Career series: Lisa Ramsey, University of San Diego

Tell us about the course of your career

While I was a communication studies major with a business emphasis at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the early 1990s, I thought I would pursue a job in advertising. However, I decided instead to go to law school after taking a media law class that included disputes involving the right to free speech under the First Amendment in the US Constitution.

At UCLA School of Law, I became interested in IP law and worked on IP cases as a summer associate at Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now DLA Piper) in San Diego. After law school I served as a judicial law clerk for the Honourable Rebecca Beach Smith, a district court judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. Then I returned to Gray Cary in 1997 as an associate and worked in the IP litigation department of the firm.

I worked on several interesting IP matters at Gray Cary and loved my job, but in 2002, I left the firm to live outside the US and travel with my law-professor husband for six months while he was on sabbatical.

During that time, I decided to try to get a job as a law professor since I enjoyed writing and mentoring junior attorneys. I wrote a law review article called “Descriptive Trademarks and the First Amendment” while we were living in Dublin, Ireland, and later it was published in the Tennessee Law Review when we returned to the US.

Back in San Diego, I did some appellate work with another attorney who also used to work at Gray Cary while I interviewed at law schools for a tenure-track faculty position. The University of San Diego (USD) School of Law hired me, and I have taught IP law classes there since 2004.

I became a tenured professor of law at USD in 2009 and I am a founding member of the law school’s Center for Intellectual Property Law and Markets.

Outline a typical day in your role

During the academic year, my typical day involves preparing for and teaching my classes. Over the years, I have taught trademark law, trademark litigation, international IP law, and other IP classes.

I also meet with students during office hours, serve as a faculty adviser on student papers, and do my best to serve as a mentor to our students and law school alumni. Some days I attend student events, faculty meetings, or other meetings at the law school or university, and prepare presentations or reports for those meetings.

In addition, I attend monthly committee meetings of the American Intellectual Property Law Association and International Trademark Association (INTA). Over the past few years, I have done significant work on these committees, including providing comments on proposed trademark legislation, strategising with attorneys about the content of amicus briefs in trademark disputes, and drafting revisions to INTA’s model trademark laws.