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Tufts University
George Washington University Law School
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Alec is a rising third-year law student at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. He earned his Bachelors of Arts from Tufts University in 2018, where he double-majored in International Relations and Political Science. At GW Law, he is the Deputy-Editor-In-Chief of the International Law and Policy Brief and the Production Editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. Passionate about Intellectual Property Law, Alec is involved with multiple IP associations and seeks to practice IP litigation after law school.
In the Spring of 2023, Alec interned at the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of International Affairs, where he assisted in the rollout of a joint FTC-USAID program to increase competition and trust in digital transactional markets throughout Africa. Prior to law school, he was a legal specialist in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ low-income housing administration.
An avid traveler, Alec speaks English, French, and Haitian Creole, having traveled to Haiti in the past. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, gardening, skiing, and playing pickleball and tennis.
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Alec is a rising third-year law student at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. He earned his Bachelors of Arts from Tufts University in 2018, where he double-majored in International Relations and Political Science. At GW Law, he is the Deputy-Editor-In-Chief of the International Law and Policy Brief and the Production Editor of the Federal Communications Law Journal. Passionate about Intellectual Property Law, Alec is involved with multiple IP associations and seeks to practice IP litigation after law school.
In the Spring of 2023, Alec interned at the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of International Affairs, where he assisted in the rollout of a joint FTC-USAID program to increase competition and trust in digital transactional markets throughout Africa. Prior to law school, he was a legal specialist in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ low-income housing administration.
An avid traveler, Alec speaks English, French, and Haitian Creole, having traveled to Haiti in the past. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, gardening, skiing, and playing pickleball and tennis.
This week, my first week with Lloyd & Mousilli, I worked as a part of the IP side of the firm, assisting with trademarks, patents, and copyright issues. Upon joining Lloyd & Mousilli, I was immediately given substantive work, much of which I had never done before. My first task was given to me by my direct supervisor, Amy Thomas. I was tasked with writing a first draft of a client letter explaining the denial of their trademark application from the USPTO. I was immediately given feedback and the final draft was sent to the client with those edits included.
The next task I was assigned was also directly for a client. I was tasked with conducting two preliminary trademark searches and providing a draft of my findings to the client. Though I had taken trademark class, this practical work was beyond my education. However, the trademark team, and my supervisor Amy, immediately jumped to help me learn the ropes of the TESS search system and guided me through an initial search. With that guidance, I was able to complete the assignment.
The third task assigned to me was from the patent team. After an introductory call, I was tasked with providing my managing attorney with a first draft of a patent claim. Though I was coming fresh of patents class, I had some difficulty understanding the exact process and product we were claiming. However, with the aid of the patent team, I was able to create a first draft and am looking forward to receiving feedback.
Finally, I was given the exciting opportunity to watch our chief litigator at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. I had never attended a proceeding at the CAFC before, so this opportunity was very exciting. I refreshed myself on the issues beforehand and helped Lema, our litigator, prep for the oral argument. It was exciting to see a friendly face argue in front of such a distinguished court, and afterwards I had the opportunity to conduct some legal research on questions asked by the judges’ panel. All in all, it was wonderful to meet Lema and sit in on her oral argument.
It is essential to ask clarifying questions when you are assigned a project. If you don’t understand the scope of a project or the form the deliverable is to take, you should absolutely ask questions! The team at L&M is extremely receptive to clarifying questions and is always ready to help.
This week, I was still with the IP side of the firm, and the week started off quickly! My first task was given to me by my mentor at the firm, Amy Thomas, who has been an absolute pleasure to work with. We’ve gotten to know each other and developed a professional relationship that is hard to find at a bigger firm. I was tasked with drafting a letter for a client about their trademark’s registration issues. Being clear when writing a legal memo to a client can be tricky–you need to demonstrate the issues while also avoiding any legal jargon or esoteric points. If you focus on the perspective of the client, it’s much easier to understand what they would want to read, particularly when giving them less-than-stellar news!
Continuing with the IP theme, my next task came from the patent team–Jeoyuh is an absolute wealth of knowledge and is extremely friendly, particularly in explaining esoteric concepts that are more practical than what we learn in law school. He asked me to research a few questions that clients had asked, including how a client can petition how to include a color drawing in their patent application. A tip for future clerks: always start with Google! Another law firm had posted directions as a “client tip,” which was a helpful way to start. However, this leads me into my next point–don’t believe everything you find via Google! The document was a bit outdated, so I only had to check the most recent version of the MPEP and the relevant CFRs to fix those issues. Using those practical tools, like the MPEP, can be a great help when dealing with the more practical aspects of patent prosecution.
