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The market out there must not be as booming as it is in the SF area. Firms are pretty desperate to hire here and they're just not finding as many EE/CS candidates who are going to law school these days.
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Mar 27, 2014 01:50
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Jesus, having an engineering undergrad isn't enough anymore, you need a doctorate on top of the law degree?
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Mar 27, 2014 01:53
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mastershakeman posted:Jesus, having an engineering undergrad isn't enough anymore, you need a doctorate on top of the law degree? Not for most patent attorneys.
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Mar 27, 2014 02:07
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mongeese posted:The market out there must not be as booming as it is in the SF area. Firms are pretty desperate to hire here and they're just not finding as many EE/CS candidates who are going to law school these days. When I was looking, the entry level market was rough though. Has the struggle to get through the first job "you need experience to get experience" paradox changed? I recall tons of openings that uniformly wanted two years of experience, and they seemed to actually mean it.
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Mar 27, 2014 02:34
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nm posted:Life as a public defender: So basically every episode of Cops ever then?
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Mar 27, 2014 02:36
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mongeese posted:The market out there must not be as booming as it is in the SF area. Firms are pretty desperate to hire here and they're just not finding as many EE/CS candidates who are going to law school these days. Out here in the midwest too. My firm is pretty desperate for EE/CS people.
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Mar 27, 2014 02:56
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Kalman posted:Yep. Actually phd/jds for anything patent, mechanical/electrical PhDs are pretty rare and thus treasured. For non-medical they're still sometimes hiring us regular old bs/jds, but mostly not unless you have a friend or experience. wrong-o! it's a standard subject to modification and doesn't refer to any definite article!
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Mar 27, 2014 03:01
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I am normally a pretty sociable person but, for some reason, I was way off in Awkward Land at tonight's Young Lawyers event.
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Mar 27, 2014 05:32
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Enigma posted:When I was looking, the entry level market was rough though. Has the struggle to get through the first job "you need experience to get experience" paradox changed? I recall tons of openings that uniformly wanted two years of experience, and they seemed to actually mean it. Ersatz fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 06:04
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Blinky2099 posted:Wow, interesting. I didn't think this was the case at all. Thanks for all the info. edit: alternatively, and preferably, I could have pursued an academic career, which might not have been a disaster since my bachelor's degrees were in STEM fields. Ersatz fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 06:06
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Pook Good Mook posted:So basically every episode of Cops ever then? Yes, I watch cops and yell at the screen. Very therapeutic.
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Mar 27, 2014 06:35
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mongeese posted:The market out there must not be as booming as it is in the SF area. Firms are pretty desperate to hire here and they're just not finding as many EE/CS candidates who are going to law school these days. I have an EE/CS (some sort of combination undergrad degree from UC Berkeley) friend in the Bay Area with actual engineering experience presently attending a "middling" Norcal law school (read: neither Stanford nor Berkeley) who can't find a 2L summer job doing patent work in the greater Bay Area to save his life. This is despite working at a small patent "boutique" during 1L summer. The insane curve at UC Berkeley for engineering also killed his UG GPA, and thus his chance to get into a truly competitive law school. That's his story, anyway. He's a really intelligent guy; it's quite tragic.
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Mar 27, 2014 07:15
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gret posted:Out here in the midwest too. My firm is pretty desperate for EE/CS people. From my experience, EE is hands down the most marketable undergraduate major right now, followed closely by computer engineering and then computer science a little farther down the line. Mechanical engineering degrees are kind of in the middle, and anything having to do with biology and chemistry I almost always see looking for graduate level work at a bare minimum (and usually a PHD). This is because software patents are easy money right now, and for bio/chem having more education is a much stronger indication of ability to understand the research being done than what is being done in tech. EE is better than CE/CS because in addition to software stuff you can do low level hardware circuits type stuff, which can be harder for people with only a pure CS degree. Edit: Vox Nihili posted:I have an EE/CS (some sort of combination undergrad degree from UC Berkeley) friend in the Bay Area with actual engineering experience presently attending a "middling" Norcal law school (read: neither Stanford nor Berkeley) who can't find a 2L summer job doing patent work in the greater Bay Area to save his life. This is despite working at a small patent "boutique" during 1L summer. My UG gpa was 2.3. It really does not hold you back as much as you think. Meatbag Esq. fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 07:18
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Meatbag Esq. posted:My UG gpa was 2.3. It really does not hold you back as much as you think.
