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[krishna13]

I would like to seek some advice from group members for a possible career change from being a Medical Scientist to Intellectual Law field. I am currently making about $115K in my field and has no IP experience. I guess that in order to enter the IP field, I 'll first have to first pass the patent registration exam and then secure a job as a patent agent. From then, I could work part time towards a JD degree. Ignoring other aspects of the field and just concentrating  towards the salary, can you guys tell me about the starting salaries of the Patent agent with masters degree in Medical Sciences. My bachelors is in EE. How much can one expect to earn with 10 years of experience as a Patent Agent/ Patent Attorney? I know salaries can depend on many factors so please give me the average/ ballpark numbers. Also, the average salary in my field can go upto $200K for experienced scientists. Do you think, I should go for a career change? Can I make more in IP field?. Offcourse, I am just making comparisons solely on the salary basis and there are so many more factors that I should base my decision on. But this is just a discussion... Please give your suggestions. I would really like to hear from established patent agents and attorneys with 7-10 years of experience in this field.
Thanks in advance for your responses. Krishna.

[turbotong]

Stay in your field.  making $115K for 3 years = $345k.  Law school costs about ~$70k/year for 3 years, give or take some ~=200k.  So first of all, it is an opportunity cost of over half a million dollars.
So 3 years later you will either be A) $345k richer, probably had at least one pay raise/promotion or B) $210k in debt and looking for employment which you may or may not have secured.

As far as the starting salaries go, whatever you do, don't look at the median salaries reported by universities.  That comes from horribly manipulated/incomplete data.  In fact there is at least one law school being sued by one of its students right now for misleading employment data.

The TOP (not average, TOP) starting salaries seem to be around $160k/year for attorneys and I'm not quite sure for agents but maybe around $80k?  The 10 year mark salary would depend on you.  Vastly different if you decide to go in house versus partner track at a firm.

[OMG IP]

salaries these days are also very misleading the legal field.

Those TOP salaries are oftentimes based on 2000 billable hours.  NOTE: that's billable, and not necessarily actual hours worked, which is often times more for new associates.

But I agree with the previous poster.  All things being equal, from an economic standpoint and the circumstances described, you would be foolish to pursue law school

[plex]

You will start out making about 30-40k less as a patent agent.  You might break even or do a tiny bit better as a patent attorney, I would give you about a 50% chance.  You will almost certainly be working 25-50% more hours.  You will probably have less job stability.

It is pretty rare when it is a good idea (in a pure monetary sense) for someone to switch from a field they have a lot of experience to one where they will be at the entry level, making potentially less, working a lot more hours, on top of spending many years not working and plopping over $100k for the privilege of making less money and working more hours.