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[quote=Anonymous]I am a PhD student with a chemistry/biochemistry background who is interested in moving away from the bench and moving into areas such as patent law or consulting that would make use of my technical background, but not the traditional academia or industry route.  One path that sounded appealing is working as a patent agent to get some experience in IP law and see if this is something I like enough to make a career out of.  I'm not sold on committing to a JD either time-wise (after a decade of higher education) or financially until I am sure that it is something I need to do to advance my career in the right direction.  It appears that patent agents, although they don't make as much as patent lawyers, make decent livings by PhD standards, and certainly compared to being a post-doc, which would be the next logical step if I wanted to go into academia or industry.  It also seems like understanding these regulatory issues is a good set of skills and develop if I wanted to join a consulting firm or end up in management at a biotech company.  Perhaps if I wanted to transition into being an attorney, I could go back to law school after working for a few years.

When I look at job listings, it seems like all of the jobs for patent agents require 1-3+ years of patent law technical experience and are not interested in hiring someone fresh out of graduate school.  So my question is, is it possible to gain a paralegal job that focuses on intellectual property with a PhD?  All the paralegal jobs seem to require a bachelors degree, and would make me overqualified.  It seems like working as a paralegal would offer insight into what IP law entails, offer an opportunity to study for the patent bar and become familiar with the territory.  Is this a route people go?

Any advice would be appreciated.[/quote]

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