Beyond the Docket: Jason Rosenblum
Alt Legal Team | December 16, 2019
Welcome back to Beyond the Docket! This time we are back to interview Jason Rosenblum of The Law Office of Jason H. Rosenblum, PLLC. Rosenblum is an IP attorney and the self-titled “Attorney for Coaches.” We talk about how he came to represent coaches as well as his background working at his family’s small retail store and the time he spent practicing law in Israel.
Tell us a bit about your legal practice. What type of work do you focus on?
We focus on IP (patents, copyrights, & trademarks), with the largest percentage of our business coming from trademarks.
As you were growing up, you worked for your family’s small retail business. What is the business, and what did they sell? How do you think the experience led you to study law? Did that have any bearing on your decision to be an IP attorney?
My grandfather started a men’s clothing store, basically a big-and-tall type of store, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. My father then went into the family business, and while growing up, I worked there sporadically. As a child I wanted to continue in the family business, but, foreseeing the death of small retail clothing stores, my father in all his wisdom pushed us away from the business.
Working in the store was a big reason why I went to law school. I studied engineering in college and while I was home from college for a winter break, I was working in the store when one of his customers, a patent attorney, suggested I go into patent law. I went home and did some research and I thought it would be perfect since I went into engineering because I like learning how things worked.
In addition to your work in IP, you list that your firm is the “Attorneys for Coaches.” What types of coaches do you work with? How did you establish this niche? What’s been your favorite experience working with coaches?
We work with all sorts of coaches: business coaches; life coaches, such as speaking coaches; productivity coaches; money management coaches; etc. About two years after I established my own firm, I realized I needed help, and I began working with RJon Robins, who is an attorney that has become a practice management advisor, consultant, and coach. He attended numerous events with others in the coaching field and realized the need for attorneys that understand their industry. Over two weekends he taught about 10 of us all about how his business and other coaching and consultant businesses run so that we could advise them properly. I have attended some of my clients’ events and spoken on their stages. At one event we did an improv session; it was very uncomfortable but such a great exercise for lawyers and entrepreneurs.
You spent a couple of years practicing law in Israel. What led you there?
In 2007, I was 29, single, and not happy with my job at that time (mostly commercial litigation). I realized that if I ever wanted to try living somewhere else that was the time to do it. So, I just went to Israel. I found out that Isreali firms are always looking for US patent attorneys, so I obtained a job there pretty quickly and stayed for a little over 2 years.
You maintain a pretty active and regular blog, where you write in depth about everything from punctuation in trademark applications to international patent applications. How do you settle on topics to write about? What do you do when you get writer’s block? Do clients ever comment on your blog articles?
Many topics come from questions clients or potential clients ask. I also have a Google alert for trademark related stories, and some topics I get an idea for while at the gym. Who doesn’t get writer’s block? The most questions I have received are from my blog posts regarding IP on Amazon.
What is your law firm’s technology stack? Do you use Slack? Practice management software? Trademark management software?
As an IP attorney I think you kind of have to love tech, but need to realize tech cannot replace good practices. We use Clio, Gsuite, Quickbooks and of course Alt Legal as a supplement and backup to our docketing in Clio. We do not use Slack; we have been using Gchat, and I just started testing DraggApp for sorting emails and tasks within Gmail.
One of my favorite pieces of tech is the Rocketbook Smart Notebook. It is a reusable notebook that lets you scan the notes with their app to store, email, or add them directly to Evernote or other programs.
If you could create any legal practice-focused technology, what would it be and why?
An IP Search tool. There are a number of search tools out there for trademarks and patents, but I have found they all are overpriced and under deliver.