In case anyone who reads this blog is unaware, I’m a non-traditional law student. I work full-time and attend classes in the evening. The normal timeline for evening students at my school is 4 years until graduation; I’m an impatient type, so I opted to take a full course load each summer as well. This decision — not necessarily good for my sanity — cuts down the time it will take me to graduate by 2 full semesters (roughly one year).

Now that that’s out of the way, allow me to get to the point: I participated in my schools Intellectual Property Clinic this summer. Formerly based in an incubator (it has since moved to a school campus), the clientele ranged from authors to web-based business to bio-engineers to financial auditing contractors.

When I first applied to the clinic, I was not aware of the amount of time that it was going to take. Taking the clinic for 5 credits, I had to clock in 28 hours a week (not “billable” hours, simply work hours) — students taking 7 credits had to clock in almost 40. I cannot consider taking a clinic again, since I simply cannot commit that amount of time to it again — it was a stretch this past summer.

That being said, it was the single most informative and educational experience of my law school career to date. I met with clients; I drafted agreements; I performed trademark searches; I was exposed to the kinds of issues that are common in the realm of real business — there was no mention of acres of any hue!

My class was eligible to petition for a journal this past summer, but I knew that I would have time to either petition or attend the clinic. I might have committed career-suicide by opting for the clinic over the journal, but I don’t regret the decision; if an interviewer asks about it I’ll simply answer in good Jewish tradition with the question: “Which is more important: being on a journal or actual work experience?”