new thread
I'm probably going to enter law school in a year and want to know. I'm going to aim for either Intellectual Property Law (Patent Law would be better though) or Environmental law. Just curious how relaxed it is and I'd probably imagine some areas in the USA would be more relaxed than others.
Dear Friend,
Do not expect to be retained in the treason trial of Cheney and Bush for lying to get us into a phony war, but you will discover in the every day practice of law that the judge will show no preference as long as you are polite, articulate, and know the law.
There are many long haired lawyers whre I live in Western North Carolina.
Caledonian
i wonder why nobody can leave politics out of anything for once
No kidding.
...that apparently, long hair is acceptable in the courts, EXCEPT when the issues are highly political or deal with high-profile controversies that are all over the news.
Am I getting this right?
Hans-Uwe
If you want to go into patent law, do you want to go into prosecution or litigation? 'Prosecution' has a very different meaning than in criminal law. In patent law it means representing inventors before the patent office. This is what I do, and it requires passing the patent bar, for which the usual prerequisite is a technical degree, not a law degree, 'usual' meaning there are some other ways around that.
Even if you want to do patent litigation there are some firms that require you take the patent bar, some that require you at least have a tachnical undergraduate degree, and some that don't care, but not so many.
So the question is - what is your undergraduate major? If it is not a technical subject it is still possible to take the patent bar if you either pass the FE test or top up your credits in technical subjects. There are even some majors that are technical that aren't aaccepted. You should be checking your eligibility _now_ if you haven't already done so.
I'm a patent agent rather than a patent attorney, which means I've passed the patent bar and do patent prosecution but am not a lawyer (although I am 'counsel'). This means I do the same work as the attorneys, sign it (and that's the great dividing line between me and a paralegal), and get paid 2/3 the pay of the lowliest associate forever. The only upside is no law school loan to pay off.
There seem to be people in all walks of life who are resistant to hiring us longhairs, and law firms are no exception. OTOH, there are also people in all professions that don't give a r*t's behind how long your hair is.
I would say that a longhair would be hired in a heartbeat in public interest law, and would have real problems getting hired in corporate securities law. There are quite a few criminal lawyers with long hair, but a lot of them are self employed. In patent law there aren't too many longhairs, but you can get hired if you are persistent.