Methodology on How to Evaluate IP Law School Programs: The Pierce Advantage
FAQ from Blogs:
I was wondering if anyone could recommend some schools with strong patent law programs that I can start to look into. I checked out the US News rankings for IP programs, but I am not sure if they are really accurate. Rick D.
The How Should a Future Patent Attorney Choose a Law School string has been running on the Patenly-O blog for three years running.
Rick D. has asked the question that has sparked the great debate for decades on the Internet: should a student who wants to be an IP lawyer go to a school with a "good name" or a high ranking from U.S. News & World Report or a law school like Pierce Law with a lower general ranking but always ranked a top IP law school by U.S. News & World Report and with 35 years of proven success with alums around the globe.
The current of these discussion forums for the uninformed often by the uninformed is - go to the best law school you can and let your employer train you to be an IP lawyer. Any glib reductionistic answer like this borders on insanity. There is no one right answer to the great debate. The decision where to get an IP education can involve dozens of factors:
- area of IP someone wants to study
- the extent to which a student wants a global oriented education
- undergraduate education
- undergraduate credentials like GPA and LSAT
- graduate education
- finances
- needs or preferences for geographic location
- prior professional work experience, if any
- prior experience in the IP field (e.g. patent examiner, technical specialist, paralegal, patent searcher, academic...)
- cultural considerations
- types of practical opportunities someone is looking for
- the extent of the alum base of the IP program
All these and more need to be balanced when choosing an IP education. One thing is clear. It is the experience of Pierce Law that employers want graduates who "hit the road running" - either by practice based education or demonstable experience. This has been the approach of Pierce Law for thirty five years.
The Pierce Law approach - the Pierce Law advantage - has been substantiated by the American Bar Association's McCrate Report calling for practical skills based training as well as recent Carnegie Foundation's two-year study of legal education that involved a comprehensive look at teaching and learning in American law schools today. Intensive field work was conducted at a cross-section of sixteen law schools during the 1999-2000 academic year. The study provides an opportunity to rethink "thinking like a lawyer"—the paramount educational construct currently employed, which affords students powerful intellectual tools while also shaping education and professional practice in subsequent years in significant, yet often unrecognized, ways.
For all those who desire to evaluate IP at Pierce Law
If you are visiting this page you may be:
- A prospective student considering "careers in IP" who might study IP at Pierce Law as a law student (Juris Doctor) or graduate surdent (Master of Laws in IPCT, advanced education for lawyers, or Master of IPCT, advanced education for new or aspiring IP professionals who have not earned a law degree).
- An IP academic
- An IP attorney or judge
- An IP professional at a governemnt or non-governmental organizations, including business and finance professionals
- a news professional
- Anyone generally interested in IPCT
The Process Behind this Area
This area has been planned and constrcuted to meet your need after an extensive process that included:
- A review of the websites and printed publications of the top thity law schools with IP programs
- Surveys and focus groups of Pierce Law self-identified IP students
- Reading blogs and groups on the web that discusss how to choose an IP educational institution
- Reviewing the frequently asked IP related questions (IP-FAQs) from the chat room logs of newly admitted Pierce Law students
The Informational Approach of this Area
Most of of the web pages and print literature from the IP programs at the top thirty IP law school programs are heavy with "empty generalities." Some prospective students feel all the schools basically say the same thing. Blogs show that if you are a persective student you want more data on the value added od an IP law program than the U.S. News IP ranking, which is simply the number of votes a program receives from teaching IP professors (uaually on fifty percent of the ballots are ever returned). Other pages in this area will talk to you about the U.S. News rankings and how they relate to IP at Pierce Law.
The pages in this area will attempt to do what most other shcools will not do - provide data, facts and statistics to objectively prove the value added on studying IP at Pierce Law. But beyond facts and figures you want to know about the experience of studying IP law at Pierce Law. This area will include testimonials from IP students, Faculty, Staff, alums as well as many other friends and consumers of the fruitof the work of Pierce IP students. So, the goal of this section is to balance of presenting IP @ Pierce with subjective information along with people sharing their experiences.