My third task also came from the patent team. Jeoyuh asked me to perform some legal research for a client: patent prosecution tips for those companies seeking to patent inventions that utilize Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. This required some deep reading into the most recent high-tech patent cases, and a Google search was totally unhelpful. Again, using practical tools like Bloomberg Law and WestLaw Practical Law, I was able to understand the fundamentals of the request. When you get an assignment that requires research into an area of law with which you are relatively unfamiliar, it greatly helps to use these tools to at least narrow your focus–sometimes, a research project begins with the question, “What do I even research?” Understanding the intricacies of patent prosecution under Section 101’s bar against computer-readable media, simple algorithms, and abstract ideas helps to guide my research so that I can create a product that is valuable for clients. Learning how to “draft around” these exceptions can be incredibly valuable for clients and it is first essential to understand the laws and judicial exceptions that you are dealing with first.
My next task this week came, in a bit of a change of pace, from the corporate side of the firm. When I first started at L&M, Jordan Denning reached out and we had a bit of a chat unrelated to work. Thus, when I received an assignment from Jordan, it was far less intimidating to receive a project from a team member with whom I already had a working relationship. Jordan asked me to draft a demand letter for a client who had funds misappropriated from his corporate account. I had drafted some demand and C&D letters in the past, but I was unfamiliar with Jordan’s personal style and the exact tone he was looking for. I asked him for an example that he had used before and he shot over a great example that I was able to work off of. In particular, having the exact format of the final product allowed me to provide a far more useful product than a simple word document with the draft text–I was able to neatly import his formatting, and I very much enjoyed drafting a “mean” demand letter.
While this advice is often repeated, I could not more highly recommend asking for a prior example of the finished product to which you are assigned. When you know the form and function of the final product, it is far easier to gauge the tone and scope of the assignment. Again, thinking in terms of what the client will look for is extremely important–as everything that we do is for a client in some sense, always remember to put yourself in the shoes of someone receiving the product that you’ve worked on. It really helps with the tone and amount of information that you want to convey.
This week was the final week of my IP rotation, a bittersweet moment to be sure. I love working in depth with the IP team on complex trademark and patent issues, so I was quite sad to be leaving them. At the same time, however, I was thrilled to begin my rotation with the litigation team! I was fortunate enough to meet Lema, our litigation partner, during my first week at L&M at the Federal Circuit, where she was arguing a patent case. This connection made it easy to jump right into the litigation team, and they’ve been nothing but helpful so far.
My first task with the litigation team was legal research, namely California’s service rules, amended in 2023. California instituted a brand new electronic service scheme in which plaintiffs may effectively serve opposing counsel via email. Starting with WestLaw’s practical law guide, I was able to draft a quick memo on California’s service of process rules and my rotation in litigation was off to a quick start.
My second task this week from the litigation team came from Lema and Marlene. Marlene is the senior litigation paralegal and an absolute wealth of knowledge in the litigation sphere. Law students like me have so much to learn from experienced paralegals and Marlene’s kind attitude and sense of humor make her very approachable.
I was first asked to read a complaint we had received regarding a client’s contract dispute. The client had utilized a complicated form of financing to take delivery of raw materials and was being sued for nonpayment. After reading the complaint, I was asked to list potential counterclaims that would help our client. I could barely remember contracts class, let alone counterclaims to nonpayment, so I used my law school notes to orient myself first. With those in hand, I was able to put together a list of potential counterclaims and sent it out for review.
Now comfortable with the litigation team, I was asked to redline another summer law clerk’s federal complaint, in which we were alleging violations of the Federal Cybercrime Act. Now here was some civil procedure I was familiar with! In Civ Pro in law school, the instruction is focused mainly on the FRCP and not state-specific rules, so I was more comfortable editing a written complaint with that in mind. The federal background made it easier for me to focus on the substance of the complaint. It may be daunting to edit another law clerk’s work, but we all have areas in which we can make progress
My next task this week came from Jordan. He asked if I could find out whether the new amendments to the Federal Agricultural Marketing Act permitted the production of hemp within certain limits. This is a pretty typical assignment that usually doesn’t take much time, but as a law clerk, quickly finding the answer to a specific legal question is an essential part of becoming a lawyer. Starting out with WestLaw’s practical law guide, I found a few Congressional Research Reports that detailed the changes to the federal laws regarding hemp production. I learned that the AMA’s amendments also changed the Controlled Substances Act’s prohibition on hemp cultivation, as long as the hemp is cultivated with less than 0.3% concentration of the psychoactive compound normally found in marijuana. I drafted a quick memo to Jordan with the updates and sent it out.
Being able to quickly answer a narrow legal question like this one is essential. As a law clerk, you field dozens of these types of questions during each rotation. If you can’t find the answer immediately, it may be helpful to ask the person who asked the question for some context–with some background information, you can narrow down your search and get the product to the attorney faster than muddling through it alone.
