Choosing Practice Areas Forum

[sweetfrenchtoast]

0L here completely getting ahead of [him/her]self.

I've read here that when going through OCI, interviewers know that interviewees typically have no idea what practice areas they're interested in. Nevertheless, I assume you have to at least BS an interest in a number of fields. Given that you don't have much room for exploration during 1L, how do people develop these "interests" (or at least BS answers). Barring work experience (lots of PI stuff here; nothing corporate), how do people prove or develop interest (even if minor) in certain areas before practicing without succumbing to cliches about the area? I'm assuming a wikipedia-knowledge of the area does not suffice.

[JamMasterJ]

0L here completely getting ahead of [him/her]self.

I've read here that when going through OCI, interviewers know that interviewees typically have no idea what practice areas they're interested in. Nevertheless, I assume you have to at least BS an interest in a number of fields. Given that you don't have much room for exploration during 1L, how do people develop these "interests" (or at least BS answers). Barring work experience (lots of PI stuff here; nothing corporate), how do people prove or develop interest (even if minor) in certain areas before practicing without succumbing to cliches about the area? I'm assuming a wikipedia-knowledge of the area does not suffice.

Read through the Chambers and Partners descriptions of the different practice areas you hear about, try to figure out enough to at least have questions to ask, go to firm events and if you find yourself talking to people in those areas, try to ask those questions and you start to get a little bit of a basic understanding of the work they do, what their day's look like, etc.