As a sophomore undergraduate, I’m still a long ways away from law school, but since completing a summer pre-law program, everyone keeps asking me what sort of law I’d like to practice.
I am privileged enough to have gotten to meet many talented attorneys in a variety of fields, but rather than narrow down the options, it has only made me more undecided!
There’s obviously no rush, but I was wondering if any current law students who have chosen a specialization could offer any advice on this topic?
If/when you go to law school, your school will have clinics. These are real world opportunities to serve actual clients, supervised by professors and other lawyers. You can do a stint doing immigration, criminal defense, environmental, etc. and will quickly learn what you like and don’t like.
You will take classes (after the first year) with lots of options for electives (Civil Procedure and the other core classes everyone takes). That will teach you if tax law is fascinating or a snooze; you will quickly figure out if trust and estates is the greatest field ever or something to avoid.
Don’t worry about it. Law schools don’t care that you don’t know what you want to do going in.
I’m not a current law student, but I am a lawyer, and I can confidently say this is not something you need to, or should, worry about right now or for quite a long time. The practice of law is always evolving so by the time you graduate from law school there will be new specialties that don’t even exist today - for example, someone in your position ten years ago might not have foreseen that data privacy and cybersecurity were about to become important practice areas. You will have many chances to test the waters in different areas, as a student and perhaps as a summer associate. From a big picture perspective, you may ultimately need to decide whether you want to be a litigation/disputes lawyer, a transactional lawyer or a regulatory lawyer. Which of those is a “fit” will depend upon both your personality and your areas of talent.
Two lawyers near us (suburban area near major city) recommend not specializing at all. Both do all sorts of law themselves, from real estate closings to criminal defenses.
One of them emphasized that the jobs of the future will change and that flexibility makes you more marketable than does a narrow specialization.
The other one says it is all about relationships, and tells this story:
One day a man comes to you to help with his house closing. A few years later, he has a child, and he comes to you to make his will. A few years later, he gets divorced and makes you his divorce lawyer. Lonely after his divorce, he goes out drinking, and then you defend him after he gets arrested for drinking and driving.
I know a lot of lawyers and used to be one myself. 2 thoughts.
Very few knew what they wanted to do specifically when they were 19 (or before a summer internship after the 2L year), And most who thought they did were wrong. 90% of the options you don’t know about. Broadly you may think you want litigation or transactional. Both are different skill sets. Most people gravitate towards one out the other. Beyond that it is largely opportunity based.
You don’t really specialize in law school. You may take electives in one particular area, but honestly that saves you a few weeks of on the job learning at most. The third year of law school exists mainly to fund the law schools in my opinion.
If you can pull off what @TheGreyKing suggests, you absolutely should. You will not make as much, but you can make a comfortable living. A huge percentage of the specialists get burned out and leave the profession. That’s what I did. I made good money but hated my life. After 5 years I couldn’t do it anymore.
Obviously some specialize and thrive. But it’s a much lower percentage.
You will have to take a broad selection of classes in law school so narrowing your interests now won’t really mean much. And I found as I took classes I tended to find areas of the law that didn’t interest me more than I found one that I definitely wanted to pursue. And often firms look to getting broad experiences (you often rotate in summer internships amongst practice groups and some firms take that same approach with young associates). Plenty of time to figure it out. And you may change your mind a time or two along the way.
Disagree with the advice to not specialize & do everything “from real estate closings to criminal defense”. This is a very inefficient approach likely to lead to potential malpractice issues.
Specialize.
You do not need to know what you want to do now. Get some practical experience through law school clinics, internships & externships with law firms and / or judges or regulatory / administrative agencies.
Specialty areas that require preplanning tend to be aviation law, tax law, criminal law & patent law. Otherwise focus on whether litigation or a transactional practice is more attractive to you.
If you attend a top tier law school & do well, then it is most likely that any area of specialization will be determined by client needs & work assignments from partners.
Additionally, you may become attracted to a particular area of law by your courses taken during law school.
OP: If you wanted to become a patent attorney, you would have to decide now as the patent bar requires that certain STEM courses be taken prior to becoming eligible to sit for the patent bar.
If you think that tax law or corporate law is in your future, then accounting & finance courses can be very helpful and are often “strongly preferred” by some employers including both biglaw law firms & in-house positions.
Familiarity with the US Constitution is helpful/essential for the practice of criminal law.
If you have a desire to practice in the anti-trust arena, majoring in economics can be quite helpful & sometimes required by employers.
Some types of tort law practices almost require a working knowledge of economics.
Foreign language fluency can land some very high paying positions with very prestigious law firms. Even small & medium sized firms often seek those with fluency in Mandarin. I have seen recent ads for German fluency, fluency in Japanese and other languages as well. During the past decade an attorney fluent in Portuguese who was willing to live in Brazil could earn a very generous biglaw salary living in Brazil & working for a US law firm.
P.S. Aviaton lawyers often have a pilot’s license. Admiralty law is another specialty where some pre-law school experience & knowledge is helpful, but not necessary.