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So I was wondering what people's opinions are of the consumer protection law and employment and labor law fields. What are the pros/cons, pay, typical employers, advancement opportunities, growth of the markets, etc?

I worked as a consultant with a focus in consumer protection regulations for two years prior to law school. I enjoyed knowing I was helping consumers and being able to use my business/Econ background, but I was doing a lot of auditing and process designs for huge financial institutions which was boring. I also have experience in employment and labor (labor negotiations, eeoc investigations) and I enjoyed working with normal people (as oppose to banks). The topics were things I cared about and enjoyed, but I found it easier and that it required less business acumen.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out which of the two areas I should pursue, but it's hard when I don't know much about the legal practice of either and both are kind of uncommon to pursue.

smile0751 wrote:So I was wondering what people's opinions are of the consumer protection law and employment and labor law fields. What are the pros/cons, pay, typical employers, advancement opportunities, growth of the markets, etc?

I worked as a consultant with a focus in consumer protection regulations for two years prior to law school. I enjoyed knowing I was helping consumers and being able to use my business/Econ background, but I was doing a lot of auditing and process designs for huge financial institutions which was boring. I also have experience in employment and labor (labor negotiations, eeoc investigations) and I enjoyed working with normal people (as oppose to banks). The topics were things I cared about and enjoyed, but I found it easier and that it required less business acumen.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out which of the two areas I should pursue, but it's hard when I don't know much about the legal practice of either and both are kind of uncommon to pursue.

Nearly all the plaintiff's side consumer protection lawyers I know are just churning out low-level cases based on meaningless technical violations of FDCPA, FCRA, etc. Envision a career suing over junk mail and settling for $5k a pop.

Anonymous User wrote:

smile0751 wrote:So I was wondering what people's opinions are of the consumer protection law and employment and labor law fields. What are the pros/cons, pay, typical employers, advancement opportunities, growth of the markets, etc?

I worked as a consultant with a focus in consumer protection regulations for two years prior to law school. I enjoyed knowing I was helping consumers and being able to use my business/Econ background, but I was doing a lot of auditing and process designs for huge financial institutions which was boring. I also have experience in employment and labor (labor negotiations, eeoc investigations) and I enjoyed working with normal people (as oppose to banks). The topics were things I cared about and enjoyed, but I found it easier and that it required less business acumen.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out which of the two areas I should pursue, but it's hard when I don't know much about the legal practice of either and both are kind of uncommon to pursue.

Nearly all the plaintiff's side consumer protection lawyers I know are just churning out low-level cases based on meaningless technical violations of FDCPA, FCRA, etc. Envision a career suing over junk mail and settling for $5k a pop.

Yeah, or suing over Lemon Law, or warranties, yippie. My exposure (defending vehicle manufacturers) confirms this -- its a high volume, settle as many as you can as quickly as you can for nuisance value law.

I'm in consumer protection at a v25.

It's pretty awesome. most of the work we do is government enforcement - basically defending institutions against FTC, CFPB, DOJ, or class actions. Firm does indivualized bonuses, and the FLOOR for first years in my group was 20k (this year). Our practice area is incredibly hot. one case i worked on last year was defending an insitution's product that more or less caused the 2008 meltdown.

CP gets a lot better and has major national implications (personal bias admitted). Employment law is def easier to get interested in (and during law school I had brief interest in pursuing it as well) as it tends to be more immediate and require less background knowledge (don't discriminate is like 50% of it).

Low consumer protection at solo firms is another story but honestly low level commericial lit, low level employment, basically low level anything is pretty crap.

edit: and if you're interested in the actual plaintiff side of CP, go big law and then lateral to a government agency that goes after these instituions. There's a very real revolving door in the space.

Thank you! So who are most of your clients? The big banks and credit-issuing agencies? Was your background in business? How is your group's hours and amount of work compared to other groups? How did you end up choosing CP over employment?

smile0751 wrote:Thank you! So who are most of your clients? The big banks and credit-issuing agencies? Was your background in business? How is your group's hours and amount of work compared to other groups? How did you end up choosing CP over employment?

Clients really varies. I majored in Econ so I had interest in the work with big banks and thats where I generally do my work but others in the group do a ton of work for regular F500 companies.

The field is HOT right now, and all expectations are for the field to get even hotter in the next 10 years. Whether you want to work more or less is up to you and dependent on the firm - just know there's plenty to go around.

With regards to EP and CP. To me, it was a long term vs short term thing. In the short term, as a junior associate, EP is going to be more interesting because it takes a lot less to understand, cases are smaller so you can get the big picture a lot faster, and the rationales behind the law don't take alot to understand (don't discriminate). But at the higher level, I think CP is just more complex and more interesting. Also employment usually bills at a lower rate.

EP is cool too though, I actually don't mean to bash it. It's a super stable field and obviously isn't going anywhere.

edit: also, I had an econ background so there was a tangible advantage of working on the financial side of CP. Understanding how the secondary market for mortgages operates or basic principles of supply/demand and macro/micro economics goes pretty far and weeds out some competition.