Here’s to one of our favorites: Professor Ryan Vacca! Not only did Professor Vacca kick off our law school careers with our first-ever class in Contracts, but he has generously assisted us over the last year in the regeneration of the Patent Law Forum and currently serves as our faculty advisor. It is our pleasure to feature him in our first ever Profile on Patent Attorneys. Although Vacca loves living in New England, he was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. When he set out to attend college in Massachusetts, his intent was to major in computer science and eventually earn a Ph.D. in software engineering. However, Vacca says that his interest in the law was sparked by a class during his freshman year called “Murder.” Vacca explains that the course’s exploration of homicide through the lenses of gender, race, philosophy and politics deeply interested him, encouraging him to take additional law-related courses. Although he was still interested in computer science, Vacca says that he knew he needed to attend law school, and that Intellectual Property was a natural fit. After graduating from law school, Vacca went to work for a firm called Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, working in their Products Liability and Intellectual Property practice groups. While the majority of his time was spent litigating Products Liability disputes, he was also able to indulge his interest in IP by working in trademark prosecution, all sorts of IP litigation, right of publicity licensing, and even serving as counsel to musicians, screenwriters, publishers, authors and artists. With such a deep interest in the intellectual aspects of the law, Vacca soon found his place in academia at Akron University. There, Vacca served as the director for the Center for Intellectual Property Law and Technology for several years before returning to New England last year to teach at the University of New Hampshire. Vacca says that the Franklin Pierce Center for IP served as a model for he and his former colleagues in Ohio, so when the opportunity to join the faculty at UNH opened up, he jumped at it. Vacca explains that he was won over by the tightknit and supportive legal community in New Hampshire, and that as he got to know more about UNH and its law students, it was clear that this was a special place where he needed to be. Vacca’s intuition seems to have proven correct, as he says that he and his family love living in New England. When he and his family are not in Concord, they’ve enjoyed short trips to Vermont, Boston and Western Massachusetts. Avid skiers, the family has taken advantage of the snowy winters for outdoor sports and activities. This spring and summer, Vacca and his family enjoyed hiking and visiting the coast, and plan to continue to explore the north east. When asked about challenges that he faced in his early years practicing law, Vacca had a wealth of advice to offer students and young attorneys. Vacca explained that, “Developing a solid foundation of legal principles in law school prepared me to understand new areas of the law or nuances in the areas I was already familiar with. After my 1L year, I was fortunate to serve as an extern for Judge E. Richard Webber on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. During that summer and my summer at the firm, I had many opportunities to write (draft orders, memoranda, complaints, motions, discovery documents, etc.), and those were extremely valuable in helping me to learn to effectively communicate with attorneys in my firm, judges, opposing counsel, and clients. Because the vast majority of legal work is written, having the opportunity to strengthen my legal writing skills was a key element for being an effective lawyer and overcoming many of the challenges I faced. Finally, some of the challenges were overcome by consulting with mentors and learning from my mistakes.” Beyond this, the forum asked Professor Vacca what three of the most important things are for young attorneys to take advantage of during law school and in their first years after graduation.
Professor Vacca is currently teaching Contracts and Patents, and has co-authored several forthcoming publications in Copyright Law, Intellectual Property and 3D Printing, and the Federal Circuit as an Institution. As noted before, he also serves as faculty advisor to this forum, a role which we cannot thank him enough for! If you are interested in hearing more about other Patent Attorneys in the area and how they got where they are today, check back in the current months. Or, if you know of someone you would like to see featured here, contact [email protected].
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