Fish & Richardson PC - The Inside View

If you’re finding yourself sifting through law firms and looking for reassurance, the old ‘there’s plenty of fish in the sea’ advice is as true in law as it is everywhere. That said, of course, there’s only one Fish amongst law firms. As one junior associate put it, the firm is “a leader in the practice area of patent and IP law.” Fish & Richardson is a name you hear once and don’t tend to forget: “I knew going in that they were the cream of the crop,” an associate stated, “and that you have to be super motivated and driven to get here. They are the best, and they recruit the best.” Take it from this interviewee – but also trust that our fellow busy beavers over at Chambers USA have taken note of the firm’s prowess, giving it gold stars in intellectual property and international trade: intellectual property nationwide. It also receives high praise for all things IP in Delaware, DC, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.

“…the partners will toss you in the deep end if you’re ready to jump.”

Beyond the rankings, juniors had nothing but compliments for the amount of responsibility available to them… and they weren’t fishing for opportunities either: “The early opportunities compared to my peers are crazy,” one beamed, “the partners will toss you in the deep end if you’re ready to jump.” As is always the case, being ready to do so is about having the right people around you: “I just can’t overstate how great the people are,” an associate added, “you should always go to a law firm where you feel like you fit in, and Fish is that for me. There are tons of examples of people going away and coming back.” Juniors at the firm are spread all over the country, from the sunny shores of San Diego to Delaware in the north east. “We’re looking for people that are interested in IP and have some kind of technical background,” another explained, “so, if there are any folks applying who aren’t sure if they’ll be interested in IP, this won’t be the place for you!” 

Fish & Richardson is recognized as a Strong Performer for Junior Satisfaction and an Excellent Performer for Mid to Senior Satisfaction in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Strategy & Future

Fish & Richardson has formalized its Standard Essential Patents (SEP) practice, appointing firm veterans Benjamin Elacqua and Christina McDonough as the group’s co-leaders in a move to provide support for an even broader client base. The firm has also introduced an appellate practice group that is “looking to be quite impressive and a good resource for our attorneys,” an interviewee pointed out. Associates were confident that the focus will remain unwaveringly on IP, though “there’s been a big push to get those with a life sciences background into the firm to develop that group.” Renewed energy will also be poured into medical devices and pharmaceuticals, we heard, and the firm has also recently opened a Chicago base, expanding its operations across the country.

Summer Program

Juniors weren’t shy about divulging summer program secrets with us… of which the magic words were substantive work: “I took the lead writing a motion to dismiss on a big case in my first summer,” a junior shared, “it was really cool to have that responsibility and opportunity so early on. And then to see it get filed… obviously with a lot of edits, but it was neat to be part of something like that.”

“I took the lead writing a motion to dismiss on a big case in my first summer.”

Another remembered attending “a bunch of hearings in my first summer,” and participating in a mock trial held to prep a client’s case for court. The latter was described as “super cool! There were all these attorneys, clients were there, a jury consultant, mock jurors… the whole nine yards. I was helping make slides.” While this isn’t guaranteed to take place every year, it showcases the firm’s willingness to involve summers in client-facing work whenever opportunity arises. Finally, the cherry on top is the summer retreat, where “associates, partners, and summers go. It’s nice to meet people there, and these are the people I still talk to now,” a former summer told us.

The Work

When we asked our insiders how they were staffed on cases, one quipped: “Given I don’t know what centralized staffing is, it’s not that!” In a “truly free market” staffing system, you can really “choose your own adventure,” we heard, but nobody’s throwing rookies straight into the deep end… not without a floatie, at least. There’s a monthly survey for associates to fill out to indicate their availability which gets sent to all the attorneys in the firm, so “if someone is staffing a matter, they can see who has the bandwidth.” Newbies are also given a work coordinator “that helps them find cases to get involved in if they haven’t been able to do that themselves,” but the consensus was that small fries at Fish were quickly swimming on their own: “I’m pretty extroverted, so talking to most partners doesn’t faze me,” a particularly confident junior shrugged, “I have no issues knocking on doors and chatting.” Others liked that the system “feels a lot more personal, because I actually know the people I’m working with on a personal level. It allows me to be connected to the cases I’m working on.” Ultimately, as another added, “I do like the system – I’m sure it doesn’t work out for some people, but it works for me!”

