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what are the different types of lawyers?

I know that there are different types of lawyers but what are they and how do their careers look different? #law #lawyer

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Joshua’s Answer

The broadest "types" of law
Family law (separations, divorces, child custody, adoptions);
Estates (dealing with death, succession, wills, power of attorney, guardianship);
Criminal (obvious one);
Corporate (dealing with business affairs);
Real estate (land title, conveyancing, buying and selling land);
Administrative (dealing with tribunals, boards, etc);
Personal injury (generally all types of things that deal with civil claims for harm done to someone);
Admiralty (dealing with matters of ships and the sea)
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Lauren’s Answer

Even more broadly than the specific sub-sections already mentioned, it may be helpful to think of the practice of law as generally divided into two overarching categories: "transactional law" and "litigation." At a high level, transactional attorneys' main work involves legal research/factfinding, negotiating with various parties to reach agreements, drafting documents like contracts to memorialize such agreements, and advising clients in various sub-areas of the law that are relevant to their lives or business. On the other hand, litigators' practices look more like what folks typically think of when they hear the word "lawyer" -- working to resolve disputes through negotiations, arbitrations, or trials. However, even for most litigators, a large amount of work is done outside of the courtroom, including researching relevant law, reviewing documents and interviewing clients/witnesses to develop the facts, interacting with opposing counsel, applying the law to the facts to assess the merits of a claim, and negotiating potential settlements.
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Catherine’s Answer

I'd also clarify the above in that many people use corporate law as a catch-all to mean many things - handling disputes in court or NEVER (hopefully) going to court
1) corporate litigation (representing corporations in disputes), often in front of arbitrators, mediators, judges or juries
Rest of these are corporate (meaning drafting contracts, assisting a business in its day to day legal issues, transactions etc),
2) corporate - securities (again could be litigation, or actually handling the documents required for the issuances of equity (or debt) publicly or privately - think IPOs and doing the routine securities filings - annual reports, proxy statements, etc)
3) corporate - M&A - handling mergers and acquisitions for companies - the buying, selling or combining of companies
4) corporate - bank financing - handling loan agreements and other debt contracts
5) corporate - fund work - working with compliance issues for mutual funds, hedge funds etc.
6) corporate - real estate - drafting documents for sale and purchase of real estate, development, reviewing environmental or zoning issues
7) in house corporate lawyer - could be a generalist that oversees these and lots of other corporate legal issues and hires specialists at firms when needed
All there are others that are even more niche. I started my career at a big NYC firm that had 6 corporate (non-litigation) departments. I've never stepped into court and I'm now General Counsel (lead internal lawyer) at my second company.
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Desiree’s Answer

I'd add some more to Joshua's answer (which are really sub-categories under one -or more- of the those he lists):
Class Action Lawyer
Civil Rights Lawyer
Animal Rights Lawyer
Environmental (Govnt., Compliance and/or Toxic Tort) lawyer
Entertainment/Sports Lawyer
Immigration Lawyer
Intellectual Property (IP) Lawyer
(Data) Privacy Lawyer
Elder Care Lawyer
Health Care Lawyer
Medical (or Legal!) Malpractice lawyer
Merger & Acquisition lawyer
Anti-Trust lawyer
Anti Bribery/Corruption (ABC) Lawyer
Tax lawyer
Charity/Private Foundation lawyer
Workers' Compensation Lawyer
Bankruptcy Lawyer
And there are attorneys out there that serve really niche roles -- e.g., protecting the NASA logo/brand in movies, advising on marketing of alcoholic beverages, asserting claims to shipwreck treasure discovered by scuba divers. For almost every career you can think of, there is some sort of corresponding legal job.

Their careers look different in a few ways: (1) Clients: depending on the role, your client could be a person/persons, a company/companies or the government (at a federal, state, local or tribal level). And over the course of your career, this could change, for instance you can start at a law firm then go in-house with a company, you can clerk for a judge then go to a law firm, you can move from a small firm to larger firm, etc. (2) Litigation: in some roles you'd be expected to practice before a court (judge, sometimes jury), but in others you are more focused on advisory roles, contracts/documentation, negotiation. This could also impact how your paid: salary versus contingency (where lawyers are paid % of their clients winning verdict, after costs, should they win). (3) Salaries: different types of law have different pay scales. You can research this further on-line if you pick a few areas of the law that interest you!

Desiree recommends the following next steps:

Think about a few areas of practice that interest you, then research them online for more information (salary, cities where such lawyers are in demand, etc.)
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