Ben Clifner
Law Clerk, Admission Pending
- SAN FRANCISCO Phone: 415-490-1340 Fax: 415-573-1901
Mr. Clifner’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and counseling.
In law school, he won Berkeley Law School’s Thelen Marrin prize for the best student note published in a Berkeley Law journal for his note “Hyter-ritorriality: The Proper Extraterritorial Scope of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.” He also served on the executive board of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal for two years and worked as a writing tutor for the Law and Technology Writing Workshop.
Before law school, he earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering with a minor in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. While working towards his undergraduate degree at Berkeley, Mr. Clifner also worked in technology commercialization in the Intellectual Property Office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In law school, he won Berkeley Law School’s Thelen Marrin prize for the best student note published in a Berkeley Law journal for his note “Hyter-ritorriality: The Proper Extraterritorial Scope of the Defend Trade Secrets Act.” He also served on the executive board of the Berkeley Technology Law Journal for two years and worked as a writing tutor for the Law and Technology Writing Workshop.
Before law school, he earned his Bachelor of Science in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering with a minor in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. While working towards his undergraduate degree at Berkeley, Mr. Clifner also worked in technology commercialization in the Intellectual Property Office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Prior Experience
- Summer Associate, Desmarais LLP, San Francisco, CA, 2025
- Summer Associate, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, San Francisco, CA, 2025
- Summer Associate, Desmarais LLP, San Francisco, CA, 2024
Other Distinctions
- Thelen Marrin Prize for Academic Writing
- “Hyter-ritorriality: The Proper Extraterritorial Scope of the Defend Trade Secrets Act,” Berkeley Technology Law Journal (December 31, 2025)
EDUCATION
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, J.D., 2026; Law & Technology CertificateUniversity of California, Berkeley, College of Chemistry, B.S., Chemical & Biomlecular Engineering; Minor in Materials Science & Engineering, 2023; with Honors
ADMISSIONS
California, PendingRegistered to practice before the United States Patent & Trademark Office