Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Greenberg Traurig is a law firm. It's one of the bigger law firms in the world.
We have about 1,800 lawyers, 39 offices globally and the Boston office is a good size.
It's about 65 attorneys. We focus on the whole spectrum of legal services, from litigation
to corporate, to intellectual property, to tax, what have you.
You name it, we do it.
You do it. Is there a TV show coming, by the way?
[Chinh and Jeffrey laugh]
I wish, I wish. What's interesting is that in our office
we've been visited by Hollywood a couple of times.
Really?
Looking for space to film.
That's interesting.
My practice, in particular, is in the intellectual property area.
Okay.
What I do is I work with a lot of technology companies and, in particular, emerging technology,
trying to take advantage of all the innovation that is occurring in and around Boston.
Most of you probably know Boston is the hub of innovation so there are a lot of opportunities
for us to work with these companies.
And education is the key to all that, right?
Yes, it is. [chuckles]
I practice intellectual property law.
Prior up to practicing law I actually was doing biotech research for a number of years
and we decided that it wasn't my calling.
Law was a nice transition with my scientific background,
and intellectual property law, in particular, to bridge that gap between technology and law.
It's a point now where it's almost like getting a Ph.D.
We know absolutely everything about absolutely nothing.
[Chinh and Jeffrey laugh]
I was doing biotech research in Silicon Valley for a couple of companies and for whatever
reason the two law firms that represented the companies that I was with, they came up
to me and they said, "Chinh, you need to go to law school." For whatever reason.
That's interesting.
Yeah, and I thought about it because law never crossed my mind
and always considered going to get a Ph.D.
Then after I looked into the Ph.D. program, I said to myself
"There's just no way I'm getting a Ph.D.,"
especially with hearing all the stories and all the complaints from all Ph.D.'s
that I worked with, so I decided to go to law school.
In addition to passing the State Bar to practice as an attorney,
in order to practice patent law,
you have to have a scientific background whether it's a science degree or an engineering degree.
On top of that, you have to take a specialty bar exam.
The passing rate, I remember when I took it, was probably like 20-30%.
It's up to about 60-70% now, but it's now multiple choice, but before it was a written exam.
It's a fairly difficult exam to pass in order to practice patent law.
I think that opportunity that's available for patent attorneys is tremendous,
especially with technology the way it is in the U.S., especially in Boston right now.
There are just so many early-stage, startup companies that are
popping up from the various universities around here.
There are a lot of accelerator programs that are popping up to create this ecosystem to
help these early-stage or emerging companies to accelerate to its commercialization.
Us having the opportunity to work with these companies is fantastic.