General Career Questions

[TalkingTom]

I'm starting my law career this upcoming Fall and am pretty unsure as to which area I want to practice and what career I want to have. My initial thoughts were just to go to law school and see which courses I like because you can't really know what area of law you like until you experience it. For those of you who have careers, to what extent is this plan doomed for failure or is it a reasonable plan? I have 5 months before I begin and I work a corporate job so I know how to network but have no idea which direction to go in because I'm unsure which area I want to practice. Any advice would be very welcomed, thank you.

[Hegdis]

When you say starting your career are you talking about being a student for the next three/four years, or are you starting your first job as a New Call?

[Lawstudents20202020]

FWIW I started law school convinced I would be a solicitor and focus on conveyancing. I'm now in litigation splitting my time between family and commercial litigation. 

[LMP]

I find things are easier when you have a sense of the direction you want to go in. 

Law school limits the amount of time you have to do things. It also gives you very few oppertunites to actually try an area of law before you have to start making choices that close/open doors. So if you're able to narrow down what you'd like to do, you're in a better spot to align yourself with those oppertunities. 

As for practical advice, you can start by identifying what you enjoy in the work you do now. Then speak to lawyers and law students to get a sense of the work they do, what they like about it and what they dislike. On this forum alone there is a bunch of practice area specific threads with plenty of good insights. 

[TalkingTom]

2 hours ago, Hegdis said:

When you say starting your career are you talking about being a student for the next three/four years, or are you starting your first job as a New Call?

Starting school in September.

[Rashabon]

Plenty of people go to law school with no clue what they want to do. Some end up happily surprised by what they land up doing, others end up unhappily surprised. There's no harm in not knowing right away, as long as you feel pretty good about wanting to be a lawyer. If you're really unsure on the latter, it can be expensive going to law school just to figure that out.