AIPLA Committee Report and Workplan
DATE: June 9, 2015
MEETING: 2015 Spring Meeting, Los Angeles, California
COMMITTEE NAME: New Lawyers Committee
COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: Chair: Frank Gerratana; Vice Chair: Theresa Gresl
DISCUSS THE OVERALL MISSION OF THE COMMITTEE AS IT RELATES TO AIPLA’s VISION, MISSION, and
VALUES: The New Lawyers Committee (“NLC”) focuses on members in their first ten years of
practice. The Committee provides educational and networking opportunities to new lawyers in
the association through the stated meetings, receptions, and networking events. In addition,
the Committee serves as a central resource to communicate with other committee chairs and
members of AIPLA's Board to provide new lawyers opportunities to become more involved in
the association. NLC members are active participants in planning substantive programs for the
stated meetings, co-authoring CLE papers with speakers, judging and administering the Giles
Rich Moot Court Competition and the Watson Writing Competition, and assisting substantive
committees with a variety of activities, including research and writing projects, meeting
planning and developing educational materials.
I. PROJECTS:
Plans for stated meetings: We co-hosted a panel discussion on the topic of leadership with the
Law Practice Management and Law Students Committees at the Spring Meeting. We plan to
join the Mentoring, Patent Law, and Patent Agents Committee at the Annual Meeting in hosting
a CLE program about PTAB procedures.
Plans for coordination between stated meetings: Local networking leadership continue to
organize local networking happy hours in most major cities. The NLC has liaisons for a number
of AIPLA’s substantive committees and is actively looking for more volunteers. The NLC
continues to solicit volunteers across all its many initiatives including assisting stated meeting
speakers with CLE papers. We are also assisting the Licensing and Management of IP Assets
Committee, the Law Practice Management Committee, and the Merger and Acquisitions
Committee to compile a searchable library of forms and templates for IP‐related business
transactions.
Plans for communication with the committee clusters/board liaisons: The NLC reaches out to
other committees for collaboration on projects and joint meeting sessions throughout the year.
Our ongoing Law Student Mentoring program is a collaboration with the Law Students
Committee. We regularly collaborate with the Law Practice Management Committee and
Mentoring Committee on stated meeting programs.
II. GLOBAL OUTREACH: The NLC has expanded local networking to London, England. The
committee continues to achieve global outreach through our social media platforms.
Additionally, NLC member volunteers regularly assist international committees with projects.
III. ADVOCACY: In addition to assisting with the Giles Sutherland Rich Moot Court Competition
discussed above NLC members welcome the opportunity to volunteer for other advocacyrelated initiatives, such as Amicus Committee briefs.
IV. PUBLIC EDUCATION: The New Lawyers Committee recently selected judges for the 2015
Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh. Kiran Patel and Ukeme Jeter
represented AIPLA at the Science Fair and wrote an article about their experience, which was
distributed to the NLC membership. The NLC is looking forward to selecting judges for AIPLA’s
2015 Watson Writing Competition later this year. NLC members are available to volunteer for
any public education-oriented AIPLA projects. Please send volunteer requests to NLC Chair
Frank Gerratana at Gerratana@fr.com. NLC members are available to volunteer for any public
education-oriented AIPLA projects.
V. MEMBER SERVICE - NLC Subcommittees: The NLC coordinates a number of opportunities
for NLC members to be active and serve within the organization.
NLC CLE/Networking Subcommittee: The NLC CLE/networking initiative, now in its third year,
organizes CLE lectures geared toward providing local educational, CLE, and networking
opportunities in major metropolitan areas throughout the country. We welcome our new
CLE/Networking Subcommittee Chair, Dhairya Jani, formerly a program coordinator for this
subcommittee; under his leadership we’re planning our next 2015 CLE/networking programs
for September and December, as well as our early 2016 program.
Forms Annotation Project: Since the Mid-Winter meeting the NLC has joined forces with the
Licensing and Management of IP Assets Committee, the Law Practice Management Committee,
and the Merger and Acquisitions Committee to compile a searchable library of forms and
templates for IP‐related business transactions. The library of forms will be made available to
the AIPLA membership in the near future. Roughly a dozen NLC members have volunteered todate and are matched with experienced transactions attorneys who serve as mentors to the
volunteers. Volunteers review and annotate forms and templates to assist prospective users
select and modify provisions according to their clients’ needs and objectives. Some of the
forms we will have available initially include: (i) IP transfers and assignments; (ii) licenses and
non-assertion covenants; (iii) non-commercial research licenses; (iv) co-invention/development
agreements; (v) co-marketing agreements; (vi) end user licenses; (vii) website terms of
use/service; and (viii) consulting/contracting agreements. We plan to extend the list to OEM,
supplier and distributor agreements, and others that may be requested or suggested.
Giles Sutherland Rich Moot Court Competition:
This subcommittee administers the Giles S. Rich Memorial Moot Court Competition, now in its
42nd year. Teams brief and argue a problem directed to issues in IP law and written by the
subcommittee.
The 2015 competition recently completed with the national round in Washington DC April 1517. Ten finalists from the five regional competitions argued the problem at the Federal Circuit.
Congratulations to the teams from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University law
schools, who advanced to the final round heard by Judges Lourie, Dyk, and Chen. These judges
choose the Penn team as the finals winner.
The subcommittee will begin efforts on the 2015-16 problem later this spring. Keep an eye out
for announcements about getting involved if you are interested in helping with the problem for
next year’s competition. Thanks to our Giles Rich Subcommittee Chair, Ryan Alley.
