Career Profile: Law
 Practicing attorneys have to face a gamut of hoops to jump through in order to achieve the highly coveted Juris Doctorate (JD) degree. Many hope a JD will open doors to careers they have worked their entire educational career to get. Law as a profession is stuffed full with different opportunities from working as an in-house attorney, opening a private practice, to being a big-shot lawyer in a prestigious law firm such as Sullivan & Cromwell or Baker & McKenzie. Just as the circumstances under which attorneys find employment are diverse, so too are the areas of law they specialize in.
Tax, employment, corporate, litigation, contract, real estate law are all but a small fraction of what type of areas of expertise lawyers can work in. Depending on the area of law they practice, a lawyer;s responsibilities can include everything from reviewing contracts, negotiating with other lawyers on a corporate buy-out, ensuring that companies are in compliance with certain legal codes, and, despite popular belief, not many attorney’s spend as much time in a courtroom as you would suspect. In fact, many attorney’s may not even step foot in a courtroom and instead spend their days reviewing case law and legal precedents to prepare documents, legal briefs, and other documents for clients.
All lawyers, regardless of what type of law they practice or where they went to school are required to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) to get into law school and upon graduation from law school they must pass the Bar Exam in the respective state they wish to work in. Despite being the punch line for comedic jokes, law is a highly respected field that is expected to grow 14% through 2014 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of course, certain areas may experience greater growth than average due to a larger need such as international law because business is globalized and geriatric law as Baby Boomers retire and age. A good lawyer should have strong verbal and written skills and be able to complete tedious work.
Career ambitions dictate the area of specialty practiced, which often times reflects where an attorney chooses to work. A widely popular choice, primarily for the income and prestige it brings, is to work in a private firm and work your way up the ranks. If 65+ hour workweeks are not on your agenda, other considerations include working as in-house council for a company, working for yourself, or pursuing a career working for the public as a public defender or assistant district attorney.
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