What are the different fields that I could get into in law and what are their pros and cons?

Steevs

I agree with the first two comments. DO NOT go into the legal field. The market is saturated, and with the economy the way it is many firms are not hiring and/or laying off those already employed.

mailaccount63

Warning! Jobs in the field of Law are drying up FAST!! This is NOT a good field to invest in! Many reasons. Main reason?.....We simply have WAY TOO MANY Legal Professionals - we have a GLUT! ("Legal Professionals includes, but is not limited to: Attorney/Lawyer, Paralegal, Legal Assistant, Legal Secretary, Bailiff, Court Reporter, etc, etc)

Now the law schools know this - they know the economy/market is SATURATED! Yet they continue to churn out graduates. Law students are easy money for law schools- they have to make very little investment in a law student. The law schools are just taking money from the students - and they know they won't be able to find work.

What this means is that: even IF you finish law school, you probably won't be able to find a job when you are done.

Suggestion: Consider and look into the field of HEALTHCARE! <This is where the job are! and scholarships!

Good luck.

stephen t

Lawyers are a dime a dozen, go medical. Heck, there is a shortage of pharmacists and their median wage is $98,000K well above lawyers. Dentists 180,000K median and there is a shortage, and of course a shortage of MDs.

From US News, Poor careers for 2006
Attorney. If starting over, 75 percent of lawyers would choose to do something else. A similar percentage would advise their children not to become lawyers. The work is often contentious, and there's pressure to be unethical. And despite the drama portrayed on TV, real lawyers spend much of their time on painstakingly detailed research. In addition, those fat-salaried law jobs go to only the top few percent of an already high-powered lot.

Many people go to law school hoping to do so-called public-interest law. (In fact, much work not officially labeled as such does serve the public interest.) What they don't teach in law school is that the competition for those jobs is intense. I know one graduate of a Top Three law school, for instance, who also edited a law journal. She applied for a low-paying job at the National Abortion Rights Action League and, despite interviewing very well, didn't get the job.

From the Associated Press, MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A lawmaker who persuaded the Assembly to eliminate all state funding for the University of Wisconsin law school says his reasoning is simple: There's too many lawyers in Wisconsin.

From an ABA study about malpractice claims, More Sole Practicioners: There appears to be an increasing trend toward sole practicioners, due partly to a lack of jobs for new lawyers, but also due to increasing dissatisfaction among experienced lawyers with traditional firms; leading to some claims which could have been avoided with better mentoring.

New Lawyers: Most insurers have noticed that many young lawyers cannot find jobs with established firms, and so are starting their own practices without supervision or mentoring. This is likely to cause an increase in malpractice claims, although the claims may be relatively small in size due to the limited nature of a new lawyers

â€œIn a survey conducted back in 1972 by the American Bar Association, seventy percent of Americans not only didnâ€™t have a lawyer, they didnâ€™t know how to find one. Thatâ€™s right, thirty years ago the vast majority of people didnâ€™t have a clue on how to find a lawyer. Now itâ€™s almost impossible not to see lawyers everywhere you turn."

Growth of Legal Sector
Lags Broader Economy; Law Schools Proliferate
For graduates of elite law schools, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that's suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don't score at the top of their class are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market.

The law degree that Scott Bullock gained in 2005 from Seton Hall University -- where he says he ranked in the top third of his class -- is a "waste," he says. Some former high-school friends are earning considerably more as plumbers and electricians than the $50,000-a-year Mr. Bullock is making as a personal-injury attorney in Manhattan. To boot, he is paying off $118,000 in law-school debt.

A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data.

On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited schools increased by 11%, to 196.

According to the Internal Revenue Service, the inflation-adjusted average income of sole practitioners has been flat since the mid-1980s. A recent survey showed that out of nearly 600 lawyers at firms of 10 lawyers or fewer in Indiana, wages for the majority only kept pace with inflation or dropped in real terms over the past five years.

Many students "simply cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur," wrote Richard Matasar, dean of New York Law

sophieb

I'm sure there is a list on the internet that will list for you the more than 165 specialties of law you can get into. It all depends on what's easiest for you, or if you've really got a high IQ then you could choose the ones that would bring in the best money (although those may be more dangerous specialties to be in). There are some specialties that are buzier than others so you might want to specialize in two or three. Some of the attorneys I've worked for did a variety for instance one did divorce, wills and elder law, criminal adoptions, landlord/tenant law and real estate law. Another I worked for did corporate law and real estate law. Another I worked for did wills and elder law, real estate law, and rebuilt old homes on the side and then resold them and also rented them. Another I worked for did real estate, collections, adoptions and elder law. It all depends on what you like to do, depends on which firm you buy into and what they need to round out their firm, or depends on who you go into practice with.

"After" I provided my info to you I looked what other people have advised you. Sure the legal field may have become saturated but remember that you could use your law degree in working for the government (city, county, state, federal), or in politics, or in being an owner of a large company, or the top notch in a bank, or in a college or university.

G.B.

Forget what everyone else has said so far. Do what you are interested in. If it is law, then study and practice law.

Contrary to what others are saying, the demand for competent legal advice will never go away. This is especially true as our body of law grows. We have a combination common law and statutory law system which gets more and more detailed over time. Think of it like a book where someone has only written outlines for most of the chapters and now they are going back to fill in the details. Even then, when it is hard to get work in one area, it is easy to get it in another (e.g., business transactions versus bankruptcy).

That said, here is my answer to your question. Take a look at the legal categories at http://www.lawfiles.net (the links on the right). Read through the about section to learn more about each topic. Think about what interests you. Also, consier whether you want to work with individuals or businesses (Individuals can be more rewarding if you win, but emotionally draining if you lose).

Then think about what area of the country you want to work in. Try to pick an area that has a need for the practice area you are interested in. For example, if you want do do tax law, consider DC. If you want to do securities law, consider NYC. If you want to work on international issues, consider a large city that has international ties (e.g., SF if you are into Asian countries).

Then try to locate some actual practitioners to talk to about the practice of law. Maybe take on a part time job with a firm to see what it is like.

If you are interested in helping people/businesses you should consider practicing law. There isn't any other profession where you can help people the way lawyers can. I count myself as being very lucky that I can wake up every day and know that I am a lawyer and that I can use my days to try to bring about justice for my clients. What other professional can say that?

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