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Mar 27, 2014 07:25
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My resume said:quote:Law School Though I'll admit the fact that I was working as a patent agent for 2.5 years prior to law school helped me get in the door a lot too.
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Mar 27, 2014 07:30
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Meatbag Esq. posted:My UG gpa was 2.3. It really does not hold you back as much as you think. It does when you are applying to law schools. A hell of a lot. That said, it's likely you know a few things I do not about the industry, since I pretty much go on what my friends that are actually in it say. Do you have any advice I could pass on?
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Mar 27, 2014 07:30
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Vox Nihili posted:It does when you are applying to law schools. A hell of a lot. Yeah, that hurt me a lot when applying to schools too. I started law school at a school ranked over 100, and then transferred up 100 ranks to George Washington after doing really well. Proving that I was a capable student my first year of law school was really important. I think my advice is that even if big law is out of the question, there are definitely boutiques that will be willing to take on a summer. My first patent job was with someone who knew I did crap in UG, but who I impressed with my writing and analysis ability and he eventually hired me when he started his boutique after breaking from a bigger firm with his partner. It sucks to suggest your friend resume spam every local and semi-local patent boutique, but I know for a fact that many of these places don't consider students mostly because they don't get any resumes. While I was at the boutique, we hired three students from that TTT largely because we received resumes from them, and they proved they were human beings in their interviews. Two of them are still working at the boutique when I just checked (assuming their website is still current). If they want to know how to find local boutiques, my first reaction is "really?". But then I would point to the register of patent agents (https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/) and tell them to start typing in zip codes. Also, and I'll admit it might be too late for this, but being able to say "I am a registered patent agent" on your resume impresses people a lot more than "I am eligible to sit for the patent bar." Meatbag Esq. fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 07:45
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Meatbag Esq. posted:Also, and I'll admit it might be too late for this, but being able to say "I am a registered patent agent" on your resume impresses people a lot more than "I am eligible to sit for the patent bar."
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Mar 27, 2014 08:12
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Solid Lizzie posted:I am normally a pretty sociable person but, for some reason, I was way off in Awkward Land at tonight's Young Lawyers event. I went to a bar lunch recently. I was three youngest lawyer in the room by 30 years. It was at a Lubys. I should have known.
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Mar 27, 2014 10:41
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Meatbag Esq. posted:If they want to know how to find local boutiques, my first reaction is "really?". But then I would point to the register of patent agents (https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/) and tell them to start typing in zip codes. oh poo poo there's another agent who lives 5 houses down from me
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Mar 27, 2014 18:39
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Meatbag Esq. posted:
I graduated with about a 2.8 and a CS degree. Nearly all of my school's OCI patent firms asked for both law school and undergraduate GPAs, and while my law school GPA (at a lovely T2 law school) was fine and I got a couple of callback interviews, I had no job when I took the bar (granted I graduated in 2008 which was not a good year for hiring). I ended up at a small prosecution firm (5-7 attorneys), and moved to a 70 attorney boutique a few years later. After I got the job at the boutique, I was told by someone on the hiring committee that my undergrad GPA would have gotten me filtered out of the applicant pool as a new hire, and it was lucky I had some experience so that I could be considered as a lateral. After a couple years at the boutique, I moved up to a biglaw firm in a secondary market where I had regional ties. Based entirely on my anecdotal experience, it's completely possible to be successful and even upwardly mobile with a low undergrad GPA in the patent world, but there's a good chance it will make landing the initial position more difficult. On the flip side, EE/CS patents seems to be one of the few areas where you can claw your way into biglaw even if you don't land a position right out of law school, providing you can get the first position somewhere to get a couple of years of experience.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:40
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NJ Deac posted:On the flip side, EE/CS patents seems to be one of the few areas where you can claw your way into biglaw even if you don't land a position right out of law school, providing you can get the first position somewhere to get a couple of years of experience. Yeah but most BIGLAW firms are kinda terrible places to work for patent prosecutors.
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Mar 27, 2014 18:59
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gret posted:Yeah but most BIGLAW firms are kinda terrible places to work for patent prosecutors.
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Mar 27, 2014 19:13
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Ersatz posted:Confirming this - as a biglaw prosecutor, you either have to work like a demon to make hours while still staying on budget, or you need to take on lit-related tasks/projects that will leave you sleep-deprived most of the time. On the bright side, a lot of the lit related work isn't boring as hell like pros. (Doc review still sucks, of course.) ( pros time is down to about 10% of my hours. It is awesome.) It does help if you like litigation though.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:41
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Boo, per the student loan thread the student loan changes won't be retroactive, assuming the proposal becomes law. Even so it'll debilitate public interest law in the long run.
