You can start your research by talking with lawyers you know or by examining books that describe law as a career. Once you have an overview of the field, however, you need to get beneath the generalities. First, you need to investigate legal specialties (insofar as virtually no one is a generalist in law anymore). After your initial research, focus on two to four practice areas that appeal to you. Learn what personality types fit best with this area, what skills (general, such as public speaking, and specific, such as an ability to draft complex debt covenants) are necessary, what types of work fill up the day, and what are considered the best (and worst) aspects of the field. Read several of the professional journals in the field, cover to cover, for several months at a time. Once you have narrowed your interests to one or two fields; talk with a number of practitioners in each. Ask for permission to spend several days "shadowing" them, literally spending full workdays at their side, to learn what their work life is truly like. Be sure to ask, too, whether what you have seen is typical of their practices.
Second, understand what employment possibilities there are in the field. Examine the different types of employers (large firms, small firms, government agencies— municipal, state, federal—nonprofit organizations, and so on) for lawyers in the one or two specialties you have chosen.
Learn the basics about each type:
- The focus of the work (at each level)
- Where they are located
- What hours are worked, and when (five days per week, on-call 24/7?)
- What the pay is at each level
- What it takes to advance to each level
- What those who leave end up doing
- How risky the employment is
- What the work environment is like (competitive, stressful, relaxed, dynamic)
- The nature of one's colleagues (age, interests, training, skills, values, goals)
- The clients or interests represented
Compare and contrast the different employer types for whichever field interests you. By the time you have gone through this exercise, you should know, for example, that criminal defense trial work and criminal appellate work may look nearly identical from the outside but are virtually unrelated in real terms. For instance, different personality types are attracted to each: Criminal defense lawyers like the courtroom action and derive some pleasure from being in touch with the more sordid aspects of humanity, whereas criminal appellate lawyers relish the intellectual challenges of their work but like to avoid the hurly-burly of direct contact with clients and the messiness of trials. The differences in how they get clients, how they charge, their reputations in the legal community and a whole host of other matters are just as great.
One way to learn about law, of course, is to work as a paralegal in a law firm or other legal environment. You get a close-up view of lawyers going about their daily business; you also may perform some tasks that involve learning about legal research, writing, courtroom performance, and the like. However, note that firms often assign paralegals highly repetitive tasks that do not necessarily expose them to much of the firm's operations or let them see a variety of lawyers in action. If you choose to work as a paralegal, be sure that the firm you choose gives its paralegals a suitable exposure to the world of law (and then make sure you take full advantage of the opportunity).
Once you have really explored one or two specialties and several employment options for each, compare the results with your analysis of your own skills, interests, values, and goals. Reconsider your options if the fit is not a close one.
It is often claimed that students entering law school now do a pretty fair job of evaluating themselves and their career options. A quick look at one piece of data should dispel this notion. One of the truisms of law school admissions at the top schools is that half of those entering believe they will enter a public interest field, yet not even 5 percent do so. In fact, at most top schools the percentage entering public interest law is well under 5 percent. This means that over 90 percent of those who figured they were going into public interest law had done insufficient research about themselves and their career choices.
