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Licensed in California, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Texas, Washington, the District of Columbia, and before the USPTO.
Northwestern College
South Texas College of Law
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Tonya is a second-year law student at South Texas College of Law Houston. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing & Rhetoric from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. Prior to law school, she owned and operated a retail and service business in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Tonya is a member of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and an editor for the South Texas Law Review. She is currently researching and writing a law review comment that examines the legal, conservation, and public policy implications that arise from the ongoing exploration of Jewel Cave, a recognized national monument in South Dakota.
Outside of law school, Tonya volunteers her time tutoring high school students in a variety of subjects, including ESL and professional development. After selling her business, she lived in the Dominican Republic, where she practiced kiteboarding and studied Spanish.
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Tonya is a second-year law student at South Texas College of Law Houston. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing & Rhetoric from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. Prior to law school, she owned and operated a retail and service business in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Tonya is a member of the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and an editor for the South Texas Law Review. She is currently researching and writing a law review comment that examines the legal, conservation, and public policy implications that arise from the ongoing exploration of Jewel Cave, a recognized national monument in South Dakota.
Outside of law school, Tonya volunteers her time tutoring high school students in a variety of subjects, including ESL and professional development. After selling her business, she lived in the Dominican Republic, where she practiced kiteboarding and studied Spanish.
This week was dedicated to onboarding and orientation. I interviewed and researched a few of the firm attorneys to learn more about who I’d be working with this summer, and was pleasantly surprised that everyone was as interested in learning about me as I was about them! I was paired with a mentor that has a similar background as me in that she is also a second-career attorney. I’m interested in entertainment law, and she’s already connected me with resources so I can learn more about the practice.
My first weeks will be spent in the Corporate & Commercial Transactions practice group, and I was already invited to sit in on a client meeting. I observed and admired the way our attorney kept the client focused and answered his questions. The remote office is new to me, but I can see how the technology used can upgrade the client experience, especially in settlement negotiations where lots of changes might be made to a document.
I’m away from home visiting family this week, so it’s been a totally new experience working with attorneys in different time zones from a desk that isn’t mine! I frontloaded the week and made sure to check in right away in the morning, so I’ve been able to have lots of flexibility in the afternoons and evenings for spending time with my family and taking advantage of opportunities to help with client needs that come up throughout the day.
I completed the onboarding paperwork, which included providing my headshot and bio for the website. It’s great that the firm is including me in this way!
I familiarized myself with the communication platforms that the firm uses and reached out to several of the attorneys to learn more about them as individuals and lawyers. It was a little overwhelming to be added to so many groups and channels of communication at once, but I can see how it will help keep me organized. I asked to be kept in the loop about the settlement negotiation I observed, and was added to the discussion immediately.
I was invited to set up a data room for a deal the transactional team is working on. I had no idea what that meant but I trusted that I had the resources to get it done. Megan walked me through it and was available throughout the day to answer my questions. It was an incredibly satisfying task to complete! I felt like I was able to find out exactly what was expected of me, and my questions were answered promptly and patiently.
I reached out to Megan right away in the morning because I wanted to make plans for the afternoon. I felt like I had fulfilled the agreements we had made earlier in the week for onboarding and orientation, but I wanted feedback on the data room, and to see if there was anything else I could help with before I committed to other plans. I made some stylistic changes that Megan recommended and took the opportunity she gave me to contribute directly to the client response document we’re working on. I was glad to have gotten confirmation that all the work I agreed to was complete so I could enjoy my family time knowing that anything else I did that day would be a cherry on top!
My advice to other clerks is to set an intention for what you want to get (and give) during your internship, and then dive in. Clerkships are often short-term learning experiences. The teacher-to-student ratio is in your favor, so ask lots of questions so you can make the most of your time!
This week felt like total immersion into L&M’s practice. I spent a day in client meetings with Mac and Marlene, and while I’m currently in the corporate transactions rotation, many of the meetings were about intellectual property and trademark issues. I’ll admit to being a total beginner in the IP space, but Marlene assured me that she’s only been working on patent issues for a few months, so I trust that I’ll catch on.
