WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.141 After graduation I went to 2 00:00:03.141 --> 00:00:08.511 law school at Washington & Lee in Lexington. 3 00:00:08.511 --> 00:00:13.765 I mentioned Dean Hawkins before as someone who had a lot of influence on me 4 00:00:13.765 --> 00:00:19.057 and who was a great mentor really to me on campus 5 00:00:19.057 --> 00:00:21.613 and gave me a lot of good direction and feedback. 6 00:00:21.613 --> 00:00:26.279 I was talking to him about law schools and what I might do, 7 00:00:26.279 --> 00:00:29.339 and also at that time I didn't know whether I could get into any of them. 8 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:36.269 And I didn't know where I wanted to live ultimately, had no idea. 9 00:00:36.269 --> 00:00:39.605 So he mentioned Washington & Lee to me. I'd never heard of it. 10 00:00:39.605 --> 00:00:49.705 He had lived in Lexington for a time working for Sigma Nu, the national fraternity. 11 00:00:49.705 --> 00:00:51.767 [They] had a headquarters in, of all places, Lexington, Virginia, 12 00:00:51.767 --> 00:00:55.100 and it was a small place, the mountains. He talked about the school 13 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:59.478 and he said that the law school was very small 14 00:00:59.478 --> 00:01:04.603 and that the thing about it was the people that knew about W&L had very high respect for them- 15 00:01:04.603 --> 00:01:07.914 a lot of people didn't know anything about them but those that did-and that 16 00:01:07.914 --> 00:01:12.217 their graduates generally came from a large number of different places, 17 00:01:12.217 --> 00:01:15.795 so that got me interested in W&L. 18 00:01:15.795 --> 00:01:19.291 I looked into it and I applied there along [with]-I thought Florida, 19 00:01:19.291 --> 00:01:23.688 being from Florida and in state, and that always helps how many students you could admit, 20 00:01:23.688 --> 00:01:26.745 and I applied to different law schools, 21 00:01:26.745 --> 00:01:31.736 and thankfully I got in to W&L and they were very gracious and provided 22 00:01:31.736 --> 00:01:35.945 scholarship money so I was able to attend there. 23 00:01:35.945 --> 00:01:43.381 So I went to W&L, and it was aside or co-equals with State. 24 00:01:43.381 --> 00:01:46.652 It was a great experience. 25 00:01:46.652 --> 00:01:53.330 I wanted to try something small after having been at State 26 00:01:53.330 --> 00:01:59.070 and the small law school in particular really appealed to me 27 00:01:59.070 --> 00:02:02.452 because at that time I could read 28 00:02:02.452 --> 00:02:06.325 and I would look at the catalogs and the section I would look at was the section that described 29 00:02:06.325 --> 00:02:10.108 how many seats there were in the first year classrooms 30 00:02:10.108 --> 00:02:12.589 versus how many seats there were in the second year classrooms, 31 00:02:12.589 --> 00:02:16.299 and if I was able to get into a law school and do all the work of a first year student 32 00:02:16.299 --> 00:02:23.325 I did not want to go somewhere where it was planned that only so many are going to come back for their second year. 33 00:02:23.325 --> 00:02:28.406 I wanted somewhere that was going to stick with you, and W&L more than delivered on all those things. 34 00:02:28.406 --> 00:02:36.503 I felt academically prepared. I was concerned about the stereotypes about engineers or chemists, 35 00:02:36.503 --> 00:02:42.640 that the English language is a mortal enemy in terms of how much experience I'd had in writing, 36 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:46.790 and knowing that in law school the other students-. 37 00:02:46.790 --> 00:02:52.281 I think I was the only person in my class who had a technical background. 38 00:02:52.281 --> 00:02:55.156 But the background of State 39 00:02:55.156 --> 00:02:58.272 relative to the performance in law school and career, 40 00:02:58.272 --> 00:03:00.041 it ended up having a huge effect 41 00:03:00.041 --> 00:03:03.303 because what I do today is I practice in the field of patent law 42 00:03:03.303 --> 00:03:09.855 which is focused and is obviously technology oriented 43 00:03:09.855 --> 00:03:13.031 and in order to be admitted to the patent bar 44 00:03:13.031 --> 00:03:15.287 you must have a technical degree. 45 00:03:15.287 --> 00:03:21.574 So while what I do is primarily contested cases, litigation, 46 00:03:21.574 --> 00:03:27.322 where you do not actually have to be admitted to the patent bar to do what I do, 47 00:03:27.322 --> 00:03:29.437 the part that I do in the patent field, 48 00:03:29.437 --> 00:03:32.738 in order to be a licensed patent attorney in the patent office 49 00:03:32.738 --> 00:03:35.632 you have to have a traditional technical background. 50 00:03:35.632 --> 00:03:38.758 So it was really the background. 51 00:03:38.758 --> 00:03:42.166 The decision in the first place to try something technical and to do it 52 00:03:42.166 --> 00:03:44.505 in what I felt might be a friendly environment like NC State 53 00:03:44.505 --> 00:03:48.119 directly influenced ultimately what my career ended up being 54 00:03:48.119 --> 00:03:51.382 in the legal field, because when I started at W&L 55 00:03:51.382 --> 00:03:53.745 I did not even know patent law existed, 56 00:03:53.745 --> 00:03:58.512 so there was no grand plan that I want to go and get a technical degree 57 00:03:58.512 --> 00:04:01.646 because I'm going to pursue-as some people do now, 58 00:04:01.646 --> 00:04:04.382 and know about it. 59 00:04:04.382 --> 00:04:07.418 Patent law was just not very well known at the time, 60 00:04:07.418 --> 00:04:09.389 so it's just sort of something that happened.