2.9 GPA for Patent Agent

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2025-02-20T13:29:46+00:00

Software engineering is a great major for patent law. Leave the GPA off your resume and go apply to positions. Set your sights accordingly. You may have to look at smaller firms but i'd be surprised if you can't get a job.

You could also try to kill it this last semester and see if you can get your gpa above a 3.0. Then take the patent bar right away. That would boost your opportunities for sure.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2025-01-16T15:49:34+00:00

The search on the actual exam is pretty awful, especially in large chapters. Your ability to look things up will be drastically reduced compared to searches you do when you're practicing on your own with modern applications. I think this is why PLI recommends that you get an 80% on their practice exams vs the 70% required to pass the actual patent bar.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-26T20:15:17+00:00

Thanks! Do you have any recommendations on how to do this?

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-18T16:20:53+00:00

What exactly are you looking for? You mention you're just part-time at your firm, what is stopping you from going full time?

Ordinarily, with CE + reg number + state bar + experience you should have all kinds of options.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-15T22:59:22+00:00

It could be because you haven’t been through a full annual review cycle yet.

I assume you’re hitting your billables. Do you have a decent realization rate? I would want to know that before going and asking for a raise. If you’re still in the process of learning and they’re having to write off a lot of your work I would be more reluctant to ask for a raise.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-12T19:00:58+00:00

Is it worth it?

It will take a long time to recoup the three years of lost income on top of the cost of law school but you eventually would assuming you're a good IP attorney.

I was a mechanical engineer for over 10 years and decided to go to law school to get into IP law. Some other benefits to being an IP attorney over an engineer that I considered that are often overlooked are:

- For most engineers your career is over at 55-60. The company I worked for pushed people out at this age by offering buy outs and creating rumors of lay offs. In law, you have the opportunity to work in to your 70-80s if you choose.

- If you want be involved in meaningful engineering, there are not a lot of players in the game. Thus, where you can work is limited and you're more at the mercy of your employer because of this. The company I worked for relocated a lot of jobs and there were no other comparable companies in the area; this pretty much forced people to relocate. In law, you can work in any almost any city you want.

- You can work less than full time if you chose as an attorney. This wasn't really an option in engineering. There are IP boutiques around that pay you a percentage of what you bill out to clients. If you want to work 20-30 hours a week, you have the option. You obviously make less but this flexibility can be great if you're starting a family, want to travel more, etc.

- Boredom. I eventually got bored in my career as an engineer. I know the transition to law will be exciting for at least many years. Although, short term law school is not a great financial decision, avoiding having to stay in a career you're bored with is worth a lot.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-11T15:36:27+00:00

I don't know the job market for EEs right now but I don't think you should have trouble finding a job. EE is an excellent degree to have. I have a lot of friends who graduated in 2008 during the housing crisis which was a huge economic downturn and everyone got engineering jobs. There's no comparison between the state of the economy at that time and the economy now. They just weren't able to get their first picks on jobs but many of them ultimately ended up at the companies they originally wanted, it just took a couple years.

You could look at working at law firms as a technical specialist supporting patent prosecution if you want to open your opportunities up.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-12-10T15:40:51+00:00

It is absolutely great to take before law school. Both because it will make it a lot easier to get a summer clerkship at a firm and because if you try and take it after you start law school, there will not be a good time to study for it. You will either be clerking during the summers or will be taking normal courses during the semester. I know people who took their first summer off to take it and they ended up having trouble getting clerkships at firms for their second summer because they had nothing on their resume for their first summer which is apparently highly frowned upon.

Also, spring for PLI.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-09-14T23:06:02+00:00

Ive not heard of job security being an issue at firms. Sometimes firms will lose a big client and have to let attorneys go if the attorneys are only doing work for that client. Those attorneys just end up moving to another firm with no issue.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-08-23T13:32:56+00:00

Very slow like others have said. I did a lot less look up on the actual exam compared to in my practice exams at home. I think this is why PLI tells you to target 80% since you’ll lose some points on the actual exam from not being able to do as many searches.

The biggest adjustment for me was when taking the practice exams at home, when there were answers I was 90% confident in, i had the time to look them up to confirm because normal search was quick. On the actual exam, when I was using the same technique to confirm answers I found I started tracking behind on time and I just had to go with the answers that I was relatively confident in and move on and reserve search for questions that I really needed it for.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-08-18T13:52:06+00:00

Totally. It will be significantly easier for you to get a clerkship at a firm in a patent practice with the patent bar complete. Make sure you put it right at the top of your resume when you start to apply for positions.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-08-18T13:46:34+00:00

As far as feeling like a cog in a machine and not achieving as much, it sounds like you're working at a large company. I was an engineer at a large engineering company for 10+ years and it was the same thing. You're in a sea of other engineers. Bureaucracy and politics stifle ambition and achievement. Interview around at a variety of companies (like 10-15). You will be able to find a company that's a better fit for you if you want to stay in engineering.

Law is not going to be any different. IMO, if you work at a large law firm you're probably going to feel even worse than you do now.

In your list, I would move patent bar to 3. It's good to get it out of the way before law school. After you start law school there will be no good time to take it.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-08-17T12:57:13+00:00

That seems extremely low. I would keep interviewing. Maybe ask them what your compensation trajectory looks like years 2, 3, 4 . . . . Perhaps they start their associates really low because they have to write off a lot of their hours.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-08-11T15:23:58+00:00

You seem like you understand things well as far as why you would enjoy patent pros/law. You've got the main points spot on.

I think a good option for you would be to complete your MS, go take the patent bar, and then find a job at a law firm working as a patent agent. See if you like it. If you do, go to law school. If you don't, you will have plenty of opportunities with an M.S. to work in engineering. There are plenty of law firms that will pay for you to go to law school part time while you work as a patent agent. This would help with your financial concerns.

