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What drew you towards your area of practice?


penguin

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penguin
  • Law Student

What is it that made you interested in your field of law and for you to have decided that this is what you wanted to do? I'm about to enter the OCI process this year with no idea which field of law I want to practice. 

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Aureliuse
  • Lawyer

I practice family law. I see otherwise resilient parents at their most vulnerable and their family on the verge of collapse.

I find that if I do my job well and encourage the parties to settle their separation, I can spare their children a lot of emotional and psychological damage. Of course, I can also save the parents a lot of money.  You also get to "stare down bullies" aka abusers and delinquent payors.

The files can be quite entertaining.

This is an area of law where if you know your stuff as a lawyer, you can make a huge difference in people's lives.

 

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Darth Vader
  • Lawyer

Think about the lifestyle you want to have and clients you want to serve. If you're going into Biglaw, your clients will be institutions, high-net-worth individuals, and corporations. You will be regularly working 12-16 hr days. All the money in the world can't make up for lost time and mental health. The happiest lawyers I know are in the public sector and in fields like labour and employment, aboriginal/indigenous, immigration, criminal, wills and estates, etc. - personal service areas where you work with the everyday common people and doesn't require Biglaw hours for the most part. 

Many law students are pressured into Biglaw environments by their school and peers, and because they didn't take the time to research alternative career paths which requires more hustling on their end in order to find a job. Maybe there would not be so many unhappy lawyers if people did this, and also if people did not pursue Biglaw just for the money and to pay off their debt. The golden handcuffs are real and almost no lawyer wants to reset their career and start at the beginning after they are a few years into practice. Not to mention having to convince employers that you're not just a Biglaw washout looking for greener pastures. 

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Vizslaw
  • Lawyer

Our practice gradually shifted away from criminal defence/prosecutions toward administrative law and professional misconduct hearings for regulated professionals. It's really interesting and rewarding work. It was a natural shift from criminal to administrative law and a much easier one than going the other way given the rules of evidence and nature of the hearings, etc. In any given week we could be writing submissions in response to a complaint against a physiotherapist, conducting a discipline hearing for a real estate broker, or doing a judicial review for a pharmacist whose billing privileges were terminated by the Ministry. I really enjoy the variety of clients, different subject-matters, and types of litigation and hearings all within the administrative law umbrella. We have a great work/life balance and (mostly) reasonable clients.

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I think that's very common. I did know what I wanted to at least try, but still wanted to find a place with an outlet, so I went with a firm that had a good labour/employment group and also good general litigation. Really, I think the only thing that you want to at least have a handle on is whether you want a litigation or a solicitor type of specialty.

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  • 1 month later...
t3ctonics
  • Lawyer

I'm in labour and employment now, but I never had any particular intention of getting into it. I changed my mind numerous times, and I'm still not sure!

Going into law school I had an interest in criminal law. Then Torts was interesting, so I was more interested in civil litigation. Then I found Business Organizations and some of the other corporate/commercial classes interesting and I became interested in corporate solicitor work. Then I found Natural Resources very interesting and was interested in mining work specifically. 

Then I started articling, and I enjoyed my litigation rotation more than my corporate rotation. I liked preparing arguments and I fit in better with the litigators. So I was offered a choice of which group to join, and I went into litigation. It turned out I didn't actually enjoy litigation. I do well on my feet, but the adversarial nature of it gets to me.

When I ultimately left private practice as a 4th year associate it was to go in-house doing mostly labour and employment, which I didn't have much experience with. I doubt I was an ideal candidate because of the lack of labour and employment experience, but it was a junior role and I was able to learn on the job. I really enjoy the advising aspect of it, though I still don't enjoy the litigation. I've managed to work my way up a little bit and sometimes I get involved in strategic planning that goes beyond labour and employment (e.g. corporate governance), which I love doing.

Long-term I think I'd like to move up the in-house ladder and become a general counsel. This would probably have to be at another employer, as I don't see my current boss going anywhere in the next 15 years. I used to think I wanted to just put my head down and do lawyer work, but since I've been working more closely with the C-suite I've decided I would love to be in a leadership position. This isn't really a specific area of law, as GC needs to have a working knowledge of a lot of different areas of law and their role is management as much as legal.

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  • 3 weeks later...
OntheVerge
  • Lawyer

I'll join the above crowd and say I too never really decided on what area I wanted to do. I never really felt strongly about an area of law; I seemed to find them all at least somewhat interesting so it made it hard to focus on any one area. I enjoyed crim classes the best and my grades reflected that, so I just kept taking them in order to keep my GPA high. But then when articling rolled around, I realized I had limited myself to primarily criminal law and I was less sure about the aspects of the career outside of the law itself. 

At any rate, right when I had to make a decision about continuing a career in crim or not, the decision was taken out of my hands. I got a really great job offer in a completely different area of law and it was too good to refuse. I wasn't sure about the new work (solicitor) but my ability to find any law interesting was godsend. And I find I prefer different aspects of the career better. 

I'm chiming in with the mostly unhelpful anecdote just so the OP (and any others) don't feel like there's something "wrong" with them for not knowing exactly what kind of law they want to do. I had a professor tell my Admin law class that by 2L, "everyone" figures it out because you'll come across a case you feel strongly enough about to base your entire career on...and if you don't have the epiphany or ever feel that strongly about a case, then "you're a robot." That messed me up for awhile and I resigned myself to "I guess I'm just a robot", but after talking with lots of people, I think the majority of law students are "robots" in that sense. So long as you don't hate an area of law, you'll probably like the career you end up in. And always think about the actual career itself, not just what area of law, you think you'll like and that will help you guide you, as well. 

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GGrievous
  • Law Student

I applied to law school to basically follow in the footsteps of a friend of mine who does criminal defence. The more I learn about it and involve myself in it in the limited ways I'm able to as a 0L the more I become certain this is my area. I think the chances of changing my mind after actually going to law school/articling are basically slim to none, but I guess we'll see in a few years. 

4 hours ago, OntheVerge said:

I got a really great job offer in a completely different area of law and it was too good to refuse.

Hopefully this doesn't happen to me haha

Edited by Barry
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tails
  • Lawyer

I practice Commercial Real Estate and Banking currently. Mostly, the desire the eventually leave big law later and what would be somewhat transferable to a small practice. I also feel like I have a good work life balance with my current practice, more so than I would have got with other practice groups at my firm! 

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