Law Schools

3 Questions For The Director Of An Ivy League IP Law Clinic (Part I)

Law students are very, very interested in participating in IP Law clinics. Find out why here.

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This week, I was fortunate to have a chance to conduct a written interview with the Director of an Ivy League IP Law Clinic, Professor Cynthia Dahl. Professor Dahl runs the Detkin Intellectual Property and Technology Legal Clinic (“IPC”) at Penn Law, which provides pro bono IP advice and counseling as well as transactional support in all areas of IP. Working under the supervision of practitioner professors, the IPC gives law student counselors a unique opportunity to learn by helping clients solve their real-life IP problems. IPC clients are individuals, non-profit, and for-profit clients focused on science, technology, business, and the arts. The IPC is also groundbreaking in that through a unique partnership with Penn’s technology transfer office, students can help guide early stage Penn technologies towards successful commercialization.  The IPC also taps into the resources of Penn’s strong network of professional schools (including the Schools of Engineering, Medicine, Business (Wharton), Arts and Sciences, and other Penn departments and programs) to provide holistic counseling for clients and IP education for inventors. The Detkin Clinic was made possible by a generous gift from Peter Detkin EE’82, L’85, the noted IP entrepreneur and Founder and Vice Chairman of Intellectual Ventures, an invention investment firm, who currently serves on the Board of Overseers for Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

A bit more about our interviewee and her interesting career path. Professor Cynthia Dahl transitioned from practice to academia in 2012 to design and direct the IPC. Before coming to Penn, for 10 years she was IP Counsel for TruePosition, Inc. a Liberty Media-owned international wireless location company, where she grew the company’s international intellectual property portfolio to over 100 patents and several dozen trademarks and counseled three spin-off subsidiaries on their intellectual property strategy. Prior to working at TruePosition, she was a litigation associate at Holland and Hart LLP and Pennie and Edmonds LLP. Before launching her legal career, she counseled artists at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in New York and held several jobs in policy and the press, including working for Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) and Nina Totenberg at National Public Radio. Cynthia’s impressive list of career achievements continues with her important work in her current position.

As usual, I have added some brief commentary to Cynthia’s answers below, but have otherwise presented her answers as she provided them.

1) What has proven effective in terms of raising student interest towards participating in the clinic, even if they are not yet sure that a career in IP law is for them?

CD: The IPC is always oversubscribed, so we are lucky that there is already student interest.  In fact, that seems to be common for IP clinics across the country. I think what drives the student interest first and foremost is a knowledge that IP is important to so many clients across so many industries. Knowledge of IP law is helpful across almost all practice areas. And it can be helpful whether the client is a large or small for-profit entity, a large or small non-profit entity, or even an individual like an inventor or an artist.  

I think students are also attracted to the IPC because the subject matter is fascinating.  We represent clients developing brand new technology, composing music, film or visual arts projects, or inventing cutting-edge science.  And the questions our clients present are often in the headlines, whether in the realm of privacy law and data protection, patentable subject matter, or design.  Working with our clients and the topics of law they present is inherently fun.

Students also have an advantage practicing in this area that they might not have in other areas.  IP practitioners must stay very current, especially since the technologies and legal questions they present evolve so quickly.  A new lawyer is not at as much of a disadvantage when they are just starting out as they might be in other fields, simply because of their knowledge of technology and familiarity with recent case law.  In fact, the perspective of that new lawyer might be really welcome on the legal team, even from their first days.

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GK: I am not surprised to see that the IPC is a popular choice for Penn Law’s students. I would also not be surprised to see other law schools offer IP law clinics, to the extent they are not already available. In fact, Cynthia informs me that there are over 70 IP law clinics currently across the country. Further, she and a colleague have surveyed those clinics, with their findings the subject of an upcoming article scheduled for release in the next few weeks.

Speaking for myself, I would have loved to have the opportunity to work in an IP clinic during law school. For that matter, I can see private practice law firms banding together to offer similar services on a pro bono basis, along the lines of what has been proven to work in the law school setting. Anything to help get junior lawyers practical experience counseling clients on IP issues. I would be happy to advise on any such effort. And of course I agree wholeheartedly with Cynthia that practicing lawyers of all stripes benefit from a degree of IP literacy.

We will continue with Cynthia’s answers to questions 2 and 3 next week.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

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