As you are preparing your law school application, you will have so many questions and so many things on your mind. Every law school decision will seem like the biggest decision of your life. It doesn’t have to feel that way. So many lawyers will change specialties throughout their careers. Some specialties in law are more demanding than others, while others have bigger caseloads that will be appealing to those making billable hours. You don’t have to make every decision all at once when you are filling out your law school application. All you need is the qualifications to apply, the motivation to try and be the best in your community, and a good application. Use this guide when you are preparing your application to law school, and you’ll get a little bit closer to deciding on your specialty.
Disability Law
Saying you want to be a disability attorney on your law school application will send a very strong message about your desire to help people in any community. A disability attorney will play so many roles, and change the lives of so many people for the better. This is an attorney who will fight for the rights of people who are routinely discriminated against daily because of things about them that they can do nothing about. They may lose jobs, promotions, benefits, or even just love the world that they have rights to because they have a disability.
The duties of a disability attorney will not be a thankless job, as you will have so much gratitude from all the people that you will be fighting for. Your daily job functions will include providing advice and consultations, referrals, and, in some cases, trial representation for people with disabilities who have had their rights infringed on. Cases can include anything from not being approved for social security disability pensions or losing money or dignity in the workplace or community. This area of law can be heartbreaking but will be very rewarding.
Divorce Law
With the divorce rates being at 50 % across the nation, there is a strong need for a good divorce attorney in every community. Today’s family law attorneys are swamped, as there are not enough for the caseloads on the court dockets. Because divorce is a legal contract, judges are needed to sign off on court orders for alimony, child support, access arrangements, and more. This is a busy area of law that will keep your practice busy if you are interested in this specialty.
This is another area of law that can be very rewarding. When you are filling out your law school application and want to help people, you will want to mention that helping families navigate a tremendous crisis is your ultimate goal. The decisions that families make during this time will impact the rest of their lives. As their attorney, you can help them to make the best ones and get through this crisis as quickly as possible so that they can move in with less stress, and more peace.
Real Estate Law
There are so many elements of real estate that real estate attorneys are another very necessary specialty. These lawyers will represent both buyers and sellers in a real estate transaction. If you want to work in an area of law that is typically a little more cut and dry than family law or disability law, real estate law is a desirable job that will be a lucrative career for you. Before your law school application, spend some time developing some experience working with real estate projects, construction sites, and buyers and sellers in the process of a home sale.
Doing this will give you great experience ahead of your career. At the same time, it will help you to understand who you will be representing when you become a real estate lawyer. Property sales go south all the time, and having a lawyer on hand will help both buyers and sellers in any process feel better about the stress that these problems can cause. While most of your clients will be fairly easy to represent, those with those stresses will be grateful to have you.
Marketing Law
Marketing law is an area of law that is designed to protect the consumer from things like false advertising. At the same time, it is also designed to protect intellectual property rights, and constitutional freedoms like freedom of speech. If you decide that you want to work in legal marketing services, you may also be engaged in a lot of contractual law or work with a number of marketing needs. You will need to understand how the advertising and marketing industries work, and may even want to specialize in a specific niche like print, radio, social media, television, or broadcasting.
Because marketing and advertising make money for the advertiser, and the publisher, contractual negotiations and law can become complex here. To prepare for your law school application with an interest in marketing law, you may want to work in marketing a little bit to get an idea of what the needs are in marketing law. You will see how easy it can be for a dispute to occur between parties in advertising matters. The field of marketing law can be an exciting one for you, and a very rewarding career if you want to put your career front and center of constitutional matters every day.
Criminal Law
Criminal law is a very complex field of law, and there are many different branches that you could choose to specialize in if you wish to for your law school application. You could decide to be a DUI lawyer, or a prosecutor, or work your way up to becoming a United States Attorney. You may want to be a criminal defense attorney, or you may want to try a little bit of everything before you decide what area of criminal law you want to cover. In criminal defense, your clients will have problems from misdemeanors to serious federal charges, and you’ll need to know where your interest levels are.
Becoming a prosecutor may also be on your mind. In this line of work, you will work for the state or the country. You will defend the state’s or the nation’s rights during criminal trials, to ensure that the people of the state or country are safe and have their rights protected at all times. This is an important job, and, like a criminal defense attorney, can be a dangerous one. In this rewarding career, you are putting your life on the line for your country to defend its rights to be safe and exercise its freedoms every day.
