<p>If you don't mind, I'm going to be general on personal background. I have been in the patent field for a good many years and have worked on inventions in pharmaceuticals, chemical engineering, nanotechnology, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, semiconductors, some biotech fields, and a few others. I have worked both in-house for companies and at law firms. Like many patent attorneys my original intention was to become a scientist but I switched to working with scientists and writing about science, where I am more suited than in carrying out research. </p>
<p>I have been quite busy for many years, except when the work has been slow for one reason or another. Companies in general, and law firms to a certain degree, tend to staff leanly nowadays, so that most everyone has more than enough to do.</p>
<p>You should select your field of study, as you said, in something that captures your interest. Then you might take courses in some other subjects to add knowledge that could be useful. There will be need for patent attorneys in all fields in the forseeable future, and it would be futile to try to predict specifically which field will require more. Besides that, there are already an unknowable number of people who are aiming at a career in patent law right now, so no-one knows how many potential patent lawyers will appear on the scene next year, in three years, in five years or in eight, or in what scientific field.</p>
<p>And as to "catching the wave", not really predictable. A few years ago there was a feeling that there would not be any hot oportunities for patent attorneys with degrees in mechanical engineering, although we'd always need some, since there would always be a need to patent machinery. Guess what? The current "hot" field in patent law is prosthetic and medical devices. Guess who at this time has the best training to understand and write patent applications on these (except for the very few with biomedical engineering degrees)? How many patent attorneys are needed in this field today? Depends on the employer. This year a given employer (law firm, company, university, government) might not need any; next year might need five. How do law firms, etc. recruit? Same way; based on current or expected need, just as in any other business. What will be "hot" when you graduate law school in four or five years? Sorry; crystal ball draws a blank.</p>
<p>You can expect, if you go into patent law, or into science itself, that the science will develop and that the nature and type of knowledge you will need to be effective will change. Just as one example, it would be have been an unlikely prediction that analytical chemists would have had to know as much about the proper functioning of their equipment, including programming it and repairing it, as they did about analytical chemistry, in order to be effective in their jobs, but that is how things developed.</p>
<p>Also, in working as a patent attorney, you may find yourself being asked (or told) to work in unfamiliar technology, and have to learn some basics about it in order to work at your place of employment , especially if it is a law firm. The more versatility you can show, the better. If you read some of the posts on careers in law, you'll see that many attorneys fell into their current specialty because they were given an assigment at a law firm in some field that other attorneys knew little about, or because there was no-one else available at the time. Yes, planning for a career does help, but serendipity functions in this world to a greater extent than some people will admit. My original science education only prepared me for a portion of the fields I have done patent work in; the rest I learned when I had to.</p>
<p>Without a Ph.D. degree, it is not impossible to find a "good" job as a patent attorney. For one thing, it depends on your notion of a "good " job. Some people aim at becoming partners in a large law firm. That may or may not be a "good" job for you, and even if it is, there are several ways to get there, only one of which is getting a job in a large law firm as an associate, which is where the most competition is (and also where there are a lot of exits after a couple of years due to the pressure and time requirements).</p>
<p>Finally, keeping up on the industry. First you have to pick the industry/industries; there are a lot of trade magazines. One way to learn is to join the student affiliate chapter of the professional organization in your field, and read that organization's magazines. Or check the website of one company that distrbutes many trade magaziones, <a href="http://www.tradepub.com%5B/url%5D">www.tradepub.com</a>. You'll see a list of publications, some of which you probably could find in your school's science library. There are magazines for patent attorneys as well, so check your local law library for some.</p>
<p>And that ought to be enough advice for one day.</p>