Pros
- Many supervisors are experienced at training new graduates and others who have little to no experience with patents - Work quality and feedback is great; usually very detailed and well thought out - Awesome culture, everyone is approachable and fun - Leadership listens to ideas, it's a pretty open door policy - Flexible billing hour requirement, and the requirement is relatively low, so there's a good work life balance - You get a relatively bigger cut of profit for your billing time compared to other firms - There's flexibility to work remotely for practitioners after a few years of experience - Diverse clients both in terms of technology and patent goals - For non-shareholders, you generally have control over how much effort you put into supervising, recruiting, training, or other roles outside of typical billable work - Free snacks, coffee, and alcohol (outside of work hours!), along with many firm-sponsored events throughout the year - Billing rate increase per year is generally consistent, so the pay and workload increase can be easily calculated - Well distributed age range of employees, a lot of young people for a midsize firm - Location is on a quiet community college campus and has free parking. Supposedly, there is also a gym being built in the building for convenient usage
Kontras
- Work is not always well distributed. Often requires physically walking around and asking when low on work, which can especially be daunting when starting out. This is currently being changed - Often takes awhile to get feedback after turning in work - Budgets vary wildly between clients - Consistent increase in billing rate each year can be stressful - Some people can be difficult to reach via digital means (e.g., email, IM) - No fully remote option - Location far from downtown, so commute can be somewhat long depending on where you live - Building can be quite cold