Career Change - patent lawyer? - (Jul/09/2010 )
Anyone with B.S. in a biological science, who currently does research, ever thought of switching careers. I was maybe considering going to law school and becoming a patent lawyer. I am just too afraid to make the leap.
follow what you see yourself doing happily years from now
Well, you have to ask yourself, will you be happy as a lab bench scientist? Very few people actually decide to become scientist. Most go do other things... like investment banking.
You could try doing a summer position as a summer student in lab to give some idea of lab work
And ask yourself, if you not a patent lawyer.. what other career paths are you considering?
That is a good choice. I know many people in our school's tech transfer office have PhD degree in biology.
Most of the good patent attorneys I know in biotech have both a PhD and a law degree. You have to ask yourself if you can invest that much time in acquiring degrees; if so, it may be a good choice for you.
epibio on Jul 12 2010, 06:52 AM said:
I currently have both a BS and an MS. I have been doing bench work in a lab for over 6 years. I am currently afraid that I may have chosen the wrong career. I am trying to figure out if I should really try to continue as a technician or just fold and start over. I started thinking of what I could go back to school to study. I came accross the patent lawyer, which seems to have a high demand in the job market.
I just keep having this mental image of being 40 years old and being unable to find a good job as a technician doing lab work.
I was a patent examiner just after I finished my bachelors, and I gave it up pretty quick and went to do postgrad study.
I was much more interested and passionate about lab work and inventing things myself than sitting at a desk all day getting buried in paperwork about other peoples cool inventions. Patent attorney is a very similar job (worked with them all the time, we were their antagonists) except they get paid much more at the expense of their soul.