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I’m at a relatively large firm, doing ~90% patent prosecution. Few years back I helped out more substantively on a large litigation case, but the hot/cold nature of it was really hard to balance with prosecution, at least for me. When things were really busy with the litigation case, the litigation team demanded almost all of my time, and I had a hard time making time for my many pre-existing prosecution responsibilities. Other times, litigation took more of a pause, but often not for long enough for me to catch up on my prosecution work. Eventually, I had to tell the litigation team that I couldn’t continue that way, and went back to focusing on prosecution. Part of that decision was also made because the partner managing the litigation case was extremely rude. In my experience, seems litigation can attract that type sometimes, more often than prosecution.
Your mileage will of course vary, but I was in patent pros at a global law firm for 8 years and we had it so much better than the patent lit guys. It was so much easier for us to bring in our own clients so our associates moved up the ranks and made partner at a much faster clip than the patent lit associates. My office had a new pros partner in almost each partner class and only one for pat lit while I was there (and they were both busy groups). Plus the work was much more consistent for patent pros.
If you’re tired of office actions and applications, before jumping to another group look and see if you can diversify your work by doing some diligence or IPR work.
East coast based with a large IP group.
I started out in patent lit and transitioned to patent pros. I mostly dislike lit for its unpredictable hours, and difficulty to land clients on your own.
Yes, what you said are indeed downsides to being a pros associate, OP. I would say that it’s harder to be a pros associate in your earlier years. Once you’re a senior associate, you’ll likely be more independent and have much more control over your own workload / efficiency, and able to quote a realistic budget on various tasks. What’s important is managing client expectations, not necessarily always staying under budget. I’ve seen plenty of demanding / unreasonable client behavior in lit, it’s just the associates don’t normally see that because there are less direct client interactions in lit. Lastly, you’re right, it’s probably firm-dependent. I’m in a full service AM100 firm with a large IP group, btw.