After our patent meetings, I spent some time reviewing the PowerPoint that we went over with the client. I’m grateful to have access to a lot of the same information that L&M’s attorneys have so that I can get a better understanding at my own pace.
I also spent the better part of an afternoon learning the basics of trademark infringement. Again, it’s not something I’ve studied yet, so I really appreciated the way Rachael educated the clients and worked through their questions. It was clear to me that the basic legal principles I’ve learned in my first three semesters of law school are a great foundation for understanding trademark law.
I think the most important thing I learned this week was organizational skills from Marlene. This is my first experience working in a remote office (or a law firm!). Marlene invited me to subscribe to her calendar and schedule a time with her to go over some work that she wanted me to complete. Her calendar is exceptionally organized, and I admire the clear expectations she sets for herself and other members of the L&M team by blocking out her schedule. I look forward to implementing some of her practices as I create a routine for myself around my home office.
I spent my downtime this week researching an article I’m writing on acqui-hiring. I took Corporations last semester, but this is not a concept I was familiar with. It’s been a great reminder that nothing beats real-world experience!
There were some follow-up tasks to complete after organizing the client data room last week. It was really rewarding to see that the work I did actually moved the client into action to get us some of the information that was missing from their response letter. When the client sent over the requested information, I was familiar enough with the project that I knew exactly what needed to be done.
I’ve been communicating with my mentor, Dana, about some article ideas in the AI and entertainment space. She sent me a primer on entertainment law, and I’ve brought a couple ideas to her that have been in the media recently. She’s been a great resource for transforming what would otherwise be celebrity gossip (my guilty pleasure) into actual legal concepts.
In a client meeting with Marlene and Mac, it was suggested that I do the work of preserving some of the opposing party’s publications for documentation purposes in a patent issue. I met with Marlene after the meeting and she walked me through the process. I’m grateful for her patience, because the whole meeting felt like all-new information to me, and if I had been left to do the work unsupervised, I wouldn’t have even known where to start! The project actually didn’t require any knowledge of patent law, but it gave me the opportunity to slow down and see how the material served to support our client’s claim.
If you have the time and the bandwidth, don’t say no to anything! There are obviously exceptions to that, but this week I was asked if I had any experience with patents, and if I wanted to sit in on some client meetings about patent infringement. The answer was no, I didn’t have any experience with patents. But I sat in on the meetings anyway. I still have a lot to learn about patent law, but now I no longer have “no experience” with patents!
This week I got to use my research skills to work on a few projects. It pushed me to use WestLaw and Lexis in different ways than the usual case law that Legal Research & Writing required.
I sat in on a few of the weekly meetings, including the trademark and corporate practice groups. I’m learning a lot about professionalism in a remote legal setting–everyone seems to have their own methods to keep themselves (and each other) on track, and I’ll definitely be putting some of these ideas to use for myself. For instance, I’ve started a Doc specifically with notes for each of the projects (some for L&M, some academic, and some personal). It’s easy to see what needs to get done and when.
The most satisfying part of the week was being CC’d into an email for a client. The attachment had a document for review that I had worked on. It was cool to see that I’m being given actual work, not just something to keep me busy!
Megan asked us clerks to research a question relating to civil procedure and encouraged us to work together as a group. My initial thoughts were to go directly to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, and I thought I had a great answer. When I brought it to the group, the others had both started with case law (this was probably the right way to start). None of our answers were complete, but between the case law and the Rules, we were able to find and present the answer pretty efficiently.
I drove myself crazy with this one, and learned that I often prioritize expediency over careful reading. Megan asked that I catch myself up on a client email thread and then take a crack at one of the two items that the client had requested. One was a policy that the client wanted to post in their establishment to prohibit unauthorized filming and photography, and the other was an employee confidentiality agreement. I was back and forth between Megan’s request in Slack and the email chain and somehow lost sight of what the client actually wanted, so I drafted an employee confidentiality notice. I submitted the work, and Megan tagged another attorney to look it over and asked me to get him up to speed. I realized my mistake then. I was able to quickly resolve it with the supervising attorney, who gave me great feedback on both documents.