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Mar 28, 2014 00:54
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mastershakeman posted:Boo, per the student loan thread the student loan changes won't be retroactive, assuming the proposal becomes law. Even so it'll debilitate public interest law in the long run. Unfortunately it's probably the best thing they could do to force law schools to change the way they do business.
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Mar 28, 2014 01:17
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:oh poo poo there's another agent who lives 5 houses down from me There goes the neighborhood.
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Mar 28, 2014 01:29
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Pook Good Mook posted:Unfortunately it's probably the best thing they could do to force law schools to change the way they do business. This is not even close to being the best thing they could do. I doubt many of the students still choosing to attend law school do so because of that specific program.
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Mar 28, 2014 05:21
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Vox Nihili posted:This is not even close to being the best thing they could do. I doubt many of the students still choosing to attend law school do so because of that specific program. I didn't mean in the sense that it will stop even 5% of potential students from starting law school. I was thinking it will put a strain on government hiring, particularly state and local governments. Which will in turn cause them to work with their local schools to make them lower costs so they can actually hire competent people for government positions. At least you'd think so. Some public schools are already slowly moving in that direction. I don't think you can change the costs of the truly top tier schools unless the government stops guaranteeing all loans.
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Mar 28, 2014 06:17
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Pook Good Mook posted:At least you'd think so. I think the more probable outcome is public legal services will continue to be pressed and strained and law schools will continue to cost lots of money, i.e., return to the status quo that existed pre-public service loan forgiveness.
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Mar 28, 2014 16:22
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Honestly as long as paye exists there'll be no change. Instead of 10 years at 15% of modified income, 20 years at 10% isn't that much worse. It might actually be less repayment if you assume investment of the 5% difference.
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Mar 28, 2014 16:27
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Pook Good Mook posted:I didn't mean in the sense that it will stop even 5% of potential students from starting law school. I was thinking it will put a strain on government hiring, particularly state and local governments. Which will in turn cause them to work with their local schools to make them lower costs so they can actually hire competent people for government positions. At least you'd think so. Some public schools are already slowly moving in that direction. The government will have no problem hiring people. There is an incredible demand for government jobs, and this demand will persist even without this program. The government has its pick of competent people for the foreseeable future.
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Mar 29, 2014 04:06
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Vox Nihili posted:The government will have no problem hiring people. There is an incredible demand for government jobs, and this demand will persist even without this program. The government has its pick of competent people for the foreseeable future. If competent people are all going to T-1 schools and are 150,000 how could they take a government job if there isn't a mechanism in place to make their loan repayment comparable to high paying firm jobs?
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Mar 29, 2014 05:40
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I was asked to do a presentation about careers in law. I wonder if I could inspire someone to go for panda or space law...
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Mar 29, 2014 06:02
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Pook Good Mook posted:If competent people are all going to T-1 schools and are 150,000 how could they take a government job if there isn't a mechanism in place to make their loan repayment comparable to high paying firm jobs? They would take lower paying government jobs for the same reason T-1 grads are taking lower paying private firm jobs - any job that pays the bills these days is a good job. The thought that government jobs need special benefits to entice well qualified grads away from Biglaw is about a half a decade past its expiration date.
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Mar 29, 2014 06:23
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Zarkov Cortez posted:I was asked to do a presentation about careers in law. Change the title to "careers with law degrees" and then make it all about fast food tia
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Mar 29, 2014 11:09
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People will also take government jobs because there will always be a subset of people who do not want to work 50 hour weeks with no vacation, etc.
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Mar 29, 2014 14:18
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I don't have near 150k in debt but I find government life far more enjoyable than firm life.
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Mar 29, 2014 17:59
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Mons Hubris posted:I don't have near 150k in debt but I find government life far more enjoyable than firm life. Is it mainly because private firms tend to be sweat shops with insane hours? Most law firms always have things such as gym and free snacks for a obvious reason.
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Mar 29, 2014 20:43
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Not that everyone should run out and go to law school over it, but practicing in a firm isn't (necessarily) THAT bad... Just like most jobs, it depends somewhat on the firm "culture," a/k/a the composition and attitude of the equity partners. Still, federal government jobs have lots of advantages.
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Mar 29, 2014 21:09
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