November Job Status Update

Wow, it's been three months since my last post.

To bring you up to date, nothing much in terms of results in getting a patent attorney job has changed. I've been on a few interviews, and in each interview, I've been hearing the same thing:

"So, you have a philosophy degree, eh? Do you know about X [usually something like communications]? What about Y [then something about hi-tech or biotech or something like that]? Well, if you don't know about these areas, then you will be unable to prosecute the patents for the clients we serve. We are looking for someone who has a Z degree (they usually say electrical engineering here), and without that degree, you are of no use to us. We'll get back to you and let you know."

At that point, the interview typically ends.

...So the short and skinny of it is that it doesn't look like I'll be getting a job as a patent attorney, and so I'm so close to giving up and changing fields that my heart hurts at the prospect of this move.

To adjust, the past week I've looked into patent/Intellectual Property (IP) litigation, but while it is difficult to get into it, I feel that is the best home for my skills and my abilities. However, it is a dim chance that someone will hire me without experience, so I need to find some litigation job (state/federal/general/local) that will give me experience and motion practice ideally in the federal courtroom, and once I have a few years of that experience, I'll be able to side-step into an IP litigation firm and use my patent attorney license to litigate patent infringement issues.

This is a sad turn of events for me, but the reality of it is that at least I'm realizing where I am and where I need to be. I just wish I learned this hard fact that A PATENT ATTORNEY FROM A LOW-TIERED LAW SCHOOL WITHOUT A HARD TECHNICAL SCIENCE DEGREE CANNOT PRACTICE AS A PATENT ATTORNEY.

Additionally, my wife and I are moving out of our apartment in the end of November, so we're looking for a Jewish (preferably Chabad/Lubavich) community to move into, and it doesn't matter which state we go to, as long as the cost of living is reasonable.

All this being said, I feel good. I am a tatty, and my son is 5 months old, and there is Shalom Bayis (peace) between my wife and myself, even though I know me not having a job is quite stressful for her. That being said, we are not poor, chos v'sholom, as I have always been smart about saving for a storm, and it is raining. We have literally just a few liquid dollars in the bank and so things are very tight, but I am hoping we will make it through and G-d will provide for us by somehow getting me hired at a law firm.

Lastly, I know that G-d doesn't make mistakes, and everything is done for a reason. Thus, while I cannot see His mater plan for me and my family, I know that I didn't just waste over a year taking and passing the patent bar exam and wasting my time applying to literally hundreds of patent prosecution firms. Somehow, my patent attorney license must come into use at some point in the future, because otherwise it would have been a waste and I don't think G-d would do that to me, especially since I've been working so hard to be his servant.

Follow-up: Whether to go back to school.

[I am sneakily inserting this post into my blog and back-dating it so that I don't mess up the look of the site.]

The issue I have been dealing with is whether or not to go back to school. Obviously from my discussions with literally 30-40 patent attorneys on this subject, they have all said the same thing -- a patent attorney must have a technical science degree to practice patent law.

While I have been on the dream that I can get around this because I have 40 science credits (pre-med undergrad) and because I was eligible for, took, and passed the USPTO patent registration exam, I need to face reality -- namely, that either I go back to school or I drop the crusade of becoming a patent attorney.

The main degree that law firms want these days is an electrical engineering (EE) degree, or a PhD in Chemistry/Biology/or the other hard sciences. Computer science is the next in the list, but few firms want this over an EE degree. After this, all the other engineering degrees (mechanical, etc) are next in the list.

My wife and I have determined that it makes no sense to go back to school full-time and become a student again because we have a baby and my wife is no longer working and is home full-time with the baby, so the burden of paying our rent is on me alone. Thus, enrolling full-time as a student no longer is financially an option, so we have looked into part-time and online programs, and here is what I've found.

The State University of New York (SUNY) has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering program, but it is not a 4-year program. Rather, it kicks in only once you've completed the first two-years of the program. So, I'm around 1.5 years away from getting all the pre-requisites to even enter this program, and then once I do, it is only a two-year program if you are a full-time student (15-18 credits per semester). Part time (e.g. 6 credits per semester, this program will take around 4-5 years to complete). This is a killer solution, but it is a killer on our finances and our life.

The next solution we found is a Masters in Computer Science at Ellis College (NY Institute of Technology) which could be finished in a year and a half, but it is quite expensive and I'm not sure how firms would value this degree. The SUNY program does not disclose on the degree that it was an online program, but this degree gives it away based on the school that would be on the degree which gives it a lower value. Plus, I am not sure how much computer science patent attorneys are in demand, especially from an online part-time school that is not so highly valued. Lastly, to enter this program, I also have around a year of pre-requisites to take before even being accepted into the program -- funny enough, the pre-requisite courses are the same as those for the electrical engineering program (e.g. Linear Algebra, Programming, etc.)

