Transcript
"I'm sensing that there are regional biases, particularly for patent law firms and in-house patent counsel positions. For example, Silicon Valley law firms and corporations only want top-tier law schools in Santa Clara graduates. Midwest law firms and corporations only want Midwest graduates. Is that correct?"
No, that's not typically true. For patent attorneys, they're pretty open about the law schools that patent attorneys go to. Most patent attorneys do not go to good law schools. The reason is because they're science majors, and the science majors tend not to get the best grades in law school. So that is one point. You need to be careful about that. The other thing I would say, you don't need to worry too much about your law school. Patent attorneys law firms are most concerned about an in-house counsel, about your existing experience.
For most attorneys, if you're in litigation or corporate, then yes. If you didn't go to a top law school, then there definitely are regional biases towards hiring people from a regional school, as opposed to a top law school. And it's much easier to get a job if you went to a regional school in that region than it would be outside that region.
