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Are there specific areas of practice that have increasing demand for attorneys? Are there specific areas that are shedding jobs? I've heard that with the recent economic downturn a lot of big corporations have been shredding their legal departments. I've also heard that intellectual property and patent law are growing fields. Can anyone offer any insight?

Legal outsourcing is growing exponentially. Unfortunately, many of the jobs are in India.

I don't have extensive knowledge of all (replace with "any" for accuracy) the markets but generally patent is growing (although not all kinds are created equal). Also, in the corporate world labor and employment law has done well relative to other areas. That is about all I can provide.

im not in IP this year, but based on conversations with classmates who are, i can tell you that most people looking to go into IP and have some sort of science background have had no problems finding employment - with some people finding themselves torn between two, three, or four incredibly impressive job offers. that being said, i have no idea how this fares for those students who have a liberal arts background.

I've been hearing that International Law is on the up and up.

Definitely Space Law.

On a more serious note, from what I know, labor and employment practices, and employment litigation in particular have been very consistently busy.

In all seriousness, I have heard that there's this new area of law called personal injury.

Apparently, a guaranteed path to financial success is to open a solo personal injury firm right out of law school.

OGR3 wrote:In all seriousness, I have heard that there's this new area of law called personal injury.

Apparently, a guaranteed path to financial success is to open a solo personal injury firm right out of law school.

I will actually do this if I don't get a jerb.

screwsandboalts wrote:im not in IP this year, but based on conversations with classmates who are, i can tell you that most people looking to go into IP and have some sort of science background have had no problems finding employment - with some people finding themselves torn between two, three, or four incredibly impressive job offers. that being said, i have no idea how this fares for those students who have a liberal arts background.

bolded portion is not true at all ITE

Julio_El_Chavo wrote:

screwsandboalts wrote:im not in IP this year, but based on conversations with classmates who are, i can tell you that most people looking to go into IP and have some sort of science background have had no problems finding employment - with some people finding themselves torn between two, three, or four incredibly impressive job offers. that being said, i have no idea how this fares for those students who have a liberal arts background.

bolded portion is not true at all ITE

a bit of an exaggeration but i suspect most people with hard science backgrounds at boalt are doing alright for IP work

fatduck wrote:

Julio_El_Chavo wrote:

screwsandboalts wrote:im not in IP this year, but based on conversations with classmates who are, i can tell you that most people looking to go into IP and have some sort of science background have had no problems finding employment - with some people finding themselves torn between two, three, or four incredibly impressive job offers. that being said, i have no idea how this fares for those students who have a liberal arts background.

bolded portion is not true at all ITE

a bit of an exaggeration but i suspect most people with hard science backgrounds at boalt are doing alright for IP work

agreed, but boalt is better than 90+% of other law schools, especially for IP