few questions about patent law

fatpig554 · 09-29-2009, 07:49 PM

I was thinking recently about patent law and have a few questions:
I am studying for my bachelors degree in electrical engineering right now.
When I graduate my gpa will be about 3.3, with good research and work experience.

I understand this gpa is a little too low for good law schools, so I was wondering:
1) How important is it for law, to graduate from a top-ranked school? In engineering I know it doesn't really matter, is it more important for law? So will it really hurt me if I graduate from some mediocre law school? Will it cause a long term career problem, or make just the first job a little harder? etc?

2) If I get an MS in EE with a higher GPA will I then be looked at as a more favorable candidate? If my grad. GPA is 3.5 for instance, will that give me a big advantage over just applying with an undergrad 3.3? Is an MS in EE advantageous for someone applying for law school? Is it advantageous for someone seeking a position in patent law? Or would the only reason be strictly to raise my GPA?

3) Supposing I do graduate from law school, get certified for patent law. How likely is it that I will actually find a job in this area? Do a lot of law students who do so-so in average law schools end up not getting jobs in patent law?

4) So what steps would you guys recommend to get me in law school, based on everything you know? Should I go for grad school and apply for law school then, or just try to apply with a 3.2-3.3?

Thanks a lot,
FP

drusba · 09-30-2009, 01:59 PM

1. Graduating from a high ranked school helps regardless of area of law. But with patent law it is not as important but you should still consider attending the highest ranked law school you can get into. Note, where you can get into will be heavily determined by your LSAT score. Your GPA is low for top 20 but some extra weight is usually given to an engineering degree GPA (i.e., they assume it is equivalent to a bit higher in other degree areas) and if you have a high LSAT you even have a chance for some in the top twenty.

2. Having a graduate degree in engineering can provide some help in admission and also even more help later for employment as a patent lawyer but grad school GPA is not considered for admission to law school.

3. Right now there are many lawyers not getting jobs in any area but patent lawyers with engineering degrees generally have it somewhat easier to find jobs but you should definitely try to avoid doing "so-so" in law school.

4. No recommendation either way, it is your decison.

fatpig554 · 09-30-2009, 03:43 PM

Thanks very much for all the advice. Does anyone else have any suggestions?
I'll be perfectly blunt, I feel that I am a reasonably smart guy but, not having taken any practice LSAT tests, I have no reason to believe i'm going to get an unbelievable score. Of course that means maybe law is not for me.

I'm a little disappointed that going to get a masters degree will not be a big benefit because that means I will be judged on a mediocre 3.2 and a good but not great LSAT score. That probably means I can't get into a good law school and I should just continue in my engineering path where I can at least secure a good (but not nearly as lucrative) employment.

I still don't have a good understanding of how important a law school is. My GPA is low for a top-20. But what about a top 50. Lets say I get into a law school ranked #40 or #60 or something like that. I graduate near the middle of my class and seek patent law positions. Is this a viable formula for a lucrative position in patent law? Or are these unbelievable salaries something reserved for top-20 graduates and everyone else gets a somewhat less impressive deal?

bluedevilmike · 10-01-2009, 01:05 AM

At this point, I think the first step is to start figuring out where you're going to score on the LSAT. A combination of an SAT score and a "diagnostic" practice LSAT will help a great deal.

fatpig554 · 10-01-2009, 11:32 AM

Thanks again.
But no one has any concrete answer to this question:
If I graduate from a school ranked #50, am I going to have a very hard time getting a patent law position? Or is it just a minor disadvantage to a top #20 school (for patent law)? This is really the important issue.

I ask so much about money because going to law school will result in me incurring a huge debt. I would not want this debt if I was going to make as much as an engineer, than as a lawyer.

I read about the bimodal salary distribution of law: http://www.adamsmithesq.com/archives...ting_sala.html
I'm trying to figure out if this applies to patent law as well.

bluedevilmike · 10-01-2009, 12:01 PM

Well, it's a hard question. Fortunately, it might be moot. A practice LSAT is a very low-cost proposition to get a sense for whether this is something for you to worry about.

Greybeard · 10-01-2009, 01:12 PM

None of us knows with any certainty about what the job market will be like for attorneys in general, or patent attorneys with a background in electrical engineering, or electrical engineers, a minimum of four years from now, which would be about the earliest time you could conceivably graduate, as you haven't taken the LSAT yet.

The Bureau of Labor Statics includes information about the outlook for various occupations. You can find the lawyer page here: Lawyers

You can follow the links shown there (on the left side of the page toward the top) to other occupations.

fatpig554 · 10-01-2009, 02:19 PM

Well, I certainly would not consider getting into $150,000 in debt if I didn't know for a fact that I was going to get a well paying job upon graduation.

For engineering it is very clear what one's salary prospects are after getting a BS: $60,000/year for most schools, $70,000 a year for ivy-league. For masters degree its about $10,000 higher. There is no bimodal distribution.