Fish & Richardson is recognized as an Excellent Performer for Work Allocation & Autonomy in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Big at Fish is intellectual property litigation – “Fish prides ourselves as being trial attorneys” – which goes “beyond just general litigation stuff” to handling every aspect of the case, from filing the complaint or answer all the way to trial. Given the firm’s specialty focus, we were told that this group is “almost exclusively patent litigation” on the defense side, but there is a fair amount trademark & copyright work. We heard of associates handling patent infringement suits in District Court and inter partes review cases before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board. Clients here are “all over the spectrum,” from small inventors “working in their garage all the way up to some of the largest tech companies in the whole world,” which means Fortune 500 outfits in the biopharmaceuticals, software, hardware, and mechanical industries. As this junior summarized: “You see the big names!”

“I’m doing work that is directly tied to progressing the case forward.”

At the junior end, typical tasks include the likes of discovery (naturally), taking depositions, taking the lead on drafting key documents, conducting discrete research tasks, preparing experts, and giving claim construction hearings. “That’s not something I see people at all firms do,” an insider admitted, “so that attracted me to Fish.” Client contact is plentiful for junior litigators, too, as one detailed: “There are some cases where I’ve become the client’s primary point of contact, which is cool.” Better still, everyone we spoke to agreed that “I’ve never been given anything where I didn’t see how it fit into the larger case. I’m not drafting memos that are going to sit in a folder somewhere,” this source noted, “I’m doing work that is directly tied to progressing the case forward.”

IP litigation clients: Microsoft, FedEx Corporation, The Johns Hopkins University. Secured a jury verdict of noninfringement of two patents and invalidity of a third patent for Exela Pharma Sciences, avoiding $89 million damages demand from Nexus Pharmaceuticals.

Patent prosecutors at Fish “do everything,” from bringing in investigation disclosures, interviewing inventors, prosecuting them with the US Patent Office, and handling any post-grant issues that might crop up. Insiders described patent prosecution as the “more transactional side” of the firm’s trial work, and the group sees a lot of crossover with the post-grant side of the group that works directly with the Patent Office. The practice handles a lot of consumer products, medical devices, and software, so the clientele is comprised of companies that manufacture these items. Responsibilities here include signing documents, communicating information directly to clients, and “really, being the point person. The client always knows there’s someone else at the top, but I am out there in front of them,” a junior prosecutor noted, “being that go-to person is a lot of responsibility.”

Patent prosecution clients: Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, LG Energy Solution.

Culture

“The first word that came to my mind was nerds!” a source laughed when we asked what the firm’s attorneys had in common. “I can’t say that there are no egos… but the egos are a lot less! That goes back to the fact that most people are engineers or scientists,” another insider laid out, “a lot of people have PhDs; these are generally people who know what they don’t know, and that humbles people.” But don’t get it twisted: you don’t need to have a STEM doctorate to fit in. Being a “self-starter” is the first step to fitting in at Fish, because “it’s completely on you to source your own work, get on your own cases, and take on tasks within your case team.” Add to that a culture of “camaraderie and teamwork,” and you get “a bunch of curious people who like to learn and work together. I work on everything from baby bottles to traffic lights to robot prosthetics,” an interviewee grinned, “you have to like learning to do all this patent stuff.”

“A lot of people have PhDs; these are generally people who know what they don’t know, and that humbles people.”