So far I haven't found any other alternatives. If I don't go into school, I feel as if being a patent attorney is no longer a real option as a field to practice in, and I would need to find another field. The difficult thing is that coming from my low-tiered school, I was relying on the USPTO patent attorney license to raise me up from the reputation of my school and convince a firm to overlook where I come from. Please don't get me wrong -- I love my school. However, the real statistics are that *if* a graduate from my school passes the bar exam (which I did after some real studying), there is a slim-to-none chance that he or she will find a respectable job, if ever. Without working in a specialized field, I feel like I am just another one of the pack searching for the generalist low-paying jobs, and I wonder why I went to law school in the first place.

A "Document Review" Paycheck

It has been almost a month since my last post because my life has been pretty ordinary until tonight. My days have been spent contacting patent law firms and intellectual property law firms across the United States with emphasis in the Colorado, New York, New Jersey, District of Columbia, and Minnesota states.

Additionally, I have been putting in around 12 hours daily posting my resume to job sites and e-mailing recruiters and networking.

Last week for the first time, I had a quick 25 hour job at a document review firm in Denver where I had the chance to sit in front of the computer and review documents for a second request from the Department of Justice. Basically, that entailed looking through thousands of documents and checking ["tagging"] them as to whether or not they apply to the case at hand.

This is my life. The jist of it is that since my wife will be losing most (75%) of her paycheck in a few weeks because she is going to be having our first child and going on maternity leave, I feel that the quickest way to replace her income is through these temporary document review recruiters. Unfortunately, while a patent attorney makes close to six figures, I have an interview on Tuesday to meet with a recruiter about a document review project in another state (a 1.5 hour drive, plus traffic) which pays $25/hr. This amounts to roughly $1000/wk working 40 hours per week which will be slightly higher than what my wife is currently making. The tough thing to grasp is that the average document review project pays between $35/hr to $40/hr. At least this will be a paycheck.

The Admission Ceremony

The NY admission ceremony was calm and exciting. At one point, I wondered whether this is what it is like when people swear in to be a US Citizen. Then they called roll call. As they went from A-Z, they didn't call my name. I took out my admission ticket and I wrote my name on the ticket, and just as I was about to pass my name to the speaker telling him that he forgot my name, he started to call names for the next district, and I was one of the first to be called. Feeling a bit silly, I placed my written name back in my pocket and said "present". The man standing next to me giggled.

The interesting thing that I noticed was that nobody asked for my ID or my invitation card. In fact, anybody could have stood there and taken the oath to become a NYS Attorney, and nobody would have known the difference. At the end, instead of sitting down to sign the registry, he or she could have just walked out and felt good that he took the oath. While that would be fun, I was both happy and relieved that everything was over. At every step of the way -- admission to law school, getting through every semester, studying and taking the bar, studying and taking the patent bar, character and fitness review, etc., I feared that something would come up that would be a stumbling block to me becoming an attorney. But happily, the whole process is complete.

The next thing on my agenda is getting admitted as a patent attorney. I have passed the exam as you know, and as of this minute, my name is published in the USPTO's Official Gazette of potential patent attorneys -- this is their Character and Fitness portion of the admission. If nobody objects to my admission, in a few days, the deadline for sending in an objection will have passed, and one week later, I will get my patent registration number, and B"H I will have arrived at the goal I set over five years ago -- to become a patent attorney.

Have a kosher and freiliche Pesach, and I'll write some more as soon as more happens.

Now admitted as a New York Attorney

Okay, so here is the skinny on my life since my last post. In short, as of yesterday, I am now an attorney licensed to practice law in New York State. Funny enough, I'm not yet admitted in Colorado, my home state. However, my wife and I flew in and in return, now I am a New York State Attorney. We are staying by a few friends here in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and we will be flying back home to finish Pesach cleaning in our modest apartment later this week before Shabbos.

Based on my MBE (Multistate Bar Exam) scores, as you know, I am eligible to be admitted into the District of Columbia and Minnesota without taking their state bar exams. That is quite exciting for me because that means that I can be a Patent Attorney in those states -- this will make my wife happier because I hear that weather is much nicer there than here in Denver. Sadly, my argument about not being an attorney admitted in other states has now gone out the window, because now I can be one in other states. In a discussion with my wife, she told me that she would be willing to live on Long Island or in the suburbs around the city, but just like at home in Denver, the fast Brooklyn, NY lifestyle is not the kind of lifestyle she'd want to live in. However, she did agree that if I got a job here, she'd be willing to move here.

So that's pretty much it. I blanketed the United States with resumes (except for Colorado and New York -- I wanted to save those resumes for when I was admitted) and I've begun receiving rejection letters from firms around the country, just like I did in 2005. However, now that I am admitted in NY (and I hope to soon be admitted in Colorado), I will send out resumes to Intellectual Property firms in those states, and hopefully a job will come from that. Oh, I'll also do the same for DC and Minnesota when I get sworn into those states as well.

