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I have extensive business experience prior to law school so I thought I would want to practice corporate law.

In reality, I sucked at Contracts law in law school and even a bar exam. I also suck at litigation subjects (CivilPro, Evidence). So I guess that I suck at more technical stuff. I seem to be good at real estate law, torts, and IP law. I liked securities law as well.

I have been unemployed since graduation and started to wonder if I should change my focus in terms of practice areas. For instance, I haven't applied to a position in real estate, personal injury or product liability law firms.

Can anyone give me some advice? Any anecdotes?
How did you guys decide your practice area?

In my experience, there wasn't much correlation between how well I did in certain law school classes and certain practice areas. For example, in practice I noticed I was really uncomfortable with any area of law at the beginning or when doing something new, regardless of how well or poorly I did in the class.

Expand you job search and keep grinding it out. Best of luck. If I can help you with anything else or you have other questions let me know.

Anonymous User wrote:I have extensive business experience prior to law school so I thought I would want to practice corporate law.

In reality, I sucked at Contracts law in law school and even a bar exam. I also suck at litigation subjects (CivilPro, Evidence). So I guess that I suck at more technical stuff. I seem to be good at real estate law, torts, and IP law. I liked securities law as well.

I have been unemployed since graduation and started to wonder if I should change my focus in terms of practice areas. For instance, I haven't applied to a position in real estate, personal injury or product liability law firms.

Can anyone give me some advice? Any anecdotes?
How did you guys decide your practice area?

Hmm focus on getting a jerb before you ponder the positive and negatives of different practice areas.

There's no correlation between any class and any practice area hth

Capitol_Idea wrote:There's no correlation between any class and any practice area hth

I mostly agree although I don't think you can be a good trial lawyer if you suck at evidence.

OP: the harsh reality is that if you don't have a job by now, it is probably unlikely that you will have corporate law options. You might want to try to get on at a personal injury firm. The pay will be low (and might be commission-based only tbh), but it should give you some good litigation experience (unless you get on at a high-volume mill practice where you are just settling slip-and-fall nuisance cases). You gotta apply everywhere. You don't have the option to be picky right now.

You might even try to take some appointed cases from the criminal courts. Anything to get some experience. Best of luck.

There is 0 correlation between Ks and corporate law IME. However, if you've been unemployed since graduation, corporate law is not really a viable path for you. May be best for you to pursue litigation firms where you will get a lot of substantive experience (i.e. non-slip and fall PI, small-firm L&E, etc.)

A lot of people on this forum shit on Insurance defense work. But you might look into that. If you go to work for a terrible firm/employer doing insurance defense, then yes it will suck. But, there are good Insurance defense firms out there and you can get some quality hands on experience in those jobs.

SFSpartan wrote:There is 0 correlation between Ks and corporate law IME. However, if you've been unemployed since graduation, corporate law is not really a viable path for you. May be best for you to pursue litigation firms where you will get a lot of substantive experience (i.e. non-slip and fall PI, small-firm L&E, etc.)

^

All of this except replace "may be best for you" to "you should absolutely switch focus and look into litigation."

When did you graduate? If you've been unemployed for like a year why do you feel like you can be picky about the practice areas you'll get?

Law school classes have very little relevance to actual practice besides maybe some evidence stuff.

You should be looking for any job you can get imo.

contracts class for corporate work is dumb. It's a class about litigating contracts, not drafting them.

Plus corporate work isn't even really legal work. More like consulting.

Desert Fox wrote:contracts class for corporate work is dumb. It's a class about litigating contracts, not drafting them.

Plus corporate work isn't even really legal work. More like consulting.

I've never heard it put this way, "corporate work isn't even really legal work, more like consulting." But I like it and it makes a lot of sense.

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