Law Student Mentoring Subcommittee: The NLC received great feedback from mentors and
mentees and continues to grow its new law student mentoring initiative for the upcoming
academic year in cooperation with the Law Students Committee. There are currently a dozen
active mentor/mentee pairings. Thanks to Co-Chairs Camille Ciesliga and Rob Weaver.
NLC Local Networking Subcommittee: This subcommittee just celebrated five years of local
networking happy hours, which continue to be held in cities across the country. We have
recently recruited volunteers in Charlotte, NC, Chicago, Seattle, and Tampa, and have ongoing
programs in Austin, Boston, Detroit Minneapolis, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, and Washington
DC. We are currently identifying other cities that have a substantial IP practitioner community
but no active program so that we can recruit local volunteers to run events in those cities. In
the near future we hope to start or re-start programs in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Miami, and
New York City. Thanks to our Chair, Al W. Vredeveld, for his leadership of this year’s projects.
Newsletter: Co-Chair Erin Bryan recently returned from maternity leave and is planning the
next issue of the Business Casual newsletter. We are discussing potential changes in format to
an online/email-only version..
Program Content: This new subcommittee is geared toward fielding requests from other
committees and members for assistance with researching and writing CLE papers for AIPLA
meeting panelists and webinar speakers. Volunteers assisted 2015 Spring Meeting panelists
with their CLE track papers and will assist Annual Meeting panelists later this year. Thanks to
our Subcommittee Chair, Jameson Ma, in this new role.
VI. SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP:
1. NLE CLE/Networking: Subcommittee Chair, Dhairya Jani. Program Coordinating
Subcommittee: Allison Gaul, Aamir Kazi, and Martin Wojcik.
2. Giles Rich Moot Court Competition: Subcommittee Chair: Ryan Alley; Regional Directors:
Josh Dalton, Emma Hall, Katherine Moskop, Kevin E. Noonan, Tanya L. Chaney, Roman
Swoopes, Adela Gotz, and Alexis Simpson; problem drafting team: Tammi Hill, Ryan
Schermerhorn, Ida Wahlquist-Ortiz, Victoria Hall, David Gosse, Ryan Alley and Allison Gaul.
3. NLC/Substantive Committee Liaisons:
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Content and Branding Committees
• Copyright: Sam Eichner
• Industrial Designs: James Aquilina
• Trademark Internet: Missy Sikorski
• Trademark Law: Missy Sikorski
• Trademark Litigation: Tanya Eliason
Education Services Committees
• Education: Donika Pentcheva
• Law Practice Management: Dolly Krishnaswamy
• Online Programs: Jameson Ma
• Public Education: Danielle Coleman
• Professional Programs: Jameson Ma
International Committees
• IP Practice in Israel: Micha Adler
• IP Practice in Latin America: Rob Weaver
• IP Practice in Europe Committee: Kiran K. Patel
• IP Practice in China Committee: Aamir Kazi
Patent Committees
• Biotechnology: Wen Xie
• Chemical Practice Chris Ferenc
• Electronic and Computer Law: Maria Ianiro
• Food and Drug: Joshua Davis
• Patent Agents: Stephen Holzen
• Patent Law Joshua Kresh
• Patent Litigation: Keith O'Doherty
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• Patent-Relations with the USPTO: Marisa Conlon
• Trademark-Relations with the USPTO: Amy Ann Abeloff
• USPTO Inter Partes Patent Proceedings: Shaton Menzie
Specialized IP & Policy Committees
• Anti-Counterfeiting and Anti-Piracy Committee: Sam Eichner
• International Trade Commission: Andrew Strickland
• Licensing and Management of IP Assets: David Gosse
• Special Committee on Judges: Ajeet Pai and Jennifer McCollough
• Trade Secret Law: Missy Sikorski
4. Law Student Mentoring: Subcommittee Co-Chairs, Camille Ciesliga and Rob Weaver. Current
NLC Mentors: Kassity Liu, Sam Eichner, Michael Bentley, Frank Gerratana, Ben Siders, Rob
Wells, Yelena Morozova, Kristen McCallion, Teri Karobonik, Joshua Kresh, Dan Hegner, Roy
Issac, Katherine Dover Koneig, Hemant Gupta.
5. Local Networking Subcommittee Leaders: Subcommittee Chair, Al Vredeveld; Atlanta –
Russell Blythe and David Moreland; Austin – Jennifer Nall and Samantha Kuhn; Boston - Cory
Bell, Elizabeth Shah, Missy Sikorski, and Frank Gerratana; Charlotte – Ben Huber; Chicago Karina Wong, Daniel Rogna, and Ryan Schermerhorn; Dallas/Ft. Worth – Justin Cohen and
Victoria Helling; DC/VA/MD – Josh Miller, Pier DeRoo, and Steve Holzen (Chair of the Patent
Agents Committee's Local Networking Subcommittee, liaison to NLC Local Networking in DC);
Detroit – Shannon Smith; Miami/Ft. Lauderdale - Rob Weaver; Minneapolis – Al Vredeveld;
New York - Joe Diciocco; Orange County/LA - Ehab Samuel; Palo Alto – Aaron Capron and Jack
Lin; San Francisco – Jeffrey Smyth and Carlos Rosario; Seattle - Tyler McAllister; Tampa - Patrick
Reid; and London, England - Julie Carlisle and James Seadon.
6. Business Casual Newsletter: Subcommittee Co-Chair and Editor-in-Chief, Erin Bryan.
7. Program Content: Subcommittee Chair: Jameson Ma.