Megan asked me to research a Texas corporate law issue. I was excited to use a little bit of knowledge that I just learned last semester in my Corporations class. It was so satisfying to see the actual application of a concept that is still very fresh in my memory.
I researched a question about trade secrets. I’m still learning about the IP practice, so this was a new topic for me. I was given a great lead for where to start my research, and based on that information, I was able to get exactly what was needed.
Look for things you can be learning beyond what’s tested on the bar. The experienced attorneys, paralegals, and operations staff are teaching me a lot about how to work productively from home and with a team.
The week started out slow and is only now picking up speed (on Thursday). The first part of the week, I sat in on Rachael’s trademark workshop, and I’ve been using my time to research my 60-second legal video topic. I also attended the monthly Transactional Practice meeting. I got to see a little bit more about how L&M does “business” as a fully-remote firm. I learned how important it is for any firm to stay engaged online through LinkedIn, reviews, and constant generation of new leads and clients.
I was asked to look for more recent case law than a 1948 California case that addressed the validity of a “partly written and partly oral contract.” My go-to research method for something like this is to find cases that have cited the original case, but what I found was too obscure. Eventually, though, after re-reading what was asked of me, I found a narrow search that brought me to a case from 2021 that worked great for the topic.
I’ve been looped in on a retained client’s communication since my first week in the transactional practice, and this week I was asked to help an attorney review the client notes and files to summarize next steps for the client. The attorney and I had agreed to chat about it the next day, but she had car trouble so reached out to see if I’d feel comfortable looking it over on my own first. It was a little intimidating, but between the original client notes and his most recent status updates, I was able to figure out exactly where we were and create a summary of my own: the client wanted to secure all IP rights to a creative project, separate from his business partner, and allow their existing corporation to fulfill on existing contractual obligations. I sent it to the attorney, and by the end of the day she had crafted a memo based exactly on my summary that laid out the actual legal next steps that we would discuss with the client.
In response to the work I did to summarize next steps for the client, Megan had me schedule a meeting for her and I, plus two attorneys. I know this is such a small thing, but I felt like I truly had ownership of the work I had done, especially when I received the affirmative RSVPs in my inbox. I’m looking forward to the meeting and tagging along for the rest of the summer on this client’s journey.
I was assigned a memo regarding enforcing default judgments, especially what the rules are regarding post default judgment discovery of the debtor’s assets. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the amount of practical resources that WestLaw and Lexis have. I’ve really only used the two platforms for LRW research—case law, statutes, and some secondary sources—but this time I was able to find a practice guide for executing default judgments. It didn’t have all of the information that I wanted to include in my memo, but it was a huge shortcut.
Use your clerkship to experiment with WestLaw and Lexis in a real-world setting while you still have access to your school accounts. I’m working to get more efficient with my research so that I can find what process works best for me, and even which platform I prefer (it is not the one I’ve used for the last three semesters!). I’ve been opening a handful of cases all at once—too many, probably—but it’s allowed me to see how I can use the case summaries, filters, and headnotes/key numbers more efficiently.
We rotated to new practice areas this week, so I was introduced to more members of the IP team, specifically Rachael and Sam, who work in trademark law. I’m glad to be able to stay in the loop on some of the projects I started in the corporate/transaction practice. For example, in Week 1, I sat in on a client meeting to go over a contract for the sale of his business. In that meeting, Feras and the client went over some recommendations as well as some redlines that the buyer’s side had. This week, even though I’m focusing on IP, I was invited to the follow-up client meeting, where I got to see the updated version of the contract and follow along as negotiations continued. I’m looking forward to seeing the process through to its end.
Last week, we clerks were asked to go over a response to a motion to quash. The supervising attorney asked us to brief every case that was cited in his response, and to look for any similar case law that might better support his arguments. This was a very time-consuming task, and it felt like I was reading each case under a microscope. However, I feel like I learned a lot by kind of disassembling the response into each individual argument, and then further examining it by reading each case to see how the argument was built.
