How to Know Which Legal Practice Area Is Right for You

You might know that you want to become a lawyer and help your clients solve their complicated legal problems, but that doesn’t mean you know what type of lawyer you want to be. There are many different legal practice areas to consider, such as commercial law, construction law, criminal law, and family law. Choosing your most preferred legal practice area can be challenging, and you might mull over your decision for several months. However, there’s every reason to believe you could experience clarity by considering the following information.

Think About Your Interests

Speak to Brisbane lawyers and other lawyers all around the world, and you’ll likely find that their interests helped guide them to their preferred practice area. Family-orientated lawyers might have been drawn to family law for their passion for helping families through challenging legal battles, while criminal lawyers might have chosen their path due to injustices in their own families.

Think about what holds your interest the most and consider whether you could see yourself making a career out of it. However, it’s important not to rush the process since it can take several months or years for even the best lawyers to decide their area of specialty.

Know Your Strengths

If no particular legal practice stands out to you, or you aren’t particularly passionate about one area more than another, consider your strengths and natural abilities. If you’re excellent with numbers, you might consider structured finance, project finance, banking, and asset finance. However, if you’re empathetic, patient, and people-focused, you might look at mental health, healthcare, human rights, or family law. When you’ve identified your strengths, compare them to The United States Department of Justice list of practice areas. You might then be on the path to success as a proficient and skilled lawyer.

Request Legal Work Experience

Very few lawyers know exactly what they want to do when they start studying law, which is why most educational facilities provide legal work experience opportunities. As an undergraduate or postgraduate, you’re given the chance to work in different practice areas for several weeks. During that time, you can gain first-hand insight into the work lawyers in those areas do and might even be able to work on live cases yourself. This work experience can be invaluable in helping you choose your preferred career path.

Shadow Lawyers

Work experience is an excellent way to gain insight into the work lawyers do, but it doesn’t always delve deep into what every day looks like for the average lawyer. Use your connections or contact a firm directly to see if you can shadow a lawyer and learn more.

Ask them questions about their job, observe them in everyday situations, and find out what they like and don’t like about their job. This insight into a lawyer’s life can be invaluable when you aren’t sure which direction you’d like your legal skills to take you, or whether being a lawyer is even right for you.

As confident as you might be in your decision to become a lawyer, that doesn’t mean you know your preferred practice area. Choosing one can take time. However, by taking these actions above, you might ensure the process is much easier than you thought possible.