Career Talk: Deciding a career path as a lawyer

When you start law school (or even before, for those of you that knew you wanted to be lawyers earlier on), questions about your future shift from "What do you want to be when you grow up?" to "What type of law do you want to practice?" This was never an immediately easy question for me to answer - after all, law school does a great job about teaching you some of the basics, but not a lot about specific fields of practice. Additionally, the job market somewhat dictates career availability. I flirted with the idea of family law, banking, transactional business, and for a brief moment, litigation, but never really knew what was right for me.

Ultimately, I took a "try it out" approach, and between summer internships and three seperate jobs during my first five years of practice, I've discovered a lot of different options for career paths as a lawyer both through personal experience and networking. I know not everyone loves to try before they buy with careers and wants to come out of graduation on a set career path, so I thought I'd share some knowledge of things to consider when deciding your career path as a lawyer so that you can start thinking about what would be the best fit for you.

I would break lawyers into five "types" of practice: (a) litigators, (b) transactional attorneys, (c) clerks/legal researchers,  (d) non-traditional attorneys, and (e) in-house counsel,. Each of these types of practicing are so different that they are basically entirely different job types, so I would say knowing which of these types of practice interests you the most is the first consideration you should make.

Litigation

Litigators are what everyone thinks of when they think of lawyers - standing up in the courtroom yelling "I object" and justly getting the verdict their client deserves. Litigators are, as you might expect, attorneys who litigate, meaning they are the attorneys heading to court and participating in trial procedure. Practicing as a litigator means meeting clients, preparing court filings, and attending hearings and trials. These attorneys need to be personable enough to win over clients, judges, and juries; they need to be strong writers so that their court documents such as pleadings, briefs, and motions back up what they say in court; and they need to be willing to always be on the go, back and forth from the court house and the office. I will note, not every day in court is a high-stakes trial - in fact trials are rare. But if you want to practice in court, litigation is the path for you.

Transactional Practice

You know in the movies when you see a hoity-toity business attorney snapping their cell phone shut after successfully closing a multi-million dollar deal for their client? That's a transactional attorney - she's probably never been in a court room but her billable hour rate tells you that she's successful in transactional practice. Transactional attorneys do the type of tasks people need to hire lawyers for without necessarily going to court, like business deals, real estate transactions, estate planning, certain family law matters, employment law, you name it. Transactional attorneys do a lot of their work via drafting documents, so they need to be good writers witha keen attention to detail. They also need to be forward thinkers - one of their biggest tasks is getting thing done the right way so their clients don't have to hire the litigators down the hall to defend them in court. 

Clerking/Legal Research

Many attorneys start out their career in clerking and legal research positions, and move to another career path later, although some people continue their entire career in this path. These jobs generally exist to perform legal research for judges or other attorneys, and may include certain drafting tasks as well such as drafting judicial opionions, memoranda, or pleadings. Jobs in academia would also fit well into this category. These jobs tend to be fairly low-key, with good hours, lower stress, and decent hours. Of course, there are very prestigious clerkships that may be more stressful, but most clerk jobs bring good life balance. The downside is that these jobs don't typically pay as well. Clerks need to enjoy research and writing, and need to be good with creative arguments and problem solving. Clerking and legal research can be very rewarding for a curious legal mind. 

Non-Traditional Lawyers

Non-traditional practice, sometimes referred to a "JD preferred" jobs, are jobs that aren't necessarily practicing law in a traditional sense but benefit from the job-holder having received a legal education. You often find these jobs in banking, compliance, and the insurance industry. This field can be a little bit of the wild west - there's something for everyone with a whole range of pay, stress, workload, and industry. If you would like to get a legal education but are unsure about actually practicing law, this type of practice could be a great fit for you.

In-House Counsel

Finally, in-house counsel are a bit of a combination of all of the types of attorneys above. However, they only have one client who also happens to be their employer. In-house counsel advise the company they work for on day-to-day legal matters, often perform transactional tasks such as business contracting, real estate matters, and employment law, and even usually help coordination of litigation when indicated (although most companies will still hire outside counself for litigation). Like non-traditional practice, there is a whole range of pay, stress, workload, and industry for in-house counsel jobs, but these jobs can be a great fit for someone who wants to do a bit of everything. 

Up Next: My Experience

Personally, I have experience working as a law clerk, transactional attorney, in-house counsel, and even some slight experience in litigation. Each of these fields definitely has their own pros and cons, and I am going to continue making Career Talk posts about my experience in these areas. Stay tuned for future posts to learn more about career options as a lawyer!