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.

Automatic Admission into the DC Bar ?

My scaled score on the MBE (Multistate Bar Exam) was 147, and my scaled score on the MPRE (Professional Responsibility Exam) was 97, and my law school is an ABA accredited law school.

Now look at the requirements below. That means that I can be admitted into DC as an attorney without another bar exam, right? Are there any downsides that you know of to being admitting in DC?

-Zoe

--
DC Bar Exam MBE Reciprocity

Candidates for admission may be admitted without sitting for the
exam if candidate received a scaled MBE score of 133 or higher on an
exam upon which candidate was admitted in another jurisdiction, achieved
a scaled score of at least 75 on the MPRE, and has a JD from an ABA
accredited law school. If a candidate received a 133 on the MBE but was
not admitted in that jurisdiction, candidate may waive in MBE score and
take only the essay portions of the exam. A candidate must then score a
133 on the essay portion to pass the exam.

DC Bar Reciprocity

1) Membership in good standing for 5 years prior to application from
any state bar; OR

2) Membership in good standing in any state bar and a scaled score
of 133 on the MBE and a scaled score of 75 on the MPRE and a JD from an
ABA accredited law school; OR

3) An applicant can use a scaled MBE score of 133 or better in the
past 25 months. The applicant must then attain a 133 on the essay
portion of the examination.

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.