Sam and I met so I could learn how to submit a change of attorney form on the USPTO site. This was my introduction to the site and the process of how a trademark is registered. Honestly, most of our meeting was spent trying to figure out a technical glitch that was restricting my access, but I still learned a lot! Specifically, I learned who can register a trademark.
Rachael asked for assistance researching the administrative practicalities of applying for a trademark registration in Jamaica. The information we were looking for was more procedural—like how long the process usually takes—rather than what the laws actually are (we already had that information). My research felt like a huge shot in the dark. I used some of my research skills from Legal Research & Writing to weed through and rank the sources that I found. I found a law review article that gave me some good information, and because Sam and I had just worked through some searches on the WIPO site, I also knew that I could rely on the information that I found there.
Megan asked me to write an article about standard protective orders, so I spent a morning learning about that area of patent law. The intended audience is clients/potential clients. I learn best by teaching other people about a topic—it forces me to learn it so well that I can put simple language to it. So I know that by the time I’m finished with this article, I’ll have a firm grasp on SPOs!
Keep track of the clients/projects you’ve interacted with. I’ve been going back in my notes and then finding any updates on that client in our Slack channels. I ask if I can join any meeting I see on the calendar, and so far everyone has been more than happy to let me tag along through the process!
This week was strange because of the hurricane that hit Houston on Monday. I didn’t lose power, but was without internet from Monday until Thursday. Instead, I was able to use my time to help with some cleanup projects in my neighborhood.
I filed several change-of-attorney forms with the USPTO. The work was a bit tedious, but the importance of accuracy was very apparent!
I took the initial steps to register a trademark in Jamaica. Jamaica was also affected by the hurricane, so the Jamaican Intellectual Property Office is closed until further notice. However, I was able to download the application and gather our client’s information to get started. This was my first trademark application, so I learned what sorts of information regarding the mark and entity are needed (at least in Jamaica).
Do what you can, when you can! I think I used my time pretty well this week, getting caught up on some editing suggestions that Megan gave me for the articles I’ve already written. I’m hoping things get back to normal next week so I can go deeper into the trademark law practice with Rachael and Sam.
The highlight of this week was definitely the virtual All Hands meeting. I’m constantly amazed by how the business-side of the firm works, and the team meeting gave me the opportunity to see how everyone stays united by focusing on L&M’s core values.
I jumped on a research project that Mike offered to the clerks, which was to find the five most recent appellate briefs submitted by several Big Law firms. I love researching and figuring out the most efficient way to find what I’m looking for, so even though this didn’t take 30 minutes like Mike promised, I still had fun clicking around Westlaw and Lexis to learn how to filter and sort information that wasn’t case law like I’m used to. I spent a little extra time following some paper trails, which was a good review of civil procedure!
The trademark team had been waiting for a client to send a good specimen for their trademark application, which she provided this week. Sam walked me through why the initial specimens didn’t work for the USPTO, and why the new ones likely would. I can see how the nuanced differences would be difficult for an inexperienced person to understand and I’m glad Sam took the time to point them out to me.
We have a trademark client that is interested in filing a “submarine trademark,” which has the trademark team doing lots of research on trademark law in Jamaica. We’ll need an agent in Jamaica to complete the application, so I did some research into Jamaican counsel options.
I also got to draft the emails reaching out to the Jamaican counsel options. I know that these types of communications can lead to valuable relationships—Mac and Marlene reached out to a law office in Brazil as opposing counsel, and the tactful and professional manner in which the matter was resolved ended up leading to L&M earning new Brazilian clients. So I wanted to make sure that the email I drafted left room for opportunity for partnerships or referrals in the future.
I got to file my first copyright application for a written work. Sam and Rachael walked me through the process and then gave me some extra time to ask questions about the in-process applications saved on the copyright office’s website. My background is in writing, so copyright is the area of IP that interests me the most. The best part was uploading our client’s work to attach to the application.
Think about how you like (or need) to be held accountable. I’ve noticed that when there isn’t a strict deadline on something, I tend to procrastinate or forget about it altogether. I’ve been letting the attorneys and legal assistants know when they can expect something to be completed by me. I’ve found it keeps me focused.
