IP Lit to Tech Trans? (mid level) Forum

[Anonymous User]

I am a 2014 grad who went from patent pros at a small firm to patent lit at a mid sized firm (decently well known among biglaw, considered peer in terms of pay and rep). I am thinking of making the jump to tech transactions. Can anyone who's done this tell me what their experience was like? Any deductions in class year? Do you fear automation will take your job away? Will switching groups (and firms) as a midlevel destroy partnership odds?

[Anonymous User]

A few people at my firm made the lateral move from our IP Prosecution group (where they had some exposure to litigation/IPRs/deals) to a tech transaction group at a "peer" V20 firm. I think we had three people go to the same firm within about a 6-month window. I think they were a few years out of school at the time.

They had some "extra" seniority because they had come up as patent agents and worked for the firm during law school (they came in as second or third year associates after graduating). They had to give up that seniority, but they were allowed to keep their class year when they transferred (i.e., if they graduated in 2015, they were treated like other 2015 graduates). My feeling is that without the exposure to deal work as part of the prosecution group, they would have been dinged a year or two. It was still a pay-cut, but they wanted to do transaction work full-time and weren't going to have the option at the old firm.

I can't speak about partnership prospects. One went in-house, but the other two have made it to senior associate positions and are still eyeballing partnership as far as I know. My guess is that if you come in as a junior/mid-level, you probably have as good odds as anybody. You might be getting a little long in the tooth for it having graduated ~5 years ago, but if you were really gunning for partner I'm sure they would "offer" to knock you down a year or so and give you a longer runway.

[Anonymous User]

I know someone who did this in the Bay Area. She was a 3rd year and Lateraled from a fairly strong IP lit group to TTG at one of Fenwick/WSGR/Gunderson/Cooley. She had to start as a first year. It suited her because she wanted to go in house and she found a good in house gig within a year. I have no idea what partnership would have looked like for her.

[SFSpartan]

I see people make this transition (and the reverse) pretty routinely in SF/SV. You'll probably take a class year hit, but I wouldn't expect to go back to being a first year or anything. Depending on experience, and the nature of the job (i.e. mix of deal support vs. standalone IP work), I'd expect to end up anywhere from a 2nd to a 4th year.