Why Patent Law Is Viewed As A Very Unique Practice Area
[00:00:00] I worked at more than a few Am Law 100 law firms, focusing on patent prosecution and having developed strong practice skills and case records, but couldn't stay there for very long. Okay. I finally realized the same mistakes I've been making over so many years, all of which by the way, can be characterized as not listening to you. Besides correcting those mistakes, what else do I need to do to get back in the game?
Okay. This is a good question for patent attorneys. So patent law, there's an article that I wrote it's called "Why law firms have no idea how to hire patent attorneys", or something like that, which I would recommend reading.
It's a very unique practice area.
But most of the time, large law firms do not do patent prosecution because a lot of the work is fixed fee and large law firms make money when they build out people by the hour. So, patent prosecutors, you have a lot of options of moving to different firms bringing in business and all sorts of things, and even working in smaller law firms. The biggest companies in the country, whether it's, Amazon, Microsoft, or Apple, they use very small law firms. I've been amazed. [00:01:00] Sometimes that could be a law firm of five people that have written some of their patents.
A patent attorney, you don't need to necessarily worry so much about being associated with the largest law firms, or you may make the most salaries with them, but not always. In terms of correcting your mistakes. I think that anybody that's on this webinar or watching this, you are learning a lot.
And I think that exposing yourself to this kind of stuff is not easy. As for myself, I'll just tell you, if I was anybody watching us right now, It would be hard for me because I'm exposed to this sort of stuff from the standpoint of being a good executive.
It's hard when you learn about your weaknesses because it's okay, I gotta do this. I gotta do that. And it motivates you, but most people will bury their heads under a pillow and not realize all this. So I would just commend anybody for watching this because it's not easy learning all this stuff, and it's not easy confronting the truth about how you can fix things.
But in terms of correcting those mistakes, getting back in the game, patent attorneys are not held to the same kind of standards many times because they're science people and there it's just different kinds of [00:02:00] other sorts of things.
So, I think that if you do try to go back to large law firms, there's such a demand, especially for people with hard science backgrounds that I don't think you'll have many issues with that.
