Federal Judiciary

Swearing in of new clerks / patent case status conferences

By Michael Smith

Tuesday's patent case status conferences in Marshall were unexpectedly preceded by a point of personal privilege, as I think Judge Ward put it, when all three of his and Judge Everingham's new law clerks were sworn in as members of the State Bar of Texas and the Eastern District Bar, with family and friends in attendance.  As is customary locally, the members of the bar in attendance stood for the swearing in.
The reason I point this out is that Judge Ward took a few moments to outline the extraordinary qualifications of the Court's new clerks, which should be of interest to practitioners in the patent docket in Marshall.  Assuming I got this right, they include:

• All three clerks have technical degrees (two in electrical engineering)
• Two of the three clerks have master's degrees (one in biotechnology)
• All three clerks worked in the private sector for several years before attending law school (for one of the clerks - a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in West Point - that included a year's tour of duty in Iraq)
• Two of the clerks have previously interned for federal judges (Lee Rosenthal of Houston of Houston and Barbara Lynn of Dallas, both highly respected judges, to put it mildly).
• One of the clerks has already accepted a clerkship at the Federal Circuit after he finishes in Marshall.

I bring this up because while the point has often been made that the Eastern District's judges have considerable expertise in patent litigation, the qualifications of the Court's staff is also worth mentioning.  These are just insanely high qualifications for district court clerks, and I was glad that the patent lawyers assembled for the cattle call, er status conference got to hear that maybe, just maybe, the Court knows a little bit about this newfangled patent litigation business.  I'm just glad that the competition wasn't this fierce when I got out of law school, or I'd still be working in Waco!

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).