Is there really a need for patent lawyers and is it possible to transition to it as a non trad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no shortage of patent attorneys.

Signed,
-A patent attorney who has hustled for work/jobs my entire career

My DH works in tech, he is WAY more in demand and has more opportunities. Makes more money too.

Hmmmmm....based on a few posts it sounds like I should just stick with regulatory affairs/regulatory work. It seems to pay just as much as big law and the path is shorter.

How much do you make doing regulatory work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no shortage of patent attorneys.

Signed,
-A patent attorney who has hustled for work/jobs my entire career

My DH works in tech, he is WAY more in demand and has more opportunities. Makes more money too.

Hmmmmm....based on a few posts it sounds like I should just stick with regulatory affairs/regulatory work. It seems to pay just as much as big law and the path is shorter.

How much do you make doing regulatory work?

Now $110k, but the growth for the regulatory world is exponential. It takes a long time and a lot of man hours to become an expert on regs that are specific to product development. You have to put your time in and start with lower salaries, but you can make $250-400k being director of regulatory affairs at a myriad of companies after about 10 years exp. I know one guy just left to be director of a company, and he's probably raking in half a million now. The company that recruited him was basically saying 'name your price'. My issue was deciding whether or not to stick with regs or move on to law. They're very related, yet at the same time much different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no shortage of patent attorneys.

Signed,
-A patent attorney who has hustled for work/jobs my entire career

My DH works in tech, he is WAY more in demand and has more opportunities. Makes more money too.

+ 1
- another patent attorney

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no shortage of patent attorneys.

Signed,
-A patent attorney who has hustled for work/jobs my entire career

My DH works in tech, he is WAY more in demand and has more opportunities. Makes more money too.

Hmmmmm....based on a few posts it sounds like I should just stick with regulatory affairs/regulatory work. It seems to pay just as much as big law and the path is shorter.

How much do you make doing regulatory work?

Now $110k, but the growth for the regulatory world is exponential. It takes a long time and a lot of man hours to become an expert on regs that are specific to product development. You have to put your time in and start with lower salaries, but you can make $250-400k being director of regulatory affairs at a myriad of companies after about 10 years exp. I know one guy just left to be director of a company, and he's probably raking in half a million now. The company that recruited him was basically saying 'name your price'. My issue was deciding whether or not to stick with regs or move on to law. They're very related, yet at the same time much different.

$250-400k is less than you'd make in biglaw, but probably more than you'd make in a smaller boutique. Since you'd be more likely to get a job with the latter than the former, it sounds like regulatory work is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

My DH was a sought-after software engineer and is now a lawyer. He now makes more like $400k with his bonus and is up for partner this year. You don’t understand how quickly the salary scales up. I’m a lawyer too but no tech background. I have literally never heard of a law firm paying for someone to go to law school.

Law firms do pay for folks with the right background and credentials. See:

https://www.finnegan.com/en/careers/roles/technical-specialists.html

I don’t see where it says they will pay the tuition?

It doesn't, and it won't. A technical specialist is not a path to becoming an attorney, it's a purely non-attorney position.

You're wrong. Read the fine print. To be a tech spec, you are required to enroll in law school. It is only a job path if you want to become an attorney. I've hired (as a client) tech specs who were concurrently attending Stanford, GW and Georgetown. Finnegan used to give years of credit towards partnership for your years as a tech spec, but I think they've cut back on that.

I can attest that they do pay tuition. That is part of your offer, along with your salary and bonus info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

My DH was a sought-after software engineer and is now a lawyer. He now makes more like $400k with his bonus and is up for partner this year. You don’t understand how quickly the salary scales up. I’m a lawyer too but no tech background. I have literally never heard of a law firm paying for someone to go to law school.

Law firms do pay for folks with the right background and credentials. See:

https://www.finnegan.com/en/careers/roles/technical-specialists.html

I don’t see where it says they will pay the tuition?

It doesn't, and it won't. A technical specialist is not a path to becoming an attorney, it's a purely non-attorney position.

You're wrong. Read the fine print. To be a tech spec, you are required to enroll in law school. It is only a job path if you want to become an attorney. I've hired (as a client) tech specs who were concurrently attending Stanford, GW and Georgetown. Finnegan used to give years of credit towards partnership for your years as a tech spec, but I think they've cut back on that.

I can attest that they do pay tuition. That is part of your offer, along with your salary and bonus info.

What's the salary (excluding tuition benefit) while you're going through the program?

