Law Students

Reaching Out to IP Attorneys ? Part 1

By atharkhan

When I was in law school, I set aside a few hours each week to reach out to, and meet Intellectual Property (IP) attorneys. This was an excellent way for me to learn about the practice of IP law, and understand the dynamics of law firms of different types, and sizes. It helped me decide what kind of firm I wanted to work for.

A friend recently asked me how I managed to get attorneys to agree to meet me. So, I figured I would post it on here. Perhaps it will be helpful to other law students out there.

First, let me say that I don?t claim to have a magic recipe for reaching out on social media networks. My ?strategy? (if you will allow me to call it that) was simply to anticipate, and preemptively neutralize any concerns that might prevent an attorney from agreeing to meet me.

Some of the negative reactions I could anticipate were:

• ?Who is this guy, and what does he want?”
• ?Great! Yet another overly aggressive jobseeker! This is probably an elaborate attempt to get hired.?
• ?Now that I have built my network, this guy wants to leverage it. What?s in it for me??
• ?If I make the mistake of talking to this guy, he is going to pester me endlessly with all kinds of questions.?

So, I wrote emails such that the recipient would know that I was (1) a law student, (2) not seeking employment, and (3) solely interested in learning about their experience.

Invariably, the attorneys I reached out to fell into at least one of the following categories:

• Cold Contacts: Attorneys I didn?t know at all. (I had a search set up for new attorneys within a 50 mile radius.)
• Referrals: Attorneys I had been referred to by a mutual acquaintance.
• Alumni of my law school.
• Alumni located in Chicago. (I was going to be in Chicago for a summer associate program. I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn about the city where I might practice IP law some day.)
• Present or Former Colleagues.
• Notable IP Attorneys: IP attorneys listed in attorney rankings, leaders in local IP associations, or named authors of interesting IP law articles.
• Career Changers: Attorneys who had transitioned from a different industry (particularly Information Technology) to IP law. Also, individuals who left IP law (or the practice of law entirely) to do something else.

I then constructed, for each category, a ?skeleton? email message. Depending upon the circumstances, I would combine/customize my message.

To keep this post short, I will provide the text of these emails in a subsequent blog post.

Full post as published by Atharkhan on January 31, 2010 (boomark / email).