The alumni group of former clerks of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the court of appeals for all patent cases nationally, held its annual reunion this fall as usual at the Dolly Madison House, a charming eighteenth-century building adjoining the court on historic Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. After the official party, many of the former clerks retired to the bar of the nearby Sofitel for more conversation. Sprinkled in the crowd were the chief patent counsel of a unit of medical device maker Medtronic, Inc. and a key staffer at the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as many partners and associates of top IP law firms. One happy attendee was John Dragseth, a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and a partner at Fish & Richardson. “Clerking at the Federal Circuit has opened more doors for me than Harvard Law School would have,” Dragseth says.
The legal training that clerks receive working for a Federal Circuit judge is rigorous and impressive. Less obvious but also invaluable is the network established among former clerks. That set of connections leads to jobs, higher salaries, and many new cases and clients. Former clerks maintain close ties to one another and form a community that serves as a source of knowledge and power in the intellectual property world.
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