Kirby Drake Law: The Deep Ellum Patent Attorney Who Chaired the State Bar’s IP Section

Attorney Advertising. The information on this profile does not constitute legal advice and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it. Past results described do not guarantee similar outcomes.

At a Glance

Origin & Founder History

Kirby Drake earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Duke University in 1999 and a J.D. from Wake Forest University School of Law in 2002, where she served as Managing Editor of the Wake Forest Law Review and Citation Editor of the Wake Forest Intellectual Property Association Law Journal. Since 2002 she has built her career around IP, previously serving as a partner at Klemchuk LLP and as a senior associate at Fulbright & Jaworski before founding her own firm. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas School of Law, where she teaches IP-related coursework.

Practice Concentration

Drake’s practice has a special focus on the patent process across a genuinely broad range of technical fields — chemical, pharmaceutical, mechanical, computer/software, and consumer products — reflecting her chemistry background alongside broader technical fluency. Her practice also covers trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights, and she has substantial experience in e-discovery specifically as it relates to IP litigation, including having taught a law school course on the Principles of E-Discovery and written and spoken extensively on ethical issues in electronic discovery.

Track Record

Drake’s publication record documents sustained, substantive engagement with developing areas of patent law: “Pre-Issuance Patent Submissions — A New Way to Participate in Patent Prosecution,” published in the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal in May 2013, addressed a genuinely new procedural mechanism created by the America Invents Act. She has presented on this and related third-party submission topics at the Dallas Bar Association and other venues multiple times since 2012, tracking the topic’s development over time rather than a single one-off presentation.

Client Voice

Awesome Attorneys did not locate individually attributed, detailed client testimonials for Kirby Drake Law specifically as of this profile’s research; Drake’s public reputation is documented primarily through peer recognition (Super Lawyers, Dallas Bar Foundation) and her extensive speaking and publication record.

Beyond the Courtroom

As Chair of the State Bar of Texas IP Section for the 2018–2019 bar year, Drake helped launch the section’s first Trademark Boot Camp, an educational program for attorneys, paralegals, and law students on the fundamentals of trademark law, and continued the section’s IP pro bono workshops for Texas entrepreneurs. She separately chaired the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Patents and Related Matters from 2018 to 2020, and has served on the Dallas Bar Association’s Summer Law Intern Program Committee continuously since 2010 and chaired its Justice in Education Symposium in 2012 — a sustained, decade-plus record of bar-association service beyond her direct client work.

Recognition

Kirby Drake is a Life Fellow of the Dallas Bar Foundation, an honor reserved for Dallas attorneys who have distinguished themselves professionally and contributed significantly to the Dallas legal and civic community, and has been named to Texas Super Lawyers. As a registered U.S. Patent Attorney, she has passed the separate USPTO patent bar examination required to practice patent prosecution — a genuine, checkable technical credential distinct from ordinary state bar admission. No Texas Board of Legal Specialization certification was located for Drake as of this profile’s research.

Texas Legal Backdrop

Pre-issuance third-party submissions, the subject of Drake’s 2013 published article, were created by the America Invents Act of 2011 and allow a third party to submit prior art to the USPTO during examination of a pending patent application — a tool for challenging a competitor’s patent before it issues rather than after, when invalidation becomes considerably more difficult and expensive. Trade secret misappropriation claims in Texas are governed by the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 134A. None of this is legal advice; a business considering a third-party patent submission or a trade secret claim should consult counsel about the specific strategic and procedural considerations.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

Kirby Drake’s differentiator is a genuinely rare combination of deep chemistry-and-technical-field patent fluency, an adjunct teaching role, and sustained, multi-year bar-leadership service (State Bar IP Section chair, ACS patents committee chair, Dallas Bar Foundation Life Fellow) — the kind of institutional trust that takes years of visible contribution to earn.

The honest trade-off is that Awesome Attorneys could not independently confirm client-specific outcome data or detailed testimonials for this profile, which is common for boutique patent-prosecution practices that don’t generate the same public review volume as consumer-facing firms; a prospective client evaluating fit should ask directly for relevant work-sample references. For a client with a technically complex patent matter — particularly in chemistry, pharmaceuticals, or software — Drake’s specific technical and procedural depth is a genuine, well-documented asset.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was compiled from Kirby Drake Law’s own website (kirbydrakelaw.com), including its people and contact pages, Kirby Drake’s Justia, Lawline, Cornell LII, and LinkedIn profiles, State Bar of Texas licensing records, and Super Lawyers listings. Publication and speaking-engagement history is drawn from the attorney’s own published biography and bibliography.

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

This profile is an independent editorial article published by Awesome Attorneys. Awesome Attorneys does not endorse, recommend, or warrant any lawyer or law firm profiled on this site, and inclusion in this series is not paid placement. Facts in this profile were researched from public sources as described in the Methodology & Sourcing section and are current only as of the research date.