Should Law Students Consider Becoming Personal Injury Attorneys?

If you’re a law student working toward your JD, it is important to consider what area of law you want to practice before taking the bar exam. 

Legal practice comes in many different unique forms. Some lawyers work entirely outside of the courtroom, while others spend much of their time in a courtroom arguing before a judge and jury. What is right for others isn’t always right for you, so it is important to consider the ins and outs of any legal field you consider. 

As a law student, one of the areas you may consider practicing in is personal injury law. To help students considering a career in personal injury law, we asked a Pensacola injury attorney, Should law students consider becoming personal injury lawyers? The answer was a resounding “yes.” However, before committing to such a career, law students should understand what they are getting into.

Personal Injury Law is Difficult, Competitive, and Rewarding

As Mr. Terry Bryant, a former judge and personal injury lawyer noted in a 2019 article he wrote for Abraham Lincoln University, personal injury law is a difficult and competitive field, but it is a very rewarding one. Personal injury lawyers help individuals who often get the raw end of the deal. After all, when you suffer an injury that someone else causes, it is you who has to miss work, suffer pain, and initially bear the cost of medical treatment. It is rewarding to help people who are unfairly given the short end of the stick through no fault of their own.

Setting Yourself Apart From Your Competitors

There is a great deal of competition in the field of personal injury law. Not all personal injury lawyers are as successful as others. In large part, one’s success in the field depends on how well they represent their clients in practice and how they set themselves apart from other personal injury lawyers.  One way you might consider standing out from your competition is by finding a niche area of personal injury practice. If you find and carve out your own niche type of cases and master that specific legal area, you can reduce the number of competitors you have and increase your chances of financial success. 

Personal Injury Attorneys Help People

It might seem like all lawyers are there to help people, but this isn’t always the case. Many attorneys work for organizations instead of individuals. Attorneys for insurance companies, for example, don’t go to work every day to help individual people. Instead, their goal is to help the company they work for protect its bottom line by paying out as small an amount as possible in each claim filed with the company. Similarly, other types of corporate attorneys’ success is measured by how well they help their company protect and increase its profitability.

On the other hand, personal injury attorneys help individual people every day. They help individuals enforce their rights against other individuals and organizations. Furthermore, they help individuals recover real damages that they suffer as a result of others’ negligence. If your goal is to help people in your career, personal injury law may be a good fit for you.

Questions to Ask Yourself If You are Considering Becoming a Personal Injury Lawyer

As Tina Willis wrote for the American Bar Association’s Student Lawyer Blog, for a law student to make the best possible choice for their own legal practice area, they have to ask themselves certain questions. If you are considering pursuing a career as a personal injury lawyer, here are some questions you might ask yourself:

• What drives me to pursue a career in law?
• How close do I want to work with individual clients?
• Do I want to help individuals, or would I rather help organizations?
• Am I up for a challenge?
• Am I ready to work hard to set myself apart from others in a competitive field?
• Whose stories do I want to hear?

These are just a few of the questions that you might ask yourself. If you’re considering becoming a personal injury lawyer, there are hundreds if not thousands of other questions you might ask yourself before making a commitment. Answer these questions as thoroughly and honestly as possible. Doing so will go a long way toward ensuring that you are happy and fulfilled in your career as an attorney.

If You Are Considering Becoming a Personal Injury Lawyer

One of the best ways to gain insight into personal injury legal practice is to talk to practicing personal injury lawyers. Just as you ask yourself questions, ask any attorney you speak with questions about their work. Consider questions like:

• What drove you to pursue a career in personal injury law?
• Were you always a personal injury lawyer?
• How do you set yourself apart from your competitors?
• What is the best part of being a personal injury lawyer?
• What is the most difficult part of being a personal injury lawyer?
• What do your day to day responsibilities typically look like?

Just like the questions you ask yourself, these are just a few questions you might consider asking practicing personal injury attorneys. In reality there are hundreds if not thousands of questions you can ask practicing personal injury lawyers to help you make a decision. The best thing you can do is make a list of questions most important to you and ask those questions to as many practicing personal injury lawyers as you can.