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Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#61

Post by Ensorceled »

southbalkan wrote: post #48
Ensorceled wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends on which part of the industry you are working on, the stuff you describe matches my experience as an "inventor". I think there are two patent industries now: One is writing patents for new, novel, and interesting things and doing all the other things you describe. The other is churning out crappy patents as quickly as possible and flooding the patent office with whatever will stick.

I wouldn't disagree with that characterization... Gladly, I am in the first camp (I hope).

I think of it as the difference between "what do we need patent to protect our IP" and "ok, what else can we patent?!?"

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#62

Post by D13Fd »

dmoy wrote: post #56
D13Fd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is accurate. Patent litigation is at the top and pulls the most fees by far. Of course, it can also be very challenging. Setting aside troll/NPE cases, you're sometimes competing against the best attorneys at the best firms in the country, in cases where the amounts of revenue at stake vastly exceed any amount that the attorneys could reasonably bill (even at the typical rates of $500-$1500/hr).

My dad told me a story once about being paid for expert witnessing for patent expertise. The short version was that some company's legal team was looking to hire him for expert witnessing. They knew who he was, and had a rough idea of his opinion already, and knew that he was more or less opposed to their position . So he asked them why they'd be willing to pay $?!?/hr for him to read stuff and tell them that he thou…

Don’t discount the nice side effect that when you hire the opposing parties’ best possible expert, they are then precluded from working for the other side.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#63

Post by amusedcyclist »

D13Fd wrote: post #36
JTbane wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could personally make it as a lawyer in any capacity; from those I have talked to in the legal profession it seems like 100% pushing papers around. Also, I don't agree with patents in a political sense.

It's not mindless "pushing papers around" -- that job is done by paralegals and administrative assistants. But 50-100% of most attorneys' time is spent either "reading things," "researching things," or "writing things," if that is what you mean. That is the bread and butter of legal work these days, whether it's writing briefs, e-mails, letters or something else, and reading legal opinions, research materials, discov…

Its pretty mindless, even the "reading" and "researching" is extremely dull. The level of logical complexity isn't that great and its a lot of overworded nonsense.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#64

Post by amusedcyclist »

smegsicle wrote: post #52
ilaksh wrote: post #24

Why would anyone admit something like that in public?

yeah all my friends who are patent lawyers would be horrified if anyone thought that they had previously been engineers

Please, patent lawyers (and lawyers in general) are the scum of the earth.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#66

Post by D13Fd »

amusedcyclist wrote: post #63
D13Fd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not mindless "pushing papers around" -- that job is done by paralegals and administrative assistants. But 50-100% of most attorneys' time is spent either "reading things," "researching things," or "writing things," if that is what you mean. That is the bread and butter of legal work these days, whether it's writing briefs, e-mails, letters or something else, and reading legal opinions, research materials, discov…

Its pretty mindless, even the "reading" and "researching" is extremely dull. The level of logical complexity isn't that great and its a lot of overworded nonsense.

It depends on what you are doing. Legal research and writing can be anywhere from kind of dull to fascinating. That's also true for pretty much any job, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#67

Post by amusedcyclist »

D13Fd wrote: post #66
amusedcyclist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty mindless, even the "reading" and "researching" is extremely dull. The level of logical complexity isn't that great and its a lot of overworded nonsense.

It depends on what you are doing. Legal research and writing can be anywhere from kind of dull to fascinating. That's also true for pretty much any job, so I'm not sure what your point is.

That I think if you're going from software to legal work you're likely to be bored.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#68

Post by hnfong »

amusedcyclist wrote: post #63
D13Fd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not mindless "pushing papers around" -- that job is done by paralegals and administrative assistants. But 50-100% of most attorneys' time is spent either "reading things," "researching things," or "writing things," if that is what you mean. That is the bread and butter of legal work these days, whether it's writing briefs, e-mails, letters or something else, and reading legal opinions, research materials, discov…

Its pretty mindless, even the "reading" and "researching" is extremely dull. The level of logical complexity isn't that great and its a lot of overworded nonsense.

Are you sure you know what you're talking about?

The body of knowledge in law is vast and some areas can be intellectually stimulating as well (depending on one's interests). "Overworded nonsense" that you usually see (in contracts or legislation, I suppose) happens when less than stellar lawyers are made to write stuff upon a deadline, and is the equivalent of "spaghetti code". Usually, it's fine since nobody (I think) gives you a bonus for succinct writing when drafting a contract. But you might get in trouble for missing some "edge cases". There's also a lot of cargo culting (magic Latin incantations) and building on questionable templates (technical debt). Sometimes people intentionally write in weird illegible ways to impress people (think Perl one liners).

Anyway, when most programmers see an unfamiliar codebase for the first time, they'd probably think most of the code are "overworded nonsense" until they fully understand the "business requirements" and the special cases implemented. (This is where the adage against complete rewrites comes from.) Unless you're really an expert in the area of law, you're probably not qualified to say that some legal texts are overworded nonsense.

But yeah, there's more parallels in law and software engineering than one might think. I'm a software engineer by trade, not a lawyer, but I do have a degree in law, and I often read up on cases or occasionally do my own legal research mostly for fun and personal interest. I would contend your "extremely dull" claim. TBH I might read more legal texts than Other People's Code, the latter which I generally hate doing, and is usually more boring for me (and occasionally infuriating when I know the coders spewing writing crap instead of putting effort in making the stuff succinct and clean).

That said, believe whatever you want.

Re: Ask HN: Who has changed careers from engineer to patent agent/lawyer?

#70

Post by amusedcyclist »

hnfong wrote: post #68
amusedcyclist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty mindless, even the "reading" and "researching" is extremely dull. The level of logical complexity isn't that great and its a lot of overworded nonsense.

Are you sure you know what you're talking about? The body of knowledge in law is vast and some areas can be intellectually stimulating as well (depending on one's interests). "Overworded nonsense" that you usually see (in contracts or legislation, I suppose) happens when less than stellar lawyers are made to write stuff upon a deadline, and is the equivalent of "spaghetti code". Usually, it's fine since nobody (I thi…

My friend group is about 60% lawyers, so I have a reasonable sense of what I'm talking about. I think a lot of software is also over-worded nonsense, and I try very hard to make sure I don't work in a place where that's encouraged. But the issue is that the law is the law and the over-worded nonsense is inescapable and very much encouraged. Now you can say only lawyers are allowed to say that, but a lot of lawyers will say that (in private anyway, not if you're paying them). A lot of the complexity comes down to the fact that its very hard to change the law. I understand your parallels with a piece of software, now imagine a piece of software built slowly over 100s of years by programmers with very divergent motivations, and which required massive amounts of consensus to make changes to. Oh and no automated testing or types or any mathematical correctness built in anywhere, which is actually the stuff that makes software elegant and powerful. That would be one truly horrific piece of software, and imo thats what legal code is.
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