Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade Forum

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ThomasLocke

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Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by ThomasLocke » Sun Jul 14, 2019 11:08 pm

Trying to brainstorm: What are the practice areas that might be small today but that might make sense to get in early on? And what are the ones to avoid because they’re getting phased out?

Blockchain and Fintech strike me as two up and comers, but hard to know if it’s more noise than anything. I see a few firms that have AI practices starting too. Privacy strikes me as another that might be valuable moving forward. And of course there’s always IP but that’s already well known.

On the flip side my sense is that practices like Trusts and Estates are getting phased out of big law. Labor and Employment is in a bad way too I think. Anything else come to mind?
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sev

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by sev » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:10 pm

Blockchain is not and and probably will not be a true practice area. Blockchain is a type of database--not a technology in and of itself--so although it's applications will certainly have ripple effects on privacy and securities law, you're not going to see "blockchain attorneys" ten years from now.

Seconding your thoughts on privacy and data breach response, however.

What firms do you know that have AI practices?

Flarmanarnar

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by Flarmanarnar » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:22 pm

Honestly, litigation is dying and has been for a while - unless you do some useful litigation (like patent), I would stay away from that. Agree with the above though that Blockchain probably won't be that big tbh.
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nealric

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by nealric » Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:52 am

Flarmanarnar wrote:Honestly, litigation is dying and has been for a while - unless you do some useful litigation (like patent), I would stay away from that. Agree with the above though that Blockchain probably won't be that big tbh.
Even patent lit is not necessarily doing all that great as courts seem to be giving shorter shrift to patent trolls. That said, lit can still be very lucrative in the right niche - look at firms like Quinn and Sussman.

Also agree that blockchain in and of itself won't really be much of a practice area. I'm sure blockchain-related enterprises will need legal support, however. Privacy will likely grow in importance, especially after the $5 billion Facebook fine - which almost certainly won't be the last of its type.

Outside of biglaw, I would also suggest elder law is likely to grow as the population ages.

I sometimes wonder about tax (my own practice area). On one hand, there will always be taxes, and there will always be parties that seek to minimize them. On the other hand, it is entirely possible for the tax code to change in ways that greatly reduce the benefit of tax attorneys and reduce tax planning to mostly a modeling exercise. The TCJA was a step in that direction. While it greatly complicated the Code as applied to multinational corporations (benefit to tax attorneys), it also shifted a lot of the planning towards modeling as opposed to transaction planning. Corporate controversy work seems to be in general decline as public companies are much less likely to take aggressive positions that could lead to litigation than they were 20 years ago due to more stringent disclosure rules (FIn 48, etc.) and IRS programs like CAP (which audit taxpayers in real-time rather than many years later).

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totesTheGoat

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by totesTheGoat » Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:14 am

Blockchain is a buzzword, not a practice area.

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Elston Gunn

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by Elston Gunn » Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:56 am

totesTheGoat wrote:Blockchain is a buzzword, not a practice area.
It’s not a practice area, but I think people in this thread are giving slightly short shrift to the amount of legal work it’s generating at least at the moment. A lot of companies are doing blockchain related stuff and need advice, whether from a commercial, SEC, CFTC, AML or prudential regulation perspective. Whether you think this will continue to grow depends to a large degree on whether you believe the technology is actually all that valuable. (I’m skeptical.) Also, as my list suggests, it will be a very rare attorney who has expertise in all those areas. But if it’s use keeps growing, there are a ton of legal issues implicated.

Certainly agree about privacy, especially as this is an area that is seriously in flux at the state level, and the one substantive area that seems reasonably likely to see major federal reform in the next few years (which I expect would include, at minimum, expanded enforcement authority for the FTC).

More of a speculative one, but I think there’s a good chance you’ll see a renaissance of the antitrust area. Aggressive antitrust enforcement is a big thing on the left right now, and an area where a president mostly doesn’t need Congress.

I’m a DC-lawyer, so this is all mostly about government-facing practices. I’m sure there are other practices that will see much bigger booms that I know nothing about.

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totesTheGoat

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by totesTheGoat » Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:17 am

I agree that blockchain implicates various areas of the law, but that's no different than any other widely adopted technology. You could replace the word "blockchain" with one of a number of other techy buzzwords and they'd implicate a similar set of practice areas.

To address OP's premise, it's not worth becoming a blockchain expert in the hopes that one day you'll become the pre-eminent scholar on blockchain law. 1) the law doesn't really interact with the details of the technology all that much; 2) in the few areas where point 1 is wrong, blockchain isn't so hard to learn that you couldn't pick it up on the fly; and 3) if it's not blockchain, then it'll be something else. There's always some tech utopian buzzword flitting around making work for lawyers.

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Elston Gunn

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by Elston Gunn » Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:39 am

That’s true, though the tech-utopian trendiness of it is a big part of why there’s so much work (ie you’ve got a lot of people raising money for their silly blockchain/cryptocurrency project etc who need to hire a lawyer). But yes, certainly true that OP shouldn’t set out to become an “blockchain attorney.” A financial services attorney that focuses on tech issues though? Possibly a different story.

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by FND » Sat Jan 11, 2020 3:07 pm

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned it, but, cannabis law is a growing practice area, and it's moving from the realm of the solo into respectable regional firms. Only a matter of time before it hits biglaw too (if it hasn't already)

I've also seen the crypto-currency field grow in size and respectability. This plays into the earlier discussion