Sounds like ShawSon benefitted significantly from his gap year. Him knowing why he was there sounds beneficial to getting a good start.
I appreciate your comments on the science education prior to law school and have hope that whatever crazy plan my kid has will work out.
This is correct, but as a point of clarification, having a qualifying degree (or significant coursework) in a STEM field is not only valuable, but required in most cases for a legal career in patent law. There are in fact two different types of patent practice: patent prosecution (drafting a patent application and responding to USPTO office actions to get the application allowed) and patent litigation (representing clients who are suing, or being sued for patent infringement). To practice patent prosecution, you must have taken and passed the patent bar exam, and to be eligible for that, you need to have a qualifying STEM degree (most common) or significant coursework in STEM classes (less common and generally less desirable). (OP might want to look up the criteria to be patent bar eligible at some point if they remain interested in this path.). In most cases, being patent bar eligible is not strictly required to be a patent litigator, but practically speaking almost everyone who does patent litigation is also patent bar eligible.
And, just one other nuance - patent law is a sub-practice of the larger field of intellectual property, which also includes areas such as trademark and copyright (sometimes called “soft IP”). Typically, a STEM background is not required for soft IP practice areas.
Overall yes, attorneys who are patent bar eligible and who want to practice patent law are very much in demand. Certain degrees - electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, biotech (ie, bioengineering), computer science/software engineering - are much more desirable than some others. That would be another point to research prior to going down this path - it’s hard to be employed as a patent attorney solely with an undergrad major in biology, for example.
To OP, best of luck with the medical issues.
Reality check though- as interesting as the science-oriented legal career path is, everyone trains as a lawyer FIRST. Which means criminal procedure, constitutional law, civil procedure, etc. The standard law school curriculum, and then bar passage.
Kids often fall in love with a particular niche (why do I know so many HS students who are confident that they are going to become “top sports lawyers” representing NFL players or crafting deals with ESPN?). Which is fantastic of course. But the enthusiasm dims a bit when they take a look at the actual courses required to become a lawyer (no football tutorials.)
Don’t put the cart before the horse for this young person- she’s in HS after all, and really and truly doesn’t need to be worrying about the difference between IP and patent litigation….
All very true - both the part about sports and entertainment law and not putting the cart before the horse. The first year law school curriculum (which is pretty uniform across all ABA accredited schools) is incredibly demanding and the classes are mostly not in areas that garner much enthusiasm - contracts, property, civil procedure. But, for someone who is playing the long game, good to have at least a minimal understanding of what the path looks like and what to research as they progress.
So true! At one point (decades ago) l fantasized about entertainment/sports law (perhaps l viewed too much Arli$$) and made strides toward that path until the drudgery of 3 years of law school set in (l had a couple of degrees already at that point and liked my career well enough).
My college roommate received a Chemistry degree and then went to law school. As my daughter would say, “back in the 20th century” this was rare and was the primary topic of all of his law school interviews. It helped him stand out from the crowd and he did quite well with acceptances and aid, and he ended up going to Vanderbilt. As others have suggested, he ended up being a patent lawyer.