This week was my second week on the litigation team. Litigation is quite different from the IP side of the firm, and generally different than other areas of the law–there are so many moving parts and so many different tasks to be completed so you really have to be organized and efficient. Working with the litigation team is all about being ready to jump on whatever project you can, and being flexible enough to shift your work processes and workproduct toward a different pace, with very firm deadlines and lots of different areas of law. Because L&M is a smaller firm and the litigation team is so talented, we end up dealing with multiple areas of law, from contract and founder disputes to complicated patent and trademark litigation.
My first task this week came from our weekly litigation meeting. During these meetings, we go over all the open cases, including those in pre-litigation or in mediation, and essentially do a ‘check-up’ on the cases–what are the next deadlines, what are the next action items, and which legal theories should we be looking into? For this task, I was to draft a quick memo that explained Texas expungement law, the standards for gaining an expungement, and the caselaw that elaborates on those standards. As for all memos, I was to make it very clear and relevant to our client’s needs, who was petitioning for an expungement after a wrongful arrest and indictment. As for any state matter with which you may not be intimately familiar, it is always best to gain some baseline knowledge of the issue and the procedures that you’re dealing with. For this matter, I read the Texas expungement statutes, did some background reading and research on Google, and then dove into Westlaw to look for caselaw that explained the standards. For this particular issue, Texas authorizes expungement post-indictment and dismissal only when the case was dismissed for mistake or false information that led to the indictment–insufficient evidence is not a valid reason, alone, to seek an expungement. Learning the local legal definition for ‘mistake or false information’ was key to writing an effective brief that explained our client’s options and responsibilities, so I would recommend always making sure you know what jurisdiction you are researching in.
My next task came from Megan, who, per usual, has her hands in every case, so it is not unusual to receive tasks from her, no matter what rotation you are on. To that end, Megan wanted a quick answer to a narrow legal question involving a client’s contract. We were looking into whether the MIPA permitted a shareholder to withdraw from participation in litigation, assigning their rights and responsibilities to the Sellers’ Representative. This assignment required a bit of background knowledge, but the bulk of the work was closely reading a commercial contract, something I had little prior experience with. I shot a quick clarifying question to Megan (always a good idea) to narrow my reading a bit. She got back to me immediately (saving me quite a bit of time) and I looked through the contract with a very specific goal. This type of purposeful, results-based legal exercise is one of the bricks that build strong lawyers–you must be able to answer narrow legal questions efficiently and effectively.
My next example of a task assigned to me also comes from the litigation team. One exciting and interesting part about the weekly litigation meetings is that you never know exactly what kind of task you’ll be given, and there are so many different types of tasks and cases that the firm deals with. This particular assignment was related to an ongoing copyright infringement case about photography rights, which is an area of personal interest to me. Having a bit of a background and interest in the subject matter made this assignment fun to complete. At the same time, however, this was my first time drafting an answer for federal court. Another opportunity to do something with which I was totally unfamiliar! As I wrote last week, if you’re given a project like this one, I very much recommend that you ask for a similar piece of workproduct as an example–it will help guide your formatting and style, essential pieces of any court submission. At the same time, the body is still entirely yours, so you still need to think on your feet–to this end, whenever you are assigned a project, it’s a great idea to first orient yourself to the case itself. You should understand at what point in the litigation we stand, the current legal arguments, and, most importantly, the underlying dispute. Trying to draft an answer regarding litigation that you aren’t familiar with is like trying to summarize a period in history you’ve never studied–to make any arguments, you first need to deeply understand the subject matter!
Instead of discussing one of my “normal” tasks here (though there isn’t much “normal” work to begin with), I’ll write a bit about my experience preparing for the summer law clerks mock trial competition. The firm’s mock trial competition is a really exciting time to be at L&M, but preparing for the mock trial (in front of the whole firm) can be a bit nerve-wracking, especially because you are trying to prep for it at the same time as doing all of your normally-assigned work. I found that it was best to prep for the mock trial after work later in the evening–you are already in “law” mode, and the tips and law you learned during the day (yes, you learn new things every single day) are fresh in your mind and can be applied to the litigation. This mock trial is especially interesting because it is a real client case, so you can try out different legal theories that may actually be used in real-life litigation! To that end, this is a great opportunity to be super creative! The stakes are low(ish) so you have some freedom to read esoteric cases and articles that could give you the edge in the mock trial. I’m really looking forward to the mock trial with my fellow summer associates–may we all win!
On we go to the final week of the litigation rotation! It is certainly a sad time to leave any rotation, but at a smaller firm like Lloyd & Mousilli, there is a lot of communication with the whole firm, no matter what rotation you are currently on. For aspiring young lawyers like us law clerks, this is a fantastic opportunity to get a lot of good experience across multiple practice areas, particularly as you get more comfortable with the cross-practice communication: a lot of the work at L&M involves multiple teams coordinating their efforts to provide the best client experience.
