I recently attended the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association convention at LA Live in Los Angeles. It was incredible. More than 1700 API (Asian and Pacific Islander) attorneys attended the convention along with almost 40 sponsoring corporations such as Microsoft, Mercedes Benz, Verizon and Walmart.
Many partners of law firms, judges, and general counsel of larger companies were in attendance as well. Here are some general things I learned while there:
On Hiring, Reading Your Resume
1) Where you went to law school matters most
2) Then they look to where you went for undergrad, any other grad degrees
3) Then they look at your grades and activities (don’t bother writing Moot Court if you didn’t win any external competitions, it carries little weight without some standardized method of ranking).
4) Then they look at experience, especially technical experience if patent-related position sought
Diversity hiring is All the Rage These Days
- law firm clients like Microsoft encourage law firms to use minority lawyers in litigating cases
- and law firms comply because law firms get bigger bonuses from client like Microsoft if they use minority lawyers
(ie a larger cut of the contingency fee)
Secondary Field for Intellectual Property law
Licensing is a big deal now for intellectual property and it deals with a lot of negotiations and business. Sometimes having a licensing specialty is more preferable as it confers executive-level decision making in the legal practice
“Extracurricular Activities”
Oh, and attorneys love to party and drink. It doesn’t matter their age, their type of practice, or gender. After attending the conference for 3 days and schlepping back to the hotel at 4am every night after midnight food runs, karaoke singing, and general debauchery on the dance floor, attorneys would take short sleeps until the next morning’s breakfast plenary session at 9am. I honestly thought about stopping all food and just drinking for the next semester so that I can build a tolerance for alcohol while getting the same amount of calories. I’m still deliberating this…
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