[shagie]

It happens from time to time. https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-googl... ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15834800 42 comments)

> These days, he often looks for some kind of STEM background for the IP desk. It’s not necessary, but it helps. Bill Toth, the IP clerk during Oracle v. Google, didn’t have a STEM background, but he told me that the judge had specifically asked him to take a computer science course in preparation for his clerkship. When I asked Alsup about it, he laughed a little — he had no recollection of “making” Toth take any classes — but he did acknowledge that sometimes he gives clerks a heads up about what kind of cases are coming their way, and what kind of classes might be useful ahead of time.

Note that it's not necessarily the judge that's important as an individual knowing the material, but that the clerks who work for the judge are.

[billtoth]

I'm the referenced Bill Toth. Just thought I'd mention the funny fact that in private practice I've actually argued about the significance of database schema (less for security reasons, more for analyzing the outputs of the database).

[shagie]

I always find it interesting to see the people that show up in comments that are the authorities on the matter being quoted and am reminded that hn has a very diverse readership.

One of the things that this also reminds me of is the impression that "learn to code" meant "everyone should be a software developer" when your experiences demonstrate a "learn to code" was part of "becoming a better legal professional".

Do you have other examples of how learning to code improved your abilities as a legal professional?

[billtoth]

Oh sure! I'm an IP litigator, so a lot of what I do entails investigating and explaining how technology (usually implemented in source code) works. We have forensic engineers that do a lot of that work, but it's important to have some lawyers on the team who know to ask the right questions to battle test their own experts' conclusions, cross examine the other side, and turn it into a story for non technical audiences like judges and juries.