Family Law
Family law is an important area of law that is changing lives all over the nation. While it is a difficult profession, entering it as a proposed specialty on your law school application will send the message that helping families is your goal. You can prepare to be a custody attorney, an alimony attorney, or an attorney who helps special families navigate the multitude of processes involved in a divorce and custody matter. These cases typically involve an extraordinary amount of financial negotiation and child access negotiations that can become ugly.
While most parties in a legal dispute are emotional about some matter, in family law, the emotions run even higher. Relationships between soulmates may become dissolved, children feel like they are losing or have to choose their parents over each other, and family traditions that were the glue to many are now dissolved. Many family law cases will also run longer than one year, and this makes the cases even more complex. If you decide to become a family law attorney, you will find the job an incredible challenge, but also an incredible reward as well.
Employment Law
Employment law is an area of law that has many different branches. As an employment lawyer, you will represent a wide range of clients. Or, you can choose what kind of clients you will represent and specialize with companies, or with employees. Labor law across the nation is fairly complex, but it can also be fairly cut and dry. When an employee’s rights have been infringed in the workplace, you will need to know the law so that you can help them fight for those rights.
It could be anything like a simple attendance policy that plumbing companies have used for years without discretion or compassion, and then it results in a negative impact on someone’s life. It may be you who discovers this and changes the world a little bit when you remind the corporation that this practice is unlawful or unconstitutional. Alternatively, whether it is a local plumber or many plumbing companies with a big contract dispute, you can be the representative who helps the client get the win in the corporate marketplace.
Insurance Law
The term insurance law can cause instant wrinkles on the forehead for anybody, even lawyers who fight for clients with insurance issues. Insurance law will help everyday people and big corporations to get the funds that they need, and the claims covered that they need for things like funerals, exorbitant medical fees, and the billions in lost wages that the country spends every year. When you are filling out your law school application, you can show some experience in any of the many areas of insurance law that will help you to hone in on your specialty here. There is insurance for everything, and as an insurance lawyer, you can help people who are insured get their claims covered when they need to.
Insurance law can include everything from life insurance and long-term disability claims to environmental and uninsured loss claims. You may also want to represent clients making professional liability claims like engineers and doctors. Another area of law here is in directors and officers liability insurance, where directors and officers of boards of organizations can be covered during the work that they perform with many organizations. As an insurance attorney, you will know that insurance is meant to bring peace to your clients, and you will fight for them to settle their issues with as much peace as possible.
Medical Malpractice Law
The field of medical malpractice law is a very complicated one, like every area of law, and it can also be a very expensive one. At the same time, this is a field of law that can be very tragic as well. In many cases, there will be a severe medical issue in place and one that may have resulted in wrongful death, permanent dismemberment or disability, or loss of companionship. Healthcare law is very specific as to what a health service provider must do in terms of protecting the patient at all times, but still, negligence does happen.
You may picture operating room fiascos when you are thinking of this area of law, but it occurs everywhere that healthcare is offered. You could get cases for medical malpractice from nursing homes, long-term care facilities, special needs organizations, hospitals, doctor’s offices, clinics, and more. Malpractice might occur for any little medical issue, or it might occur for a devastating and life-changing event. As a medical malpractice lawyer, it will be your job to determine the facts and to see if malpractice exists, and then fight for the rights and compensation of your clients.
Elder Abuse Law
Do you know someone who is experiencing elder abuse? It can be incredibly emotionally difficult for someone to experience or witness their loved one experiencing. Elderly individuals are often targeted for abuse due to their physical frailty, cognitive decline, or financial dependence. Studying elder abuse law can help you learn how to identify signs of abuse and advocate for the rights of vulnerable seniors. This way, you can help protect them from harm. Becoming an elder abuse attorney can also come with it’s emotional challenges for you.
This is a very fulfilling specialization because you can help someone who is defenseless. As a lawyer specializing in elder abuse law, you can offer legal representation to victims of elder abuse. This ensures that their voices are heard and their rights are upheld in legal proceedings. This work can be particularly fulfilling as it provides the opportunity to make a significant difference in the lives of those who have been mistreated or neglected. Becoming a lawyer can be fulfilling in so many ways, but it’s important for you to choose the type of law that works for you and inspires you every day.
When you are preparing your law school application, you will have a lot of things on your mind. You may be thinking about where to specialize in, and who you want to help when you decide to practice law. You may decide to specialize in a few different areas of law, as many of these law specialties can overlap with each other. As you are preparing for law school, you want to make the most out of your career, but you also want to ensure that you are going to find yourself in a rewarding profession that you will be happy with for life.