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[Brett Memmott]

Hi, i am a junior Chemical Engineering student and am planning on attending law school.  I am at the point in my education where i need to select a focus.  I am currently deciding between BioChem and Reaction Chemistry.  Would any cary and advantage for my future plans of Patent Law?  Thanks

[J.B.Shah]

Brett:

I am also a Chem Eng major (graduated 2001) and am currently in law school studying Intellectual Property - Patent Law.  I did my concentration in Colloids & Polymers and a minor in Biomedical & Health Engineering.  I would strongly recommend taking a sequence of courses in Biomedical Engineering if they are available to you.  The coatings background has come up huge for me in interviews with pharmaceutical-related firms and biomed/biotech is a hot area right now.  Anything biotech that you can get on your resume will help you greatly.  That is my strongest recommendation to you.  

Best of luck,
~JBShah

[Isaac]

Just remember that you are trying to predict what's going to be hot 4-5 or more years in the future.  Tech areas that looked hot in 1998-1999 appeared a lot less so by 2003.
I don't see anything wrong with the advice to add some course work in a predicted hot area to the curriculum.

[Bridget]

Brett:

I was also a Chemical Engineering major in college. I graduated in 1997 with my BS and 1999 with a MS. My UG research was in chemical vapor deposition in diamond films and my grad work was in electrochemical separations. After I graduated I worked in the semiconductor industry (photolithography) for a few years. Then my career took a sharp turn and I started focusing on process control and mathematical modeling, first for photolithography and later for grocery stores (don't ask, it was a cool job!)

I am currently a 2L.

You can take all my advice with a grain of salt, however, I found during my interviewing process, the two things that will really set you apart are (1) a graduate degree and (2) work experience. I have a few classmates with great grades who lack both and still have no job offers on the table. If you have both of these, you can have lackluster grades in law school and still be swamped with offers.

Your educational concentration, honestly, means a hill of beans. Get a Master's degree, get five years of work experience, and then enter law school. You will be able to write your ticket anywhere.