Moving a Patent Law Practice from New England to Austin (Houston: lawyers, house)

[blakesq]

HI All,

My wife and I are thinking of moving from New England to Austin. I am a patent and trademark attorney with my own practice. I notice, that according to the patent office, that there are over 400 patent attorneys in Austin, as opposed to about 23 patent attorneys in Jacksonville, FL (another place we considered moving). My guess is most of the patent attorneys are "in-house" patent attorneys, and probably would not be competition for me, unless and if they retire to private practice.

Anyhow, my question is, do you all think its a good idea for us to move to Austin, based on what I do for a living? Would there be too much competition? Is there a need for a solo patent/trademark attorney? Some more info is that my wife is origionally from New England, I am origionally from Texas, but ended up in New England about 6 years ago. My wife currently works for a local university as a community outreach coordinator. Thanks.

[hoffdano]

I am not an attorney but I have worked with a patent attorney a few times (I am in the software industry). I would be surprised if that many patent attorneys are in-house. I just can't imagine there are enough companies large enough to have that much in-house counsel. I could see Dell, Freescale, Applied Materials, and AMD with in-house patent attorneys. But so much of the tech in Austin isn't large companies. Lots of small to mid-size (< 100 employees) companies.

But I could be completely wrong!

[centralaustinite]

In general, lawyers are thick on the ground in Austin!! UT is a large law school and turns new lawyers out with regularity, state government requires many lawyers, as does the tech industry. I am not surprised to learn that there are 400 patent attorneys in Austin. I agree with hoffdano, I would be surprised if more than 100 of them are in house counsel.

Is there a national organization of patent attorneys that you could consult for advise on moving your practice?

good luck!

[blakesq]

Thanks for the responses so far, anyone else have some responses, after the Memorial day weekend?

[Trainwreck20]

I know Freescale has a small pack (gaggle? herd?) of patent attorneys, and I would assume (but you know about assumptions) that they are based in Austin and contribute to that number since Freescale is based out of Austin. Anyway, theirs alone would put a good dent in that Jacksonville number. Probably similar for Dell. Not sure on where IBMs are based, probably not in Austin, for the most part. Samsung would probably have a few too, but again, not sure if they would show up as Austin based or not.

UT probably supports quite a few 'freelance' patent lawyers by itself, but not sure how a university protects its patents.

Anyway, Austin being the state captiol, I assume that there are a certain number here for that reason. How many show up in Tallahasse?

[doctorjef]

Austin is seriously over-populated with lawyers of all kinds, and I say this as a psychologist who used to live in Austin and engage in a good deal of forensic practice, so was symbiotically enmeshed with the legal profession. Many private practice attorneys barely eek out an existance and many fail to build a decent referral and client base amidst so much competition. If you have discovered that there are 400 patent attorneys in Austin, I think that's just proof that the specialty is just as crowded as other niches such as family law, criminal law, and personal injury. Austin is a beautiful city, but you would almost certainly be facing a terrific struggle trying to establish a viable practice there.

[kool_breeze]

I think it's a mistake to assume that most of the patent lawyers in Austin are working in-house. As others have chimed in, I think in-house patent attorneys make up a very small percentage (my guess is probably less than 10%) of all patent attorneys in Austin (as is the case with patent attorneys in general). I also don't think you can tie any significance to the number of patent attorneys without first knowing more about the amount of available patent legal work. I know that Austin generates a lot more IP compared to a place like Jacksonville, for example.

I hope (and I have to assume) that you will base your decision to relocate on a heck of a lot more than the number of patent attorneys in Austin and the perception about the amount of competition that number would create for you. Unless you have business you plan on bringing with you down here, I'd think really hard about the likelihood of obtaining work from any number of companies (Dell, Freescale, etc.) that already have a number of firms/sole practioners that do IP work for them.

As an aside, why is it that people are so quick to point out that there are too many attorneys (of any type) within a given city? You never really hear that about engineers, marketing folks, and others. From what I have seen, employment prospects for lawyers are generally better than many other occupations (and especially for patent lawyers even in this economy). Granted, not everyone is raking in the money, but most are doing reasonably OK.

[doctorjef]

To be clear, I wasn't dissing lawyers at all -- they were my most important referral source in my practice in Austin and people with whom for the most part I very much enjoyed working. I can't comment on an oversupply, for example, of engineers because I didn't work with engineers as a professional group. I do know the situation with law practices in Austin and can say that at least amongst many legal specialties there is oversupply and extreme competition. Having said that, it's probably hardest for general practice lawyers who don't have any proper legal specialisation and who attempt to either get into a specialty through the back door or who attempt to do a bit of everything, much of it not very well.

[AustinTexan]

Austin is pretty much known for its "abundance of attorneys." Most graduates from UT Law School want and try to stay in Austin after graduating and it's probably the hardest place in Texas to find a job as an attorney. My brother is an attorney and he tried starting his own practice in Austin about 5 years ago, but soon realized that making $20,000 a year here wasn't going to cut it. He has since moved to South Texas and is doing considerably better. Moving across the country to Austin as an attorney probably isn't going to be your best bet. I understand the attraction to Texas and especially Austin, but you need to go where you can have a better chance of making some money and/or landing a job. Dallas or Houston would probably be a wiser choice........hey, at least you're in Texas, something 90% of the country seems to want to do these days!

[blakesq]

Original poster here. Now we are thinking of moving to San Antonio, which has a lower cost of living than Austin, but I suspect is less fun. Anyhow, Austin has over 480 patent attorneys, but San Antonio only has 84 patent attorneys, yet is almost twice as large as Austin.

does this mean that SA is underserved by patents attorneys, or that there is no patent work in SA, its all in Austin? Thanks for any insight.