Thinking outside the box to meet clients' demands
My law firm, Casimir Jones, is a life sciences IP boutique firm located in Middleton, Wisconsin. Middleton is about six miles from downtown Madison, the state capital of Wisconsin. Casimir Jones has a total of 18 patent practitioners—15 patent attorneys and three patent agents. Of our 18 practitioners, we have four female partners, and all of our patent agents are female.
Over the last few years, a number of the firm’s clients have expressed expectations that we actively focus on the recruitment and development of underrepresented people, particularly women, persons of colour, LGBTQ+ persons, people with disabilities, first generation professionals, and veterans.
Several clients have requested that we focus on hiring racially diverse patent attorneys, agents, and patent specialists. In fact, some have asked that the firm provide the specific number of racially diverse patent attorneys, agents and patent specialists that we intend to hire over the next three to five years.
Some clients have made it clear that if we do not meet their diversity and inclusion (D&I) expectations, they will be forced to reduce the amount of work sent to the firm, or perhaps, even discontinue working with us entirely.
Unrealistic expectations
While working on our D&I efforts, we came to realise that many of our clients are approaching equity, diversity, and inclusion with a ‘one size fits all’ mindset. Specifically, clients appear to be focused on requiring that outside counsel meet certain diversity quotas and metrics regardless of whether their expectations are achievable.
For example, one of the challenges our firm encountered in trying to hire diverse individuals is the lack of diversity that currently exists in the patenting field. Simply put, there are just not enough candidates available for law firms to hire (eg, there is a supply problem).
The available data illustrates the challenges that IP law firms in particular face. According to the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) 2019 Report of the Economic Survey, about 86.5% of all IP attorneys in the US are white, meaning that just 13.5% are racially diverse.
When you look more closely at the patent field, this means that only about 1.7% of registered patent attorneys are Black. If you consider that there are about 34,000 actively practicing patent practitioners in the US, this means that just 578 of them are Black.
Given the small pool of available diverse candidates, it is very difficult, if not unrealistic, to expect that IP law firms are going to be able to meet clients’ hiring quotas, because the candidates to hire just don’t exist yet. If you are in a smaller firm, which does not have a national presence (let alone the brand recognition of a significantly larger firm), and has fewer resources, it is even more challenging.
Encouraging new talent
In view of these challenges, Casimir Jones instituted a multi-pronged approach in its D&I efforts. One of the approaches was to start the Casimir Jones Life Science Patent Academy to try and increase the number of diverse candidates entering the patent field. The Patent Academy began in 2021 and is a free programme made up of three virtual courses which introduces diverse individuals to patent law and teaches them how to draft and prosecute high-quality life-science related patent applications.
The goal is that by the end of the programme, these individuals will have the foundational skill set needed to help them get a job in patent law and/or take the patent bar.