It seems like getting into huge debt then getting an entry level job for $50,000 a year would be a very bad decision when I could get more than that coming out of college with a BS for an engineer. So unless I had a very high chance of getting a much more lucrative offer in patent law from a non-top-ranking law school, I guess it sounds like a bad decision.

Greybeard · 10-01-2009, 08:00 PM

You don't know for a fact that you will get a well paying job upon graduation.

You don't know for a fact that you will graduate from law school if you matriculate, or pass the bar exam or the patent bar if you graduate. You can only make educated guesses about such things.

The number openings in Biglaw for law school graduates declined by 50% this year. There are no guarantees that the market for new attorneys will recover next year, or that it won't collapse more severely three years from now. Sometimes severe recessions are followed by booming recoveries, and sometimes they aren't.

The market for Ivy League-educated engineers has been known to shrink substantially from time to time as well. I'm old enough to have seen it happen more than a couple of times.

I worked in Silicon Valley during a period when the number of people employed here shrank by a third. There were entire industrial parks where you could see through every building, because there were no tenants.

Sometimes the market rewards risk takers, and sometimes it punishes them. You have to make your own decisions, based upon your own guesses about the future, taking into consideration how risk averse you are.

fatpig554 · 10-02-2009, 12:42 AM

Like I said earlier, I know I can make average $60k a year graduation with a BS in EE. Maybe when I graduate I will only get a job which is $50k, maybe $70k. Maybe the economy will be so bad I won't be able to get a job for a few months. Those are all relatively minor risks and i'm ok with assuming those risks...not really worried about it. Its just the toss of a coin.

But entering a law program at a lower-tier university, getting into $150,000 debt, and then having almost no idea what my job prospects are because everyone claims that the economy is hard to predict is absurd. Maybe the statistics for patent law offers from lower-tier universities are not available to you guys, but its a silly idea to go through that without knowing what to expect. Maybe I won't get the job of my dreams after a few months, but lets think long-term career. What can I expect! A patent-lawyers 30-year career is not determined by temporary fluctuations in the market. And saying the average patent lawyer gets (ie) 130k is also meaningless because as I demonstrated earlier, lawyer's income has a bimodal distribution, with the highest offers reserved for ivy league guys.

fatpig554 · 10-02-2009, 01:03 AM

What i'm trying to say is, why the reluctance to give actual facts and figures? If you don't know, that's ok. But why pretend like the information doesn't exist? And I obviously understand that things could change, but I obviously need a rough idea of what to expect!

fatpig554 · 10-02-2009, 01:26 AM

As a final note, as we can see from these stats: 2009 Raw Data Law School Rankings : Lowest GPA (Descending)

I CANNOT get into a top 50 school with my gpa even with perfect LSATs. Look at the GPA-low column!

Greybeard · 10-02-2009, 12:39 PM

I'm not pretending that the information doesn't exist about how much money you'll make in your first job four years from now, if you go to law school, graduate, and pass the bar exam. It really doesn't exist. People can guess. I've pointed you toward the surmises published Bureau of Labor Statics about the long-term market for attorneys. But you seem to be demanding certainty about things that are inherently uncertain.

That said, I spent seven years working for a company that created software for electrical engineers, and can provide some anecdotal information. I've known five people who went to law school after getting degrees in electrical engineering. One of them went to Cornell as an undergrad, then to George Washington for law school; one went to Berkeley as an undergrad, then to UCLA. One went to Michigan State as an undergrad, and to Michigan for law school. The other went to the University of Illinois as an undergrad, then to George Washington. All of them have been consistently employed in-house.

All of them have found consistent employment in-house with high tech companies.

I interviewed two of them for their positions. There are not a large number of people with electrical engineering degrees and law degrees. Job postings that required both don't result in a huge number of applications, in my experience.

An alternative you may not have considered is studying for the patent bar without going to law school. If you pass, instead of being a patent lawyer, you'll be classified as a patent agent, with the same rights as a patent lawyer to prosecute patents (i.e. file patent applications with the PTO, and shepherd them through the approval process).

Good patent agents often earn six figured incomes.

Bowlesman · 10-03-2009, 03:54 PM

um not to dash hopes and all but it's hard to guarentee a 3.5 in grad school (otherwise why else would you attend and spend 50k+?) when you have a 3.2 in undergrad, especially since i'm assuming you're probably aiming for a grad school that's better than your undergrad institution. but if you have the ability to go to grad school for EE then i don't see why you just pick engineering instead. since the majority of engineers don't have the ability/will/desire to handle grad school, getting an MS would reflect a lot on your scientific abilities.
i wouldn't worry about the 3.2 in electrical engineering. a 3.2 in poli sci/ [insert joke humanities here] on the other hand would get you nowhere.
i'm EE prelaw too.

bluedevilmike · 10-04-2009, 01:49 AM

The column in your link is mislabeled. Those are 25th percentiles, e.g. the "low lsat" of the interquartile range. Check out your US News for verification.