- The legal system affects nearly every aspect of our society, from buying a home to crossing the street.
- Lawyers form the backbone of this system, linking it to society in numerous ways. They hold positions of great responsibility and are obligated to adhere to a strict code of ethics.
- Lawyers, also called attorneys, act as both advocates and advisors in our society. As advocates, they represent one of the parties in criminal and civil trials by presenting evidence and arguing in court to support their client.
- As advisors, lawyers counsel their clients about their legal rights and obligations and suggest particular courses of action in business and personal matters.
- Whether acting as an advocate or an advisor, all attorneys research the intent of laws and judicial decisions and apply the law to the specific circumstances faced by their clients.
- The more detailed aspects of a lawyer’s job depend upon his or her field of specialization and position. Although all lawyers are licensed to represent parties in court, some appear in court more frequently than others.
- Trial lawyers spend the majority of their time outside the courtroom, conducting research, interviewing clients and witnesses, and handling other details in preparation for a trial.
- Lawyers may specialize in a number of areas, such as bankruptcy, probate, international, elder, or environmental law.
- Those specializing in, for example, environmental law may represent interest groups, waste disposal companies, or construction firms in their dealings with governments agencies.
- These lawyers help clients prepare and file for licenses and applications for approval before certain activities are permitted to occur.
- Some lawyers specialize in the growing field of intellectual property, helping to protect clients’ claims to copyrights, artwork under contract, product designs, and computer programs.
- Other lawyers advise insurance companies about the legality of insurance transactions, guiding the company in writing insurance policies to conform to the law and to protect the companies from unwarranted claims.
- When claims are filed against insurance companies, these attorneys review the claims and represent the companies in court.
- Most lawyers are in private practice, concentrating on criminal or civil law.
- In criminal law, lawyers represent individuals who have been charged with crimes and argue their cases in courts of law.
- Attorneys dealing with civil law assist clients with litigation, wills, trusts, contracts, mortgages, titles, and leases. Other lawyers handle only public-interest cases—civil or criminal—concentrating on particular causes and choosing cases that might have an impact on the way law is applied.
- Lawyers sometimes are employed full time by a single client. If the client is a corporation, the lawyer is known as “house counsel” and usually advises the company concerning legal issues related to its business activities.
- These issues might involve patents, government regulations, contracts with other companies, property interests, or collective-bargaining agreements with unions.
- A significant number of attorneys are employed at the various levels of government. Some work for government attorneys general, prosecutors, and public defenders in criminal courts.
- Government lawyers also help develop programs, draft and interpret laws and legislation, establish enforcement procedures, and argue civil and criminal cases on behalf of the government.
- Other lawyers work for legal aid societies—private, non-profit organizations established to serve disadvantaged people. These lawyers generally handle civil, rather than criminal, cases.
- Lawyers are increasingly using various forms of technology to perform more efficiently.
- Although all lawyers continue to use law libraries to prepare cases, most supplement conventional printed sources with computer sources, such as the Internet and legal databases.
- In litigation involving many supporting documents, lawyers may use computers to organize and index materials.
- Lawyers must be geographically mobile and able to reach their clients in a timely matter, so they might use electronic filing, Web and videoconferencing, mobile electronic devices, and voice-recognition technology to share information more effectively.
- Growth in the population and in the level of business activity is expected to create more legal transactions, civil disputes, and criminal cases.
- Job growth among lawyers also will result from increasing demand for legal services in such areas as healthcare, intellectual property, bankruptcy, corporate and security litigation, antitrust law, and environmental law.
- However, growth in demand for lawyers will be constrained as businesses increasingly use large accounting firms and paralegals to perform some of the same functions that lawyers do. For example, accounting firms may provide employee-benefit counselling, process documents, or handle various other services previously performed by a law firm.
- Also, mediation and dispute resolution are increasingly being used as alternatives to litigation.
- Job growth for lawyers will continue to be concentrated in salaried jobs as businesses and all levels of government employ a growing number of staff attorneys.
- The number of self-employed lawyers is expected to grow slowly, reflecting the difficulty of establishing a profitable new practice in the face of competition from larger, established law firms.
- Moreover, the growing complexity of the law, which encourages specialization, along with the cost of maintaining up-to-date legal research materials, favours larger firms.
- Competition for job openings should continue to be keen because of the large number of students graduating from law school each year.
- Graduates with superior academic records from highly regarded law schools will have the best job opportunities.
- Perhaps as a result of competition for attorney positions, lawyers are increasingly finding work in less traditional areas for which legal training is an asset, but not normally a requirement—for example, administrative, managerial, and business positions in banks, insurance firms, real estate companies, government agencies, and other organizations.
- As in the past, some graduates may have to accept positions outside of their field of interest or for which they feel overqualified.
- Job opportunities often are adversely affected by cyclical swings in the economy. During recessions, demand declines for some discretionary legal services, such as planning estates, drafting wills, and handling real estate transactions.
- Also, corporations are less likely to litigate cases when declining sales and profits restrict their budgets.
- Some corporations and law firms will not hire new attorneys until business improves, and these establishments may even cut staff to contain costs.
- Several factors, however, mitigate the overall impact of recessions on lawyers; during recessions, for example, individuals and corporations face other legal problems, such as bankruptcies, foreclosures, and divorces—all requiring legal action.
Legal training is necessary in many other occupations, including Judges, magistrates, and other judicial workers; Law clerks; Paralegals and legal assistants; Title examiners, abstractors and searchers.
- BA in Law plus passing a written bar examination
This career information is drawn from data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.