam (i.e. patent bar), passing that, and then trying to find work as a patent agent or go work at the USPTO while going to law school part time (or on some company's tab), but I do not know how feasible that is. I've come across very little information on this.
Any input, then, on just the general patent-law market, or whether this might be a good career path or not (since my interest in bench science has waned a great deal over my PhD experience) would be appreciated.
thanks
). Ok now that all that is aside, I guess my basic question is whether pursuing a career in patent law is advisable. I keep reading about how terrible the market is for lawyers and about people coming out of law school hundreds of thousands of dollar in debt only to find few job opportunities (and even the few that are available don't pay enough to truly cover debt payment and have a half-decent lifestyle).
As someone who has never been in debt (thanks primarily due to scholarship money, and obviously PhD students get a stipend for living expenses, etc), the thought of even dealing with debt from living expenses during law school, let alone tuition expenses, is rather daunting. Taking on something like that, for me at least, would be contingent on the idea that there is something worthwhile waiting at the end of the whole experience.
I personally think I would really enjoy patent law, and actually be quite good at it, based on my interests / work experience / work skills, so this is less of a "would being a lawyer be right for me?" question than it is a "how terrible of a time is it to go to law school?" type question.
I've considered studying for the USPTO registration exam (i.e. patent bar), passing that, and then trying to find work as a patent agent or go work at the USPTO while going to law school part time (or on some company's tab), but I do not know how feasible that is. I've come across very little information on this.
Any input, then, on just the general patent-law market, or whether this might be a good career path or not (since my interest in bench science has waned a great deal over my PhD experience) would be appreciated.
thanks