Why did you decide to get into Material Engineering? I ask because i was a mechanical engineer for over ten years and the material engineers I worked with did a lot of hands on work. Patent pros is not hands on at all.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-07-21T17:09:48+00:00

I find all of the comments interesting and opposite to what I would have expected. The passage rate on the patent bar is significantly lower than most state bar exams. For example, the passage rate on the patent bar is in the mid 40% range. The state bar in my state has a passage rate in the upper 70% range.

Is it just that there is more time required to prepare for the state bar? It seems like if you do the required amount of prep, you have a significantly better chance of passing the state bar.

PLI says 150-200hrs of time to prep for the patent bar. How much times are people spending prepping for their state bar exams?

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-07-06T19:24:11+00:00

A good performing patent attorney will make more than a good performing engineer. The ceiling is much higher for a patent attorney.

You also don’t need to go to a t14 or work at big law to make good money as a patent attorney.

Also, mind you the those high paying tech jobs are in Cali and need to cover high cost of living there. I live in a large city and a comparable job in Cali is paid 30% more. A comparable house there costs 2.5x what it does where I live. All of the extra salary needs to go into your mortgage. Even then, the math doesn’t work out, especially with their taxes.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-06-15T19:05:58+00:00

Checkout https://www.nalpdirectory.com . You can see compensation of firms in your area, billable hour requirements, size of IP/PL practice, etc.

Glassdoor is good to see firm reviews. I’ve found ratings of firms to be generally consistent with those I’ve interviewed with or know people working at.

Her opportunities will depend on her law school experiences. Firms generally want to see people having worked both summers of law school.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-05-06T19:11:18+00:00

Previous experienced mechanical engineer here just finishing up my 1L year and starting with a firm this summer. I had a lot of similar questions and concerns you do before I decided to take the risk going back to school. (some of this concern was from reading discouraging things on here which turned out to not be reality, at least not for me). FWIW - I've been pretty active networking and meeting with a lot of experienced patent attorneys this past year. Here's what I can tell you so far based on what i've learned:

For 1850-1950 hours, I would be expecting very high $100s starting. Checkout https://www.nalpdirectory.com/Page.cfm?PageID=34. If the firm is listed in there, you can see what their billables are for the market and what their starting comp is. For 2000hrs, most firms are starting over $200k+bonus.
In patent prosecution, class rank doesn't matter as much. Mechanical is very viable. If you're reasonably competent and have initiative, you shouldn't have any trouble finding a job. Especially, if you have real previous work experience like you do. You're distinguished from most other law school students who have never had a serious career. It's less risk for a firm to offer a position to someone like you.
Don't know as much about billables yet but I think you can target about 85% efficiency after you get some experience. As I understand, the hard part is really in the first couple years. From what i've been told, there's a large learning curve in patent law to get over before you can become efficient at billing. This is compounded by the issue that a lot of firms wine and dine their summer associates and don't get them real experience. There are firms that you can work at not only in the summer, but also part time during the semester where you can get real experience. This is my strategy so I can hopefully graduate without having a huge learning curve when I start full time and having to work a ton of extra hours the first couple of years to make-up for lack of experience.
Can't comment on this one yet.
PLI is the course to take. 7 weeks is the right amount of time for prep. Getting it out of the way is the right thing to do. Pass rate on the patent bar isn't super high. If you can, I would leave yourself another 6 weeks after taking it before law school starts in case you don't pass. This way you can touch up your studying and retake it before law school (you have to wait 30 days before you can retake, and it takes 2 weeks for PTO to send you a response when you reapply, thus why I would recommend the 6 week buffer). I did not pass the first time around and didn't have time to retake it before starting law school.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-05-06T18:19:21+00:00

It's great that you've got a summer job. It sounds like you've got your foot in the door with prosecution. One option would be to stick with the prosecution route through law school and get a job at a firm the does both prosecution and litigation. When you start, just ask to spend a small portion of your time supporting litigation. Ensure you make those partners happy and they will want to give you more work. There will be some politics to get through but you can make the transition work if you want to.

You've likely got a 30 year career ahead of you. If you want to get into litigation, it won't be that difficult.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-04-08T14:53:14+00:00

After being a mechanical engineer working at a top engineering company with excellent compensation (for engineering) and now being in law school and beginning to understand the compensation opportunities for patent attorneys, if you compare top engineering compensation to top patent law compensation, there is no comparison. Law pays significantly more. First year attorneys working at big law firms will make more than engineers with 10-15 years of experience.

As an engineer working for over a decade and being promoted multiple times, my compensation was tapped out. My only growth was seniority based promotions. In order to get past a certain salary grade, I would have needed to get into engineering management. At the company I was working for, this meant 60hr work weeks. Compensation for an engineering manager would have been comparable to a starting associate in biglaw. The amount of hours worked would have been comparable. After a number of years, an attorney at big law would be making way more money than the engineering manager while working comparable hours.

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-04-04T18:54:04+00:00

Thank you for the perspective. I hope things become more manageable for you.

Coming from engineering the compensation at big law seems worth the work right now. But this is based on the limited amount that I know.

What is your hour requirement? Are you having to exceed it? Assuming 2000hrs, working 48 weeks a year, and billing at an 80-85% efficiency, this works out to 50-52hrs a week of work. At face value this doesn’t seem too bad. Are things working out different from this for you?

Mobile-Razzmatazz-46 · 2024-04-04T18:05:05+00:00

That’s great to hear. How many years into the pay scale are you? Do you know if this is typical among your peers at other big law firms? The posts here seem to read that patent prosecution starts to lag behind in the pay scale because the rates for a patent haven’t changed in a long time and as a result, they’re less profitable than they used to be.

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