[Anonymous]

Tuition reimbursement and the future of high-billing patent attorneys aside, I wouldn’t do it at your age and in your situation.

It’s only worth it financially for you if you go into Big Law, and even in the best of circumstances, it’s an exhausting job. I started law school, with a PhD in the hard sciences, at ~31. I’ve had a good experience in big law for 10 years. BUT, I can’t imagine having the energy to grit it thru the first few years at a firm if I was the age I am now.

If your were some combination of younger/miserable at your current job/very poor compensated, then maybe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tuition reimbursement and the future of high-billing patent attorneys aside, I wouldn’t do it at your age and in your situation.

It’s only worth it financially for you if you go into Big Law, and even in the best of circumstances, it’s an exhausting job. I started law school, with a PhD in the hard sciences, at ~31. I’ve had a good experience in big law for 10 years. BUT, I can’t imagine having the energy to grit it thru the first few years at a firm if I was the age I am now.

If your were some combination of younger/miserable at your current job/very poor compensated, then maybe.

If YOU were...


Also, if you go to law school and work in big law you’ll hate any typos you make and obsessively worry about them. If you really embrace big law
culture you’ll enjoy pointing out other people’s mistakes on an anonymous message board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t know, being an IP attorney and all.

IME, it’s less common for a technical person to make really big money, because they don’t tend to be the ones bringing in the business. The rainmakers tend to be on the litigation/regulatory side (they’re simply higher-profile), and then those people feed work to the people who know the science/engineering. Realistically, clients are less interested in how educated the technical folks are, they want to hear about big court victories, effective settlements, etc., because their ultimate business interest is in the resolution of the matter, not so much how you get there. Other than from a cost standpoint, that is, which is another thing that tends to keep rates for technical people lower. Clients are reluctant to pay a lot for services they think their own in-house engineers could do well enough (whether they actually could do it is a different issue, we’re talking perception).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t know, being an IP attorney and all.

IME, it’s less common for a technical person to make really big money, because they don’t tend to be the ones bringing in the business. The rainmakers tend to be on the litigation/regulatory side (they’re simply higher-profile), and then those people feed work to the people who know the science/engineering. Realistically, clients are less interested in how educated the technical folks are, they want to hear about big court victories, effective settlements, etc., because their ultimate business interest is in the resolution of the matter, not so much how you get there. Other than from a cost standpoint, that is, which is another thing that tends to keep rates for technical people lower. Clients are reluctant to pay a lot for services they think their own in-house engineers could do well enough (whether they actually could do it is a different issue, we’re talking perception).

You are still talking nonsense. There is a lot of very well paid legal work that requires a deep scientific background, particularly with repsect to biologic drugs. As somone now in house, I personally oversaw about $10M in such work last year. I am the client. I frequently need advice from PhD + JDs, not a generic litigator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t know, being an IP attorney and all.

IME, it’s less common for a technical person to make really big money, because they don’t tend to be the ones bringing in the business. The rainmakers tend to be on the litigation/regulatory side (they’re simply higher-profile), and then those people feed work to the people who know the science/engineering. Realistically, clients are less interested in how educated the technical folks are, they want to hear about big court victories, effective settlements, etc., because their ultimate business interest is in the resolution of the matter, not so much how you get there. Other than from a cost standpoint, that is, which is another thing that tends to keep rates for technical people lower. Clients are reluctant to pay a lot for services they think their own in-house engineers could do well enough (whether they actually could do it is a different issue, we’re talking perception).

You are still talking nonsense. There is a lot of very well paid legal work that requires a deep scientific background, particularly with repsect to biologic drugs. As somone now in house, I personally oversaw about $10M in such work last year. I am the client. I frequently need advice from PhD + JDs, not a generic litigator.

That doesn’t conflict at all with what I said. Yes, the technical folks do a lot of work, the question is who gets credit for the client relationship. A client may stay with a firm in part because of they have a really good technical team, but those usually aren’t the people who first brought the client in, and they’re not the folks getting the origination credit. A rainmaker isn’t working a lot of billable hours personally, they’re generating billable hours for everyone else to work.

[Anonymous]

There are also tuition scholarships from law schools for top candidates. A technical PhD from a top program, plus an excellent LSAT score and a good undergrad GPA (3.7+) might be enough to get you a full ride at a T14. It was for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t know, being an IP attorney and all.