Truthfully, between you and me, all I need is to be admitted in Colorado. NY, DC, MN -- these are all extras which give my resume a boost, and allow me to work in those states, just in case we want to change our lives and move to a new place.

Sending out resumes to Patent Law Firms across the US.

It has been a while, but that is starting to become usual because I don't blog unless there is something to blog about... The typical "today I went to the bathroom and played video games and saw my friend Joe" just doesn't seem so relevant to my kind of blog.

I am excited to say that since my last post, I have been diligently working on getting a job as a patent attorney. I spent a few days working with my career services adviser from law school to perfect my resume and cover letter. I also compiled a database of all of the main patent firms in the United States (yes, all of the states); I retrieved their address and contact information, including who specifically reviews the resumes and I organized it onto an excel database. Then I made a mailmerge, merging the data from the Excel spreadsheet onto Microsoft Word (which has my resume and cover letter). Then I went to print. My wife helped me with the folding and stuffing of the 65 envelopes.

With the counsel of a friend that I trust, it has come to my attention that as a patent attorney, I need to go where the work is -- even if that means that I need to move to DC or to California or anywhere else. So my wife was happy to hear that I applied across the United States.

On a Chassidic note, my wife and I wrote to the Lubavicher Rebbe (the Rebbe) in a P"N (Pidyon Nefesh -- sort of a "status update" letter) and we asked the Rebbe for a beracha (blessing) that we find the right and proper place to raise our family, even if that means moving out of our state. To make a kli (a vessel) to hold this beracha, I felt it would be wise to apply to law firms in different states, so that just in case the beracha, for example, is to have a happy family in New York, at least I will have applied to the law firms in that state so that that blessing can come to fruition through the natural course of nature (teva) and my physical acts rather than through the course of a miracle. [I learned in Yeshiva (Rabbinical School) that when a person makes a kli (a vessel) to allow brachot (blessings) to come down from the spiritual world into our physical world, and that kli will allow the blessings to come in a natural and physical way, the blessings come much easier than asking G-d for a miracle.]

Anyway, so today I plan on compiling the list of patent and intellectual property law firms in my own state and apply to these next. I am also out of resume paper and envelopes, so I need to go out and buy more.

Patent Attorney Job Search

I didn't realize that so many days have passed since my post about the bathtub. It's surprising to me that when I catch a cold or get sick, I stay sick for so many days. I'm just getting over my cold from last week now. Here are some updates on things that are going on in my life:

WIFE WANTING TO LEAVE THE STATE:

The "wife wanting to leave the state" issue has since been resolved. It was simply a matter of putting my foot down in a loving way, and then having my wife go through a grieving process. It was tough though, but the point I wanted to drive home to her was that wherever she is, that is where she should be living -- not in some other place. This in essence (after all the defensive reasons of why we should specifically be in this state) was what I wanted her to acknowledge.

PATENT ATTORNEY JOB SEARCH:

I am starting to feel as if I desperately need a job and that I am not doing what I should be doing to get one. Until a dinner meeting yesterday with a law school friend that I trust, I was under the impression that all I had to do was pass the patent registration exam to practice before the USPTO and then all my job searching troubles would be solved.

I was informed last night over dinner that my narrow-minded ideals were off-base. If I am to get a job as a patent attorney, I have to do whatever I can to get a job because the field is so competitive in our state.

My options are to 1) apply for and get a job in another state (my wife would love this option); 2) move to Washington DC and work for the US government to defend them against patent infringement suits (to get massive amounts of experience, and to "write my own ticket" into a great job in a few years); or, 3) just start MASSIVELY NETWORKING with other lawyers and other law associations.

In short, I realize that I need to significantly change my approach and get way more aggressive in my patent law job search. I will start today.

I passed the Patent Bar Exam today.

To my closest friends and family:

I wanted to share the news that I passed the US Patent Registration Exam today.

The exam was very difficult, and I felt that they were testing more on whether I knew how to search the MPEP (patent examination manual) rather than whether I memorized the thousands of rules that I did. The first half of the exam was very difficult; I wasn't sure I passed -- I didn't even quite finish or review ANY of the MANY questions I was unsure about and wanted to review if there was time. There wasn't.

During the lunch break, since most of the past exams that I took broadly covered the MPEP's chapters (with the usual weightings on Chapters 700, 2100, etc.), instead of eating lunch, I took a few bites and I looked over my notes for the topics that they DIDN'T yet ask about -- I quickly reviewed those rules. Sure enough, that was EXACTLY what they tested on. I wouldn't be surprised if I scored a perfect 50/50 on the second half.

At the end of the exam, I received the good news, along with a print out and a signed and stamped letter for my records that I passed the exam.

I wish you all the best, and I am very thankful for the support you have all given me while I studied for this exam, and all the others that preceded it.

Warm regards,
Zoe Strickman