Social events vary from office to office, but we heard about a big Thanksgiving potluck, cooking classes, impromptu happy hours, holiday parties, and a cherry blossom festival in DC. The highlight among our interviewees was the associate retreats: “They make a big deal out of it,” a pleased junior told us, “you get to meet people you don’t normally talk to; you’re in a new city, so they schedule all these dinners, and then we do an activity after!”

Fish & Richardson is recognized as a Strong Performer for Culture in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Hours & Compensation

Billable hours: 2,000 target (with options to reduce)

Default billable hour targets for everyone at Fish sit at 2,000 hours, but all attorneys can elect to lower this number at the beginning of the year: “It’s so flexible,” a junior noted. This was something all our insiders were grateful for, particularly because “people at all levels of the firm do it. I’ve seen reductions anywhere from 5% to 25% - it can be little or big for all sorts of reasons.” Big life events (“buying a house, having a kid”) and market conditions were just a few cited by interviewees. Keep in mind that if you do lower your target, your salary is prorated to match that – but this doesn’t impact the bonus! “They’re merit based,” a source explained, “so you can prorate your salary and still receive the full bonus. You just have to hit your own minimum hours to be eligible.”

Flexibility at Fish extends to the in-office policy, “they want three days, but it’s really just as much as you can.” Certain offices have more of a facetime culture than others, said an Austinite: “There’s always things going on at the office, and we’re strongly encouraged to be in. We have weekly attorney meetings that bring people in, where we brain dump and share what we’re working on.” With those we spoke to averaging nine or ten working hours a day, none of our sources reported frequent weekend work or all-nighters – a BigLaw rarity!

Fish & Richardson is recognized as a Strong Performer for Benefits & Quality of Life in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Career Development

Aside from a “really extensive online repository of past trainings,” there are plenty of formal training sessions including the annual junior retreat, where “you go somewhere and they have discrete aspects of the job you’re trained on – like depositions or oral arguments.” There are also formal processes for mentorship: newbies are assigned an associate mentor upon joining, and some of our interviewees were already mentoring rookies themselves! The informal aspects of career development also shone, as “Fish is very big on the next gen and making sure associates get actual stand-up experience in court. There’s a big focus on the fact that we’ll be the people leading the firm in the future,” a junior nodded. Another echoed this sentiment, praising the partners for being “super interested in making sure you’re understanding what you’re doing when you’re doing it, and there’s a good culture of that.”

“There’s a big focus on the fact that we’ll be the people leading the firm in the future.”

As for partnership, “Fish is definitely a culture firm, so there’s an expectation that when you come to Fish, you stay and grow.” The firm has an eight-year path, and when attorneys hit that mark, “it’s a tier one principle,” one explained, at which attorneys become non-equity partners. “You’re at that level, and then you start assessing whether you’re making improvements on your business development to see if you can make equity.” 25 hours of billable credit are available annually for associates to work on client pitches, which provides a handy way to showcase that improvement. The consensus here was that while the path to non-equity partnership is “extremely clear,” the equity partner track was a little bit less visible to juniors.

Fish & Richardson is recognized as an Excellent Performer for Career Development in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Pro Bono

There is a 200 hour billable hour credit (or 10% of your total hours target if you’ve chosen to modify it) which can be used completely for pro bono. Of this, one associate pointed out that although “a lot of other firms offer unlimited pro bono, the thing here is that people will actually do the full 200 hours of pro bono in a year!” Monthly emails from the pro bono team are sent to associates with office-specific opportunities, but beyond that, “we have firm-level pro bono matters where you can get involved with people from other offices.” Pro bono at Fish is also a good way to get training and “help with matters I’ve really enjoyed outside of IP,” juniors noted.

“The firm is very conscientious of needs in the community,” we heard, with plenty of immigration and voting rights work to go around in Dallas. Boston and DC see a lot of housing cases (“eviction and landlord/tenant stuff”); in Minneapolis, “there are a lot of problems with homelessness and children’s issues,” while Delaware juniors have gotten their hands on veterans’ work, domestic violence, and estate planning matters.

