How viable a career field is entertainment law? Forum

[asoularisen]

Compared to being a criminal lawyer? I've only recently gotten to contemplating law for my future career and am trying to narrow down the kind of law that I'd like to work with/could have a viable opportunity in.

I have by no means eliminated any choices right now, so am open to other suggestions, but currently am contemplating entertainment law and criminal law; a big question for me as far as the former is concerned is how viable of a career field it is, and how exactly one gets into entertainment law to begin with and what sort of limitations does a "specialization" in entertainment law bring with it.

If any part of my question is completely evident of a lack of my understanding of the process of receiving your Juris Doctorate and how one chooses a specialization in the kind of law that they will practice, I do apologize as, like I said, I have been contemplating this career path recently, and thus am not fully familiar with the system; please do correct me where it is evident that correction is necessary.

[dood]

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[asoularisen]

Compared to being a criminal lawyer? I've only recently gotten to contemplating law for my future career and am trying to narrow down the kind of law that I'd like to work with/could have a viable opportunity in.

I have by no means eliminated any choices right now, so am open to other suggestions, but currently am contemplating entertainment law and criminal law; a big question for me as far as the former is concerned is how viable of a career field it is, and how exactly one gets into entertainment law to begin with and what sort of limitations does a "specialization" in entertainment law bring with it.

If any part of my question is completely evident of a lack of my understanding of the process of receiving your Juris Doctorate and how one chooses a specialization in the kind of law that they will practice, I do apologize as, like I said, I have been contemplating this career path recently, and thus am not fully familiar with the system; please do correct me where it is evident that correction is necessary.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Entertainment_law&l=1

Yeah that wikipedia article has exactly the insights and answers that my question was asking... Oh wait, no, you're just looking for the first chance to show off your new internet trick...

[bigben]

On a scale of 1 to 100, 1 being the least viable and 100 being the most viable, I would peg its viability at a 22.

Hope this helps.

[asoularisen]

On a scale of 1 to 100, 1 being the least viable and 100 being the most viable, I would peg its viability at a 22.

Hope this helps.

To contrast, where would you peg the viability of a more "traditional" field of law, like criminal law?

[d34d9823]

On a scale of 1 to 100, 1 being the least viable and 100 being the most viable, I would peg its viability at a 22.

Hope this helps.

To contrast, where would you peg the viability of a more "traditional" field of law, like criminal law?

There's a lot of graduations in law, you can't just tag a whole field as viable or not viable. For crim law, USAO is extremely prestigious, good DA positions are fairly prestigious, good PD positions aren't bad, shitty DA/PD sucks, and being "the DUI guy" is a fucking joke.

[bigben]

On a scale of 1 to 100, 1 being the least viable and 100 being the most viable, I would peg its viability at a 22.

Hope this helps.

To contrast, where would you peg the viability of a more "traditional" field of law, like criminal law?

34.

[dood]

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[thesealocust]

tl;dr

[asoularisen]

I don't know why people are being dicks, your question is obviously very sincere.

To be blunt: The demand for criminal lawyers far, far outstrips the demand for entertainment lawyers. People who wing up working in entertainment law tend to get their because they know people, have connections, and/or had absurdly strong credentials coming out of law school. It's too small a field to realistically plan on breaking in once you get your JD. It would be like planning to be a senator - sure, ever year some people become senators, but it's not really up to you when the vacancy will open, you just have to be in the right place at the right time. To the extent that entry level positions do exist, rumor has it they tend to be "mail room" type positions you have to survive / work up from. Definitely do more research, because this forum won't be helpful on the specifics - but be advised that it isn't a very realistic career path for most people. Still, if you wind up being the one to make things stick / make it work, then more power to you.

Crim, as noted, is an enormous field. Public defenders tend to always be in demand in one form or another, every state and county and federal district has/needs prosecutors, there are high paid defense attorneys all the way up to white collar crime attorneys and specialized criminal units in DoJ looking into financial crime. Obviously some of those jobs are thus harder to get than others, but as a field you can land on your feet in crim law without getting the most prestigious job right out of law school. The same can't really be said for entertainment law.

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I'm definitely leaning very strongly to going for criminal law, but to satisfy latent thoughts/plans in my head (or put them to rest), how able is one to switch their field of law? Do they have to go through law school all over and get a new JD specializing in entertainment, or is there some specific courses you'd have to take?

[imisscollege]

search your UG alum database for anybody in the industry. then e-mail them nicely and ask about it. you'd be surprised how much you can learn this way.