What practice areas, if any, are able to be self-taught Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have some experience in corporate work but want to change my practice area. I only do this solo part-time, so not looking to get into anything huge.

What practice areas can I change into, both within the corporate field and outside of it? My goal is to basically start a solo side practice/hustle (small assignments on the side, such as upwork), rather than create a firm.

For example, I was interested in some low level real estate transactional work, but I'm not sure if my general corporate experience + some self-training would be sufficient.

I hear some areas in civil litigation and estate planning are easy to get into. However, are these areas possible to dabble in with absolutely no experience?

Any other practice areas?

[HarrisonK]

I can't answer your question fully, but I can tell you that lower level real estate (residential real estate closings, some commercial real estate closings, and some land use issues) is fairly easy to learn on your own. Residential real estate closing can be handled by title companies in NJ and should be fairly easy for someone like you to pick up. Land use work can also be fairly easy to pick up at least to the extent that you're applying for a run-of-the-mill variance or subdivision. Within the realm of real estate, you might also want to look into foreclosure work. I don't know much about it other than I have a family member who is an IP litigator and does foreclosure on the side (self taught, side hustle, busy work type stuff).

You can also look into probate work. For example, guardianship proceedings (at least in NJ) are not that difficult to learn and are often unopposed (at least from what I've seen in NJ).

However, I would suggest you stay away from estate planning if you plan to do anything more than drafting a simple will. Estate planning is very complex especially with respect to family/business succession planning, estate and trust taxation, and generation skipping taxation. There are many moving parts in estate planning that have repercussions on each other. Without a full understanding of estate planning I'd stay away (and I say this as someone with an LLM, an interest in estate planning, and close family who have been dealing with estate planning issues for 40+ years).

[2013]

I can't answer your question fully, but I can tell you that lower level real estate (residential real estate closings, some commercial real estate closings, and some land use issues) is fairly easy to learn on your own. Residential real estate closing can be handled by title companies in NJ and should be fairly easy for someone like you to pick up. Land use work can also be fairly easy to pick up at least to the extent that you're applying for a run-of-the-mill variance or subdivision. Within the realm of real estate, you might also want to look into foreclosure work. I don't know much about it other than I have a family member who is an IP litigator and does foreclosure on the side (self taught, side hustle, busy work type stuff).

You can also look into probate work. For example, guardianship proceedings (at least in NJ) are not that difficult to learn and are often unopposed (at least from what I've seen in NJ).

However, I would suggest you stay away from estate planning if you plan to do anything more than drafting a simple will. Estate planning is very complex especially with respect to family/business succession planning, estate and trust taxation, and generation skipping taxation. There are many moving parts in estate planning that have repercussions on each other. Without a full understanding of estate planning I'd stay away (and I say this as someone with an LLM, an interest in estate planning, and close family who have been dealing with estate planning issues for 40+ years).

Estate planning requires you to know trust and ERISA law. I don’t think either can really be self-taught.

[nealric]

I don't think the barrier to self teaching is complexity per-se, but practice areas where there's a lot of insider knowledge. It's impossible to competently advise on a lot of matters if you have no idea what market terms look like.

Of course you can teach yourself a lot of simpler general practice type matters. Settling small auto accidents and slip and falls can be done without much knowledge (though lack of market knowledge will still hurt you).

[FND]

However, I would suggest you stay away from estate planning if you plan to do anything more than drafting a simple will. Estate planning is very complex especially with respect to family/business succession planning, estate and trust taxation, and generation skipping taxation. There are many moving parts in estate planning that have repercussions on each other. Without a full understanding of estate planning I'd stay away (and I say this as someone with an LLM, an interest in estate planning, and close family who have been dealing with estate planning issues for 40+ years).

Thank you! Finally someone who gets it.

Estate planning requires you to know trust and ERISA law. I don’t think either can really be self-taught.

Don't' forget tax.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of attorneys who dabble in estate planning, or are self-taught. Yes, a basic will is pretty easy. Yes, you can buy form documents for fairly complex trusts. But there's a lot more to it than that. The documents are actually the easy part, knowing what to do is a much bigger issue, and a tiny mistake can have huge repercussions.

On top of that, it's a completely different skill set. From my point of view, the hardest part is getting the client to disclose all the relevant information. Will the client tell you that their son is a drug addict? Does he/she even know that their daughter is about to get divorced? What about the two children who will be taking over the family business - do they really get along as well as mommy & daddy think, and do they really contribute equally, or is one child carrying the other?
Oh, and don't get me started on farmers and their love of the land that their great grand pappy stole from the injuns back in them thar days.

On the other hand, for those who hated the rule against perpetuity, rejoice! I absolutely refuse to let anyone create an estate plan that would even touch on it (let along go past it, as more and more states allow). And after explaining why, I've never had a single client go elsewhere over this.

[FND]

I don't want to talk shit on any particular practice group, and no matter what I try to think of, I can't really recommend anything.

For example, my understanding is that uncontested divorces are fairly straightforward, but there's always a chance that they devolve into a shitshow, and you got to be prepared to handle full-blown litigation there. Likewise, low-level immigration used to be a matter of knowing the system and getting all the paperwork together, but with the current administration,

[Anonymous User]

Employment law.

I practiced it for a few years and it is the same stuff over and over and over. The law is simple, the facts are usually straightforward, and 99% of cases are assumed to settle from the get go.

Part of the reason I disliked the practice was because it was so intellectually boring. Nearly all of my cases settled within 6-12 months, and we’d be done with discovery within a few months and just trying to negotiate settlement from there on.