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[3119llm]

I see it's evident there are some posts floating around here that pertain to securing a IP job. I'd venture to say by IP jobs people mean patent attorneys/agents only. However, I am wondering about the overall IP employment market right now and as well as the years to come. So in this sense, I'll just say first that the context my questions below relate to the broadest extent about overall employment opportunities that consider IP knowledge as an asset (not necessarily works like drafting claims/litigation etc.).

Just how important does the name of the law school you go to really matter when one seeks employment? One of the posts says employers don't care about IP rankings but rather about the overall law school rankings, to what extent is this true (i.e. what kind of IP jobs demands for big name schools)? Also, if IP rankings don't matter, then why educational services bother to create such rakning on the subject? Why do students refer to IP rankings when selecting schools? Why do professors are in favor of defending their schools' IP reputation??

[stuffball]

Opinions will probably vary on a subject like this, but here's my $0.02. 

I've only heard two things said about a school's "IP ranking":

1) it is the most important thing in terms of choosing a law school (you pretty much hear this only from GWU grads)

2) it's totally irrelevant (you hear this from pretty much everybody else)

The reasons such a ranking don't seem to matter much to the firms where I've worked are:

1) Most of what you learn in law school is general and not specific to IP.  Those few courses that are specific to IP will not be of tremendous value to you as a practitioner.

2) The IP rank has no bearing on the selectivity of the law school.  Most top ranked law schools do not have a very high IP rank and, yet, are much harder to get into than many of those that do.

"Also, if IP rankings don't matter, then why educational services bother to create such rakning on the subject?"

Because they want to sell copies of their magazines to GWU alumns.  They have all kinds of specialty rankings that don't mean much.  For instance, Pepperdine Law is #1 in "dispute resolution" while Stanford isn't even ranked.  If there were two lawyers, one with a JD from Pepperdine and one with a JD from Stanford... all other things being equal... which one would you rather pay $400/hr to resolve one of your disputes?  Pepperdine, no doubt.

The truth is that, if you go to GWU, your alumni network will be far more valuable to you than any IP ranking.

"Why do students refer to IP rankings when selecting schools?"

Do they?

"Why do professors are in favor of defending their schools' IP reputation??"

LOL.  I hope they're not doing that.  That would be sad.  I'll bet you don't hear professors from schools that rank highly overall doing that.

[JD]

Gee Dub rules.

[stuffball]

That's exactly what I was saying.

[lhfan]

Excellent post stuffball!

[freepatentbar]

3119, have you taken the LSAT?  Have you applied to schools?  You're sort of putting the cart before the horse if you don't know what your prospects are. 

[Patent_Type]

1) it is the most important thing in terms of choosing a law school (you pretty much hear this only from GWU grads)

The other people who say this are graduate of "Franklin Pierce Law Center"

[Lxw]

The other people who say this are graduate of "Franklin Pierce Law Center"

Ya, for those who are employed.  The ones who aren't...not so much.