As a great example of some of the substantive cross-discipline work we clerks have the opportunity to complete during a summer at L&M, I was asked to draft a federal answer and attendant counterclaims for a copyright infringement case. The world of copyright infringement is changing very rapidly with AI and major Supreme Court decisions so it is essential to stay up to date on the developing practice area. In addition, drafting a federal answer requires one to follow strict rules and procedures, all of which were new to me. Again, starting with an example document is a great way to understand the formatting, style, and structure issues. I was unfamiliar with the style requirements for drafting answers in federal court, so having a prior answer the firm had filed helped to organize the process.
In keeping with last week’s focus on efficiently completing one-off quick assignments, and underscoring the firm’s practice area cohesion, I was tasked, along with another law clerk, with writing a short memo describing recent changes in Texas law regarding trade secrets–specifically, how to prove the existence of trade secret value separate from its secrecy. This is an area of law where there is not much clarity–courts tend to rule rather vaguely on why certain trade secrets are indeed trade secrets, while others are not. Diving into Westlaw’s practical law guide, and then supplementing that search with major court decisions in relevant jurisdictions helped me to craft a response that the requesting attorney could be happy with.
It is important to remember that these one-off assignments are for internal use only–that is, the work product should be less ‘polished’ and more readable. Someone is looking for a quick answer to a narrow question and over-citing or using legalese will only serve to confuse and frustrate them.
The next task I tackled this week came directly from the firm’s managing partner. Receiving a request for a short memo from the partner whose name is on the firm’s website can be a bit intimidating, but us summer law clerks would do well to remember that every assignment is a learning opportunity. On top of that, receiving a request for a memo from a partner may be an indication that you’re doing great work (or so I hope)!
Feras had requested a memo regarding ongoing litigation that explained the elements of contributory copyright infringement, specifically how our client could be held liable for copyright infringement as a subcontractor. Being more comfortable with the litigation team and understanding the ongoing cases helps a lot with these types of background memos. When you understand the facts and procedural posture of an ongoing case, you can tailor your memos to reflect the current environment and provide more useful information. Copyright law and contributory liability is an area of special interest to me, so I was able to use my class notes from copyright law as a guide.
My advice this week would be to take diligent notes on any call you are a part of. There are so many reasons to document each call–sometimes another attorney on the call will ask for a summary; an absent party may want a summary; you may want (or need) to refer to the information presented in the call and you don’t want to have to go asking around for others’ notes! I would recommend that, just as you would prepare for a call by going over the case or issue involved, review each call as if you were about to present the information in a meeting.
Working at Lloyd and Mousilli means that you will see a lot of interesting, substantive work across multiple practice areas, no matter what rotation you are on. This week I had a great opportunity to draft a set of counterclaims to a complaint filed against a client for breach of contract. This required me to think creatively and apply my legal knowledge to our client’s situation to think of a set of counterclaims to allege. I started with the obvious ones I could spot based on their complaint, and then did some background research on the issues and similar cases for more ideas. Adding together counterclaims for a breach of contract claim can be an exercise in creativity: you have to think not only about the four corners of the document, but also the parties’ negotiations and business dealings throughout the entire process and before.
Familiarize yourself with the factual background of the case, the negotiation history, and the procedure–you should have a pretty good operational timeline of the case by the time you sit down to draft anything!
My next task was assigned to me by Jordan in the transactional group. For this task, Jordan asked me to revise the demand letter I had drafted back in June for a client whose corporate account had been emptied for a bad actor. We had received some updated information from the client, who had seen the first draft and made some comments. I incorporated his comments and added a long description of the issues and facts at hand, adding some flair provided by the client in his recent communication.
Revising your own work can be hard–many people are loathe to delete large sections of text that they worked hard on. Fortunately, I have no such respect for my prior work product. A fair amount of the letter had to be revised and reworked based on the new information provided, and one must be willing to cull the less desirable work in order to serve a client’s needs. Keeping the client’s wishes in mind are key–sometimes, you may think that X statement would come across better in a different way–however, at the end of the day you need to represent your client’s wishes.
In keeping with the trend of reporting revision tasks, this week I was asked to revise a prior article I had written back in June. I had written an article describing a major lawsuit brought by several music production houses against Twitter for Twitter’s lax copyright enforcement policies. The article explained the lawsuit and the background legal environment. In revising the article for publication, I added more helpful information for small businesses and entrepreneurs who may post on social media, operate their own webpages, or run online stores. It is essential to make sure that the content you post online is fully owned by you or completely free to use–copyright trolls are getting more and more prevalent, and you do not want to be caught inadvertently posting copyrighted content online. The statutory damages alone are extravagant!
Refer to your law school notes to orient yourself on an issue you’re not familiar with! Who would have thought that the civil procedure lecture from two years ago on a rainy Wednesday morning would have actual utility!