Ajay Jagtiani ’88 pursues engineering excellence through the law
Ajay Jagtiani ’88 always knew he’d head to law school after graduating with an electrical engineering degree from Virginia Tech.
He just didn’t think it would be in patent law.
“I originally planned for communications law,” Jagtiani said. “I was going to be hanging out in Geneva, working on a standards committee in electrical engineering and crafting the law around standards for electrical devices.”
When he learned patent law could provide a more lucrative and impactful career, Jagtiani made the switch. Now, he has decades of patent law experience, and currently practices at Miles and Stockbridge. Jagtiani supports numerous clients in biotechnology, medical devices, electro-optics, government agencies and laboratories, and academic institutions.
While at Virginia Tech, Jagtiani served as a member of the Corps of Cadets, and was commissioned into the Air Force. Even years after his military retirement, Jagtiani considers this time an important part of his life. Jagtiani chatted about how he chose Virginia Tech, using his engineering education as a lawyer, and his best advice for future Hokie engineers.
Why Virginia Tech, and why electrical engineering?
I was very interested in going into the military at the time, and Virginia Tech had a highly ranked engineering program, as well as having the Corp of Cadets – it was really important to me to have that combination. Engineering appealed to me because the rules are real; you can see what your impact on the world is because of what you do. While a lot of it is theoretical, it’s also very applied. At the heart of it, engineering is about solving problems.
How has your engineering education helped you in your law career?
In law school, I knew how the case was going to be solved within a few paragraphs, because engineering taught me how to logically analyze a problem and be methodical in moving from one step to the next. It’s just applying that thinking to a different set of rules, whether it’s the physics or the law, it’s the exact same thing.
What is your best advice for Hokie engineering students?
Find your passion, and develop your career to allow you to move closer to that passion. But I’ll be honest, you don’t start out finding your passion, because you don’t really know what that is yet. Over time, as you grow as a person and in your career, that passion will find you and will help you in the marathon of life.
At the end of the day, you’ve already survived the first part of the marathon – getting into Virginia Tech as an engineering student. Now, it’s about finding what’s next for you, and aligning that in a manner where you can make a difference that impacts people’s lives in a positive way, because that’s what engineers do – impact people’s lives.
As part of the ECE Alumni Tech Talks, Jagtiani visited the Arlington Research Center, where he spoke with students about patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
