By James Penman
Every area of life has law behind it.
Driving to work? Speed limits, car and licence registration, transport regulations. Buying a coffee? Employment law, contract law, consumer law, tax law.
And for each area, there’s a lawyer or law firm behind it.
So, which area of law should you work in? Here’s a brief rundown on some common areas.
Criminal
Tough days and tough clients.
You’re dealing with people at a very difficult time in their life.
However, if you love being on your feet, spending time in court, and advocating for the everyday person – then criminal law might be the fit for you.
You need to have certain type of personality, and you’ve got to be resilient.
It’s not for me, but many lawyers wouldn’t want to do anything else.
Interested? The courts are open to the public, so feel free to drop by and sit in on some court hearings. Just make sure to turn the phone on silent and respect the court’s rules.
Family
Family has a similar vibe to criminal law.
You’ll help people through one of the most stressful and difficult times of their life.
What might start as a ‘amicable separation’ can easily turn ugly when the important questions start being asked.
Who gets the home? Where do the kids live? Who is getting a share of the other’s hard-earned superannuation? How do you quantify “non-financial contributions”? Who cares for the dog?
High emotions means that family lawyers often act as informal psychologists.
I find that family lawyers can be especially passionate about their job compared to other lawyers, as well as having a dark sense of humour.
If you like court work and acting for the everyday battler, family law might be for you. And there’s plenty of work in this area.
Wills and estates
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin.
Most people deal with wills and estates during their life, whether they want to or not.
Maybe their parents passed away, and they need help with probate and transferring the property. Or there’s a young family that needs to ensure the children are taken care of if something happened to them.
It’s a busy area and, with over $3.5 trillion in wealth expected to be transferred to younger generations in the near future, there’ll be no shortage of work.
It’s also one the most underrated areas of practice.
While some areas of law are purely transactional or adversarial, wills and Estates provides a great balance of both collaborative work (estate planning, probate) and challenging adversarial work (estate disputes).
Litigation
“Litigation” just means a legal dispute.
It could be a small fencing dispute between neighbours. It could be a fight over a breach of contract. Or it could be a multi-million-dollar national class-action lawsuit.
There’s a lot of variety, but there’s a couple things in common with most legal disputes.
1. Get ready to fight – suing people in court, issuing summons, sending letters of demand – it’s very adversarial work.
2. Big costs – fees can run into the millions in some court disputes. You need to be careful and always ask the question: can the dispute justify the legal costs?
Litigation is demanding but also has some of the most interesting and rewarding work out there.
Great if you thrive in an intense, fast-moving environment.
Corporate/mergers and acquisitions
One week you’ll be working 12-hour days on a big sale or merger.
The next week you’ll kicking back with 3-hour lunches.
It can be very project dependent.
It’s satisfying when that deal you’ve been working on for months wraps up and you can move on to the next big thing.
Commercial
Commercial law covers things like sale of businesses, contracts, leases, licences, and intellectual property. It often overlaps with other areas like property, tax, corporate, and employment law.
The work can be broad.
I find commercial lawyers to be very “no-nonsense” problem solver type people.
PS – don’t email them on a Wednesday afternoon; their phone is on silent and they’re already teeing off at golf.
What else?
That’s not all.
Other areas of law include insurance law, maritime law, property law, employment law, government law, administration law, space law, transport law, Native Title, medical negligence, class action, intellectual property, finance, banking, technology, bankruptcy and insolvency, energy and resources, environment, sports law, tax law … the list goes on.
In addition to the area of law, there are also the different work environments.
Do you want to work in a large national top-tier firm? What about a general practice in the suburbs? Or a specialist boutique firm? Or go in-house? Or a work in government? Or work for the court?
There’s no shortage of options and they each have their own pros and cons.
My advice: the type of law you practise is important, but where and with whom you work is even more crucial.
It’s no good working in your “desired area of law” if you’re not learning, not being mentored, or getting burnt out.
Focus on finding mentors that are willing to teach you and a work environment where you have an opportunity to learn and grow. You might be surprised at which areas of law interest you at the end of the day.
