DD with PhD suddenly interested in becoming a patent attorney
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Anonymous
To be fair, English majors can construct coherent sentences. |
Anonymous
Is this a fact? |
Anonymous
And get paid $38k per year. |
Anonymous
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/22/more-top-performing-ceos-now-have-engineering-degrees-than-mbas/ https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/ceos-as-engineers/ |
Anonymous
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I am a patent attorney here in DC. PHD in CS would get you hired at many IP firms. Our starting salary is around 200K. If she worked hard, she would get into the $300K as an associate for sure, which allows loans to get paid off pretty quickly. Most of our young associates with loans pay off upwards of 100K a year to get rid of them quickly. During the summer you can work at a firm and we pay $4000 per week this year for 10 weeks. So you can make over 40K for the summer and that helps with that last year to keep the debt down. Also many firms will let you work part time your third year so you can easily make more.
To make $500k you need to do well as a partner, but assuming she does well in law school she can make enough in years 1-5 to pay off the loans and then either stay at a firm or go in house or to the government. Not crazy if it is something she thinks she would be good at and enjoy |
Anonymous
Never trust someone bragging about problem solving who can't construct a sentence. End of the day CS is just office work, and some of the most tedious at that. OP's DC, like so many people, discovered this too late. |
Anonymous
Respectfully, she ought to go to therapy or a career coach and figure out what she actually wants to do. 3 years of law school and the cost associated with it when she can't afford to buy a house now doesn't seem like a wise investment. Law is a business. You're either making money for other people or bringing in enough business to support yourself (partner) and others (associates). |
Anonymous
| If she's interested in law, great. Go to law school. If she is doing it because she thinks it's a good way to make 500k? Then she should think again, the vast majority of us lawyers -- including patent attorneys -- don't make that much at all. Not even close. And as a PP pointed out, those that do make 500k and up have a life you wouldn't envy. |
Anonymous
| If she has a PhD in CS, I’m sure she can find something that pays reasonably well and will pay a lot over time. I would not go back to school! Especially not for law, which is already oversaturated. |
Anonymous
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A lot of people here clearly have no idea about patent law.
It’s fairly easy to make 400-500k in patent litigation. Big law hires patent litigators with EE/CS backgrounds for IP litigation. 1st year associates make 235k and 6-7 year associates make 515k with bonus. Most partners make 700k to millions. Tell her to go to a good law school (doesn’t have to be the very top 10), get a summer associate program in big law and start there. Oh and also take an lsat class, get a high score and get sone scholarship money at a GW Law or equivalent. Long hours but IP litigators with actually engineering it CS have many times the job security of their big law peers. |
Anonymous
Is patent law or corporate law more lucrative? |
Anonymous
| OP, I wouldn't listen to most on here who say to not do it. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk. They're lawyers making a lot of money and telling you not to do it. |
Anonymous
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She doesn’t need to go to law school to basically do what patent attorneys do.
Have her take the patent bar and become a patent agent. |
Anonymous
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https://www.google.com/search?q=google+careers+phd&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS985US986&oq=google+careers+phd&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30j0i390i650l3.6536j0j7&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=tldetail&htidocid=n58IUB6317gAAAAAAAAAAA%3D%3D&htiq=google%20careers%20phd&htivrt=jobs
Google is just one company. All of the big tech companies are looking for PhD researchers. the work will be interesting - think AI, ML, etc. They’ll love that she’s a girl which brings a little bit of diversity and another point of view. the base is $150k but the equity plus bonus the first year will be at LEAST another $100k. In The 3-4 years that she would be applying and attending law school, she’ll MAKE $1M. |
Anonymous
Yes, many have engineering backgrounds, but many also have liberal arts degrees. https://time.com/3964415/ceo-degree-liberal-arts/ |