I’m hoping to start my own law firm straight out of law school. I’ve been looking at various types of law ( mainly bankruptcy, business, personal injury and family). I want to stay in Michigan, so I would be opening my law firm there. What area of law is the best for someone who wants to make money/be successful and open their firm straight out of law school?
Insurance law
I would suggest the areas of law that plain old folk need…wills, trusts, estates, employment, bankruptcy, PI. An LLM would be nice if you could swing it (tax). As a brand new attorney with a brand new firm, you are not going to be attracting large corporate/industrial clients.
Before you do anything else, it’s important to treat this as a business decision, since you are starting your own business. Where in Michigan do you want to practice? What sort of office will you have, and what is the rent? Will you be purchasing malpractice insurance? What will internet/phone, etc cost? I’d recommend that you calculate the current costs of all these things, since starting a solo practice right out of law school is a daunting task.
Are you even admitted to a law school? Wouldn’t this be something that might develop naturally for you once you had attended law school, graduated and passed the Bar?
Certain fields, such as family law ans estate planning, lend themselves well to solo or small firm settings. Others, such as some types of civil litigation and corporate law, are usually done in big firms.
Consider where you want to open your firm and what the legal needs are of the people who can afford to pay you.
Trusts and estates and landlord/tenant law involve representing individuals, who are a good target customer base for a solo practitioner. I would also take lots of clinical classes, since those give you “real life” experience working with people who are like clients.