I was introduced to the litigation team this week via Slack. I haven’t been able to connect with them face-to-face (digitally) yet, and am looking forward to my first team meeting with them next week. I’ve noticed that the face-to-face meetings are the best and quickest way to get things done.
I met with Feras, Megan, and Allie to go over my 60-Second Legal video outline. My topic is persuasive: Why you should formalize your license in writing. I have some reworking to do—there’s a lot of information to fit into a minute-long video, and unfortunately, I picked the wrong stuff to focus on! I can see now that in a video whose intended audience is the client, the foundational elements are best.
I was asked to verify some deadlines for the litigation team. It was a fun refresher on the rules of civil procedure. Civil procedure was a class that I found challenging, but seeing the rules applied to an actual case made the rules much more concrete.
I researched case law regarding the court’s discretion in deciding whether to stay arbitration proceedings. I’ve found that the research side of all the practice areas has been one of my favorite things to do! I love to do the work to get really clear about what I need to find before I even start searching case law. For this particular task, I realized that there was an important distinction, and that was that we were looking to support the idea that the arbitration proceedings themselves should be stayed, rather than what a lot of case law focuses on, which is that a case that is arbitrable should be stayed. Identifying that distinction first helped me to quickly eliminate a lot of cases as unhelpful.
Learn legal concepts until you can explain them in simple terms. I started practicing this last semester as a way to study, and I’m reminded of its value now as I work on my 60-Second Legal video. I still have some work to do!
I caught up with the litigation team this week. I admired how their weekly meeting was run, touching base on all of the clients that the team is working with. I’ve found the litigation rotation to be a bit more challenging in that I’ve been asked to work on some projects that are right in the middle of all the action (which is a very good thing), but then I have to figure out a way to get caught up on everything that came before in order to have some context. For instance, I wrote what I felt to be a great draft of a response to a claimant’s motion. I got the law part right, but I knew I didn’t write a highly persuasive motion. I was glad that Lema shared her edits to my work, because I was able to see how she used the context to write in elements of persuasion.
I edited the motion to stay arbitration that I had worked on last week to use Florida case law instead of Texas. It was a little more challenging, because that jurisdiction didn’t have as many (or any, really) on-point cases. I did get to flex my persuasive muscles in this assignment!
I wrote a brief memo after researching the statute of limitations on a copyright infringement action. I was a little bit confused by how the assignment/question was posed to me, which was something along the lines of, “What is the statute of limitations for copyright infringement in Texas?” My instinct was that all copyright infringement actions must be brought in federal court, but I spent a whole afternoon down a rabbit hole figuring out any possible scenarios in which they can be heard in state court. When she followed up, Kiara included the original petition, which was filed in the Southern District of Texas (federal court). I wish I would have asked for more information instead of doubting myself!
I drafted a response to a motion to impose sanctions in a case that is in arbitration. The rule that I found clearly stated that an arbitration panel cannot impose sanctions, so it seemed like a clear and easy answer. After some edits, it was submitted to the panel. This morning I received a copy of the arbitration panel’s orders in response to our motion. The panel deferred imposing sanctions, which I think means the rule I found was correctly applied. Regardless, it was a quick turnaround to see a response to the work I did.
I researched the statute of limitations to foreclose on a mechanic’s lien and wrote a memo on what I found. This was another of those instances where I wished I had more context so I could have just figured out the date myself, but it probably forced me to do a more thorough job researching and writing the memo. The rule was ‘one year after the last possible day the claimant could file the lien,’ and if I had known when the work our client did was completed, I could have just calculated that date. However, I had to go further into the Texas Property Rules to find the language to communicate how to find the deadline based on the facts of the case.
Don’t forget to use what you have learned in school and in your past experiences! I have found myself making things more difficult than they have to be because I’ve had a mindset that this is all new to me and I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s not true—I’ve been studying for three semesters and learning from experienced professionals, so there are definitely many foundational concepts that I can rely on