Pro bono hours 

• For all US attorneys: 25,025
• Average per US attorney: 56

Fish & Richardson is recognized as The Elite for Pro Bono in our 2026 associate satisfaction survey.

Inclusion

Interviewees shared that “there’s a pretty strong emphasis” on inclusion, with affinity and allyship groups and events aplenty. A portion of the pro bono credit can be used for inclusion programming (50 hours on a 2,000-hour target). We heard glowing reviews about the affinity groups, particularly Empower, the women’s group. “I really enjoy being part of these groups,” one associate detailed, “and one thing that has been super valuable is our networking pods.” This was hailed as a surefire way to “meet people at different levels across offices. They’ve been great to make connections to source work,” but also “just to talk to other people about a very tough job and how to make it a little less tough!”

Get Hired

The first stage: recruitment on and off campus  

OCI applicants interviewed: 17

Interviewees outside OCI: 75

Most positions at Fish require a technical or scientific background, and Fish encourages students with a technical background to apply directly for summer associate positions. Fish attorneys are active participants at law school and student focused industry outreach events and student organizations tailored to patent law in order to connect with IP focused law students. The firm is looking for students who have done their research and are excited to join our premier intellectual property and litigation firm. Interviewers are usually the principals (partners) and associates who are heavily involved with recruiting. Fish also places great importance on hiring judicial clerks, especially from the Federal Circuit. Every spring Fish hosts events specifically for judicial clerks to learn more about the firm. 

Top tips for this stage:  

“We pride ourselves on having the technical knowledge to be able to understand what our clients are bringing to us. You don’t have to have a technical background to try a patent case in court, but it certainly helps. If you understand the tech, you’ll be able to communicate it better to a jury and be more persuasive.” – a first-year junior associate  

Know what you want to do and be able to communicate how your education and experiences have prepared you to be an asset to the firm. 

Callbacks 

Callbacks are conducted by a mix of associates and principals, and they typically involve four or five attorneys meeting with a candidate over a two to three-hour period. Those who are interviewed can expect behavioral questions. Each interview slot focuses on a different skill or characteristic. Candidates are asked about their problem-solving ability, leadership, work ethic or other traits critical to the work. During callbacks, Fish evaluates how well candidates will perform with clients, on teams, and in high-pressure situations. Interviewers also take the time to answer candidates’ questions that will help them to decide if the firm is a good fit. Fish hires summer associates with the goal of developing them to become principals at the firm, and they look for candidates who demonstrate the team-oriented approach needed to succeed over the long term. 

Top tips for this stage:  

Be prepared to show how your interests and experience have led you to Fish, and what will make you successful here. Fish wants to hear what gets candidates excited, and how they will translate that enthusiasm for the work Fish does. 

Summer program 

Offers: 45

Anticipated acceptances for 2026:  33

Summer associates attend meetings and calls and conduct research for real client work assignments. The Fish summer program is designed to put summer associates in the real world of law firm life. The supervised client work is assigned by a work coordinator who ensures that summer associates receive a variety of projects and work with different attorneys over the summer and help balance workloads. The firm’s goal is to expose summer associates to valuable training and resources so when they return as associates, they can jump right in.

There is a firm-wide summer retreat during the program – in 2026 it will be hosted in Nashville, Tennessee. Previous locations include Boulder, Chicago, and San Diego. All summers get to go to this three-day training and social event. Fish sees the retreat as an integral part of the summer program because making connections with the other summer associates and attorneys across the firm really sets the summer associates up for success; they develop a network at Fish that they will call on throughout their career.

Most summers rejoin the firm as junior associates, though some take a detour through clerkships first.  

Top tips for this stage:  

“Be aware that our batch of associates is a couple of years older than average. It’s because we tend to like people who have prior work experience in a technical field or something similar.” – a second-year junior associate