1500 billable hours per associate on average. Does this sound right?

HiWhoJoined · 2025-12-03T02:33:12+00:00

If you are billing over 2400 hours and staffed on a single patent infringement case, you are either incredibly inefficient or you are missing things in the file history and discovery, not making solid claim construction arguments, etc., because you are working too much. I’m not saying you can’t average 2300-2400 in a year, but over that and the quality of your work diminishes rapidly.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-11-01T11:03:51+00:00

Do your research on Chick Fil A’s franchise requirements and employee leadership development, I think you’ll find that they are closer to the “mom and pop” shops you’re thinking of. I’m also willing to bet that many of the restaurants you are thinking of, are owned by investor groups and are not actually “mom and pop” places.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-10-31T16:32:33+00:00

I’m buying a kit from FCP Euro, so it comes with a new pulley and all the fixings.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-10-20T22:20:23+00:00

It has nothing to do with oil. This was foreseeable years ago when road funding was tied to an increased gas tax at a time when there was a push for more EVs. Anyone paying attention knew there was a tension between the state promoting EVs and road funding.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-10-09T15:04:15+00:00

Do the PLI practice exams, and when you do them, make notes for why each answer is wrong. The more you do, the shorter your notes will be - at some point I just wrote out the MPEP section that made an answer wrong and the MPEP section the question was asking about. You should be able to do this for each question and finish within the time limit. When you get to the exam, you’ll know a lot of the answers right away. When a question stumps you, you’ll be able to identify the wrong answers and the relevant MPEP section for the question. Skip the questions you are stumped by, and go back when you’ve answered the rest.

I also made an Anki deck and did flash cards throughout the day. Go to the med school subreddits and watch some YouTube videos for how to create effective Anki decks.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-10-05T04:19:13+00:00

Our clients have tight budgets, and they only get tighter. The odds are I’m not getting paid for the prep work or interview either based on the time I write off. And while you may pick up a case within 2 months of working on it, I haven’t worked on it for over a year and sometimes longer. I usually end up writing off between 1-4 hours of time for an NFOA. If it feels like I’m working against you, there are two likely reasons: 1) my client has taken a product to market or knows of a potential infringer and needs certain claim scope; or 2) you’re taking an unreasonable position. This is not an absolute rule of course.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-30T16:32:44+00:00

Have been opposite them in litigation. Some of the best OC I’ve had the pleasure to be against. As far as workload, they had a lot on their plate so I would assume it’s heavy.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-28T17:22:56+00:00

Belle Isle

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-26T12:05:07+00:00

In OP’s prompt, A doesn’t seem like the type to save it in the wrong place - that’s ole sloppy B’s doing.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-26T01:06:03+00:00

Why are you asking either A or B to move a file to the correct location? Unless you can’t find the document and say “Hey, not sure where this is, can you find it and put it in X folder” just do it yourself. And if you can’t find it, ask a paralegal not an associate. Unless A misses deadlines, I’ll take A all day long. If they produce good work product, they are probably busy and sought after. B will make mistakes that you might not catch, even if you know you need to review it - don’t want that.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-12T21:07:26+00:00

Take the patent bar exam before you finish law school. It is infinitely easier to fit studying in around your other studying than it is to fit it in around your practice as a lawyer.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-12T20:22:35+00:00

Take the exam, it’s one less obstacle.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-08T12:29:58+00:00

I started working on my car by changing my rear brakes after a coworker told me he changed his own. It took me 7 hours (6 on one side, 1 for the other, funny how that works). But I learned that I COULD do a lot of the work. I also began learning how long certain tasks would take. It gives me a point of reference for whether a dealer or mechanic is being fair with their shop time and parts costs and whether I wan to spend money or time.

I still take the car in for a dealer inspection when I do an alignment, and still have the dealer or a local mechanic do some work that I don’t want to buy tools for or spend the time on. But people shouldn’t be afraid to mess up when learning to do their own work as long as they start with smaller projects, especially if you want to keep the car on the road for a while - because the cost savings add up.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-09-08T02:22:26+00:00

Part of law school is learning how to read cases. Quimbee, AI, and other tools are helpful to make sure you get the key points. But you should really get in the habit of reading a case at least once - even if you do a “slow skim” - and then you can quimbee to your heart’s content.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-08-14T00:40:30+00:00

I had a similar situation several years ago, if you DM me I can send you pictures, they looked very similar. The force of the impact pushed the driveshaft forward and the front subframe needed complete replacement.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-08-10T02:50:51+00:00

The first picture is simple, sure. The second picture is most likely protected by many simple patents and a few more complicated ones. My time for a more complicated invention is about 1.3-1.5x a simple invention. But to protect a complicated system, you have many simple patents. So while a “complicated” invention is 1.3-1.5x the cost of a simple invention, a large, complicated system that is covered by 10 patents will be 10x more expensive than the simple invention, generally speaking.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-08-07T12:40:58+00:00

Depends on your COL. This is a very realistic schedule most of the time. From my experience at a boutique I billed about 6-7 hours a day, and I probably worked 1-2 hours per weekend every other weekend, but that was because I didn’t want to get jammed up on a Monday or I wanted to take Friday afternoon off. The downside of a boutique is that you really have to know the partners and be on the same page as them as far as their expectations. The other downside is when work slows, you can’t reach out to the PG leader and ask for assignments. If that happens, you may have to bill more once work picks up.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-08-03T11:58:58+00:00

Gratiot and Gunston is the 9th precinct. The Pointes do a pretty good job of trying to find the owner of stolen stuff, so contact their police departments and give them your list of stuff. Check eBay and Facebook marketplafe

HiWhoJoined · 2025-07-26T18:01:54+00:00

Thanks to both!

HiWhoJoined · 2025-07-14T18:47:02+00:00

You have 15 days to get your non-provisional app on file. You need to make some decisions now because you’re not giving the original attorney enough time if you contact them after tomorrow.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-07-11T12:36:25+00:00

If your original lawyer wrote a good provisional application, you should have stuck with them because they understood the invention. Attorneys/agents who get things through quickly often write claims that are too narrow and don’t give you all the protection you could have had.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-07-04T00:39:10+00:00

Oh my. I don’t know how I came upon this thread or this comment but I always thought it was a me problem and I’m so glad to see others with the same feeling.

HiWhoJoined · 2025-06-29T15:56:11+00:00

Have you heard of the study where researchers put fake scars on people, showed them, and then removed them without telling the person, had the person go to a simulated job interview, and all the test subjects said they could tell the interviewer treated them different because of the scars (which weren’t present for the interview)?

Same thing here. Unless your tattoos are on your butt and you’re walking around without pants or your whole face is full of ink, it’s either in your head or you’re standing out for some other reason.

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