This week, I continue my written interview with David Nir, regarding his experiences as a former patent litigator turned political director of the extremely popular progressive website Daily Kos. Please see below for David’s answers to my second and third questions, focused on how his patent litigation experience has helped him in his current role, plus what he misses most from his legal practice.
As usual, I have added some brief commentary to David’s answers but have otherwise presented his answers as he provided them.
GK: What skill from your patent litigation days has proved most useful for you?
DN: Staying organized! When you’re involved in multiparty litigation that features millions of documents, frequent deadlines, and a whole lot of competing interests, you have to be obsessively organized, or you’ll regret it very quickly. That means updating lots of spreadsheets, calendars, and reminder apps, and just maintaining good data hygiene. Sometimes you walk into an attorney’s office, and it’s stacked with piles of paper everywhere. Maybe they have “a system,” but that always made me so anxious! Knowing where everything is and being able to access it at a moment’s notice was key for me as a lawyer and remains so now.
Litigation also taught me how to write very clearly, and in particular, not to overstate your case. Some people think that if they use a lot of adverbs to express how they feel, it makes their argument seem more passionate and effective. The opposite is true: Hyperbole diminishes your case. I wish more writers understood this.
GK: It may not be sexy, but organization is key to effective management of a patent case. In fact, lawyers or trial paralegals with the gift for keeping things organized are highly prized assets on IP litigation teams, for good reason. I can only imagine what David has to deal with, in terms of tracking elections nationwide, at all levels of government.
An attention to proper organization of information spills over into effective organization of thoughts for persuasive written advocacy. Good legal writing may not always be elegant, but it can be. What is essential, however, is that arguments are presented with an emphasis on clarity and a lack of hyperbole, as David correctly notes.
GK: Do you miss anything about high-stakes patent litigation?
DN: In my last year or two as an attorney before I left to join Daily Kos, I was completing the transition between being a junior associate and a mid-level associate, which meant less time doing document review and more time focused on strategy and writing. I hope it goes without saying that the latter is far more interesting than the former! It was at that point that I started to really feel, “So this is what lawyering is really about.” I can’t say of course where my career would have taken me had I stayed, but it was definitely tougher to leave at year five than it would have been at year two or three.
I also left right before the biggest case I’d worked on went to trial, which is a rare-enough experience in most areas of litigation. I would have liked to see that one through, but unfortunately, the timing did not work out. However, I was very pleased for my former client — and felt our strategy had been vindicated — when the patent we’d been accused of infringing was ultimately found to be invalid by the Federal Circuit.
GK: As someone who had the good fortune to have been involved in both the trial and the Federal Circuit appeal David references, I know firsthand how formative and rare such legal experiences can be for patent litigators. At the same time, I know how important it is for IP lawyers, no matter the stage of their professional lives they find themselves in, to seize opportunities that come their way. From the readers who interact with David’s work every day on Daily Kos, to the candidates whose campaigns his work supports, to us as American citizens who benefit from democracy in perpetual action, I can speak for many who are happy that David made the career choice he has. And that his IP background has made such a valuable contribution to his current role.
My thanks to David for the insights and cooperation, and I wish him the best of luck with processing and reporting on the election results and aftermath. It is always great to see former IP lawyers achieve success in other areas, while bringing to bear the skills and experiences they garnered as practicing lawyers. I am always open to conducting interviews of this type with other IP thought leaders, so feel free to reach out if you have a compelling perspective to offer.
Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.
Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique, and Markman Advisors LLC, a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.