Tech impacts almost every major company. New types of disputes and problems are constantly arising—all of which present opportunities for general litigators with a broad understanding of the regulations and laws impacting tech. What can the new attorney expect, and how should they prepare?

 

More on Mike Whalen.

 

SPEAKERS

Wayne Stacy, Mike Whalen

 

Wayne Stacy  00:00

Welcome, everyone to the Careers and Technology podcast from the Berkeley Center of Technology. I'm your host, Wayne Stacy, the Executive Director for BCLT. And today, we're fortunate to have Mike Whalen from Paul Hastings with us. Mike is an attorney in the litigation department of Paul Hastings, specializing in general litigation with most of his clients in the tech space. So he gives us a really interesting view of how litigation is impacting tech companies and how to get ready for a career in that. So Mike, let me let me start with the idea about, you know, General litigation versus specialty litigation. You know, what should what should a student be thinking about?

 

Mike Whalen  00:49

So I think, for a student, and when it's great to be here, and to talk with you, and hopefully help students figure out what they potentially want out of their career, especially those looking at litigation, which is what I'm familiar with, and students thinking about, it should really think broadly, I think about, you know, what they enjoy what led them to go to law school. And what led me in particular down the path of general litigation is really the notion of problem solving, and being able to think through problems across different industries, across different procedural matrices, whether you're in court or out of court, and maybe a post judgment proceeding. And I think that's really the skill of a generalist litigator, the ability to see a lot of industries see a lot of problems and see a lot of areas of the law. And if that's something that interests students, then they should really think hard about being a general litigator, because I do think there's a general shift, in this day and age you're either hyper specialized, or there's a real emphasis in larger firms like Paul Hastings, on having a broad base of skills as a generalist.

 

Wayne Stacy  01:53

So that's a it's an interesting point about being hyper specialized. You know, I spent nearly all of my life doing patent litigation, which would be that hyper specialization, and not a lot of other things. 20 years ago, people said that, well, General litigation is dead. In big firms, you've got to be hyper specialized. But it seems to be drifting back towards the two specialization, you know, specialization and general litigation coexisting very, very well.

 

Mike Whalen  02:25

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that's the nature of where legal practice, again, at firms like Paul Hastings and other firms that you've spoken with on the podcast, I think that's where it's headed, in that, in general, the practice is driven by our clients hardest problems. And for some of our clients, particularly say, in the biotech space or in the pharma space, those hardest problems will consistently recur in the IP space. And there's absolutely an area for that hyper specialization. And you do see that a lot. But in other situations, our clients hardest problems change day to day, week to week, month to month, and that really cries out for a generalist who both can react to those problems, but also know when it's time to collaborate and work with specialists. And I think more often than not our teams, particularly in traditional specialist fields, such as antitrust, you're r