Audra Sawyer Joins Cooley
Based in the Palo Alto office, Sawyer (’18) focuses on patent preparation and intellectual property strategy.
Audra Sawyer has always been drawn to engineering. Growing up in Pennsylvania and California, she enjoyed math and science, and her parents—both engineers—encouraged her to pursue those interests.
However, as she neared the end of her undergraduate degree in biomedical and medical engineering at the University of Virginia, Sawyer (’18) found herself exploring alternative career paths that could still make use of her education and interests. “At some point, someone mentioned patent law,” she says, “and it stuck with me.”
When it was time to choose a law school, Sawyer was impressed by the scope of BU Law’s intellectual property program. The range of classes, depth of faculty expertise, and many experiential opportunities made the school particularly appealing. She also like the school’s proximity to Boston and the city’s concentration of biotechnology companies. “Boston is a high-tech town, and I thought it would be a good place to start my career,” she says. “I ended up in California, but I’m grateful I went to school in an area that was biotech and pharma heavy.”
Now an associate with Cooley in Palo Alto, Sawyer focuses her practice on patent preparation and prosecution and intellectual property strategy. BU Law spoke with her recently to learn about her experience in law school and how she feels it prepared her for practice.
The interview below has been edited for clarity and concision.
Q: Tell us about your first job after BU Law?
A: Most of what I do falls into two categories. The big one is helping clients patent their inventions. That starts with an inventor telling us what they thought up, and we prepare a patent application that fully captures their idea and then file it with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). Some of what I do some is drafting the application, and some is responding to notices from the USPTO and arguing with them about the uniqueness of our clients’ inventions.
My group generally does a lot of diligence work for companies, which in this context means if we’re given an invention or a patent we then look at what else exists to see what the client’s freedom to operate is, and whether there are other inventions or patents out there that overlap. I haven’t done too much of that yet, but it’s something I’ll be doing more of in the future.
The biggest challenge has been adjusting to the style of writing required for a patent application. A patent is not a persuasive piece of writing in a traditional sense like a brief or a memo would be, but you have to convince the patent office that what your client has done is unique and not obvious in light of what is already out there. The applications end up expanding on a lot of aspects of the invention, and some of them aren’t the most inventive parts, but you want to make sure you get your client the broadest coverage possible so someone can’t design around the application. It’s been challenging and interesting. It’s a fun exercise in creativity.
How was your law school experience?
Coming in, I was really worried about my writing experience—engineering doesn’t prepare you very well for that, as you can imagine—and I had to work hard at it. I got one-on-one attention from the professor in my 1L writing class, and I forced myself to take a lot of seminars so I had to learn to write well. I think that was probably the single best thing I did for myself, to force myself to confront that weakness.
My experience on the [Boston University] Law Review, although I don’t really do a lot of citation-checking now, also helped me work on my writing skills. I ended up publishing my note, and that helped me take a deep dive into a patent issue and work on translating those issues for people who don’t have experience in IP law.
And my advisor, Professor Stacey Dogan, was a great mentor from day one. It was wonderful to have someone who is an expert in her field to counsel me through the process of figuring out where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.
So, my overall experience at BU Law was really great. I think it prepared me really well for practice and helped me develop my skills.
You worked on the case the Technology Law Clinic* brought against the CIA, how was that experience?
* Formerly the Technology & Cyberlaw Clinic.
I didn’t totally realize what I was getting myself into, or how big of a commitment it was going to be. It was a really valuable experience, and I got to work closely with Professor Andrew Sellars [director of the Technology Law Clinic] and Dr. Johnson [the MIT researcher who sued the CIA with the clinic’s help]. It ended up being a really great way for me to practice a lot of skills and work closely with a client. I got to meet with really great attorneys while we were practicing for the argument. I really can’t say enough good things about the experience.
What was it like arguing the case in court?
It was intimidating, but I was well prepared. I was involved in every aspect of the case throughout the year. I wrote the briefing along with my teammates, and I had been thorough in my investigation of these issues. I had the background information, and it was a confidence booster to see it through from an early stage.
There was also a long process of fine-tuning the briefing and setting up what we wanted to emphasize at oral arguments. We worked for a while on paring down an outline and then we just practiced it all the time. I knew that thing like the back of my hand!
I practiced with Andy, other BU Law clinical professors, attorneys from the ACLU, and professors from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic, so in the end I felt like I was pretty well prepared. I also just understood the inevitable—that I was going to get a question that I hadn’t seen before—which happened, and it was fine.
The experience that day was so much fun. The judge knew I was young, but she treated me just like any other attorney. Seeing all of our hard work turn into something so tangible and getting the opportunity to advocate for someone at such a high level was great. It taught me a lot about how to approach things I don’t know much about, and to have confidence in myself even if I’m doing something I’ve never done before. At this early stage in my career, it’s pretty much all new, so it was a great learning experience.
What are your long-term career goals?
I definitely plan on staying in the biotechnology space. I get to work with really smart and talented people, and I really like this area of technology. It’s rewarding to see these companies inventing things that are ultimately going to change people’s lives.