IME, it’s less common for a technical person to make really big money, because they don’t tend to be the ones bringing in the business. The rainmakers tend to be on the litigation/regulatory side (they’re simply higher-profile), and then those people feed work to the people who know the science/engineering. Realistically, clients are less interested in how educated the technical folks are, they want to hear about big court victories, effective settlements, etc., because their ultimate business interest is in the resolution of the matter, not so much how you get there. Other than from a cost standpoint, that is, which is another thing that tends to keep rates for technical people lower. Clients are reluctant to pay a lot for services they think their own in-house engineers could do well enough (whether they actually could do it is a different issue, we’re talking perception).

You are still talking nonsense. There is a lot of very well paid legal work that requires a deep scientific background, particularly with repsect to biologic drugs. As somone now in house, I personally oversaw about $10M in such work last year. I am the client. I frequently need advice from PhD + JDs, not a generic litigator.

That doesn’t conflict at all with what I said. Yes, the technical folks do a lot of work, the question is who gets credit for the client relationship. A client may stay with a firm in part because of they have a really good technical team, but those usually aren’t the people who first brought the client in, and they’re not the folks getting the origination credit. A rainmaker isn’t working a lot of billable hours personally, they’re generating billable hours for everyone else to work.

You fundamentally misunderstand how clients give out work. And even if you were correct, it has nothing to do with OP. There is plenty of well paid work for a good PhD + JD without being your so-called "rainmaker."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s highly unlikely you will find anyone willing to pay you to go to law school. If you have the background to be admitted to the patent bar, you can do that and become a patent agent without going to law school. From a law firm’s perspective, it’s more cost effective to hire you as a patent agent (at a lower salary than a patent attorney), and then have you feed the technical knowledge to the attorney who’s going to do the actual legal work (and who paid for their own law degree).

But why would firms cheapskate for top tech talent then? Wouldn't that just keep driving the so called shortage? You can try to cheapskate and talent will just go to industry for $150-200k+. Why would and electrical/computer engineer work for a cheap lawfirm if Google would pay $200-300k?

Top firms paying biglaw market salaries aren't having too much of a problem attracting enough patent attorneys out of law school (without paying for their legal education). The firms having trouble are the smaller boutique firms who can't keep up with the biglaw (or Google) pay scale.

If OP has a sufficiently strong connection with a firm that they would want to recruit him, that's the one avenue that might make this work for him. But otherwise, it's too big a risk for a firm to do what OP wants. If he gets admitted to the patent bar and goes to work for a firm as a patent agent for a few years and shows himself the have tremendous promise as an attorney, then maybe the would agree to pay for him to go to a night program. But we're talking maybe three years at the firm before they'd consider it, for years for a part-time night program, that makes it seven years before OP could even start practicing law, at which point OP would start climbing the ladder to partnership. So even if OP started this whole process today, we're talking at least 15 years before OP has a prospect of making partner, which means probably more like 18 years before OP has a shot at making truly big money.

You clearly have no idea. Just because you're an attorney, it doesn't mean you know everything. Biotech PhD +JDs is a highly desirable niche. It is does not conform to your expectations.

Hmm, I guess I wouldn’t know, being an IP attorney and all.

IME, it’s less common for a technical person to make really big money, because they don’t tend to be the ones bringing in the business. The rainmakers tend to be on the litigation/regulatory side (they’re simply higher-profile), and then those people feed work to the people who know the science/engineering. Realistically, clients are less interested in how educated the technical folks are, they want to hear about big court victories, effective settlements, etc., because their ultimate business interest is in the resolution of the matter, not so much how you get there. Other than from a cost standpoint, that is, which is another thing that tends to keep rates for technical people lower. Clients are reluctant to pay a lot for services they think their own in-house engineers could do well enough (whether they actually could do it is a different issue, we’re talking perception).

You are still talking nonsense. There is a lot of very well paid legal work that requires a deep scientific background, particularly with repsect to biologic drugs. As somone now in house, I personally oversaw about $10M in such work last year. I am the client. I frequently need advice from PhD + JDs, not a generic litigator.

That doesn’t conflict at all with what I said. Yes, the technical folks do a lot of work, the question is who gets credit for the client relationship. A client may stay with a firm in part because of they have a really good technical team, but those usually aren’t the people who first brought the client in, and they’re not the folks getting the origination credit. A rainmaker isn’t working a lot of billable hours personally, they’re generating billable hours for everyone else to work.

You fundamentally misunderstand how clients give out work. And even if you were correct, it has nothing to do with OP. There is plenty of well paid work for a good PhD + JD without being your so-called "rainmaker."

I don’t think you understand how law firms work. I get that you understand the client side, but that’s not the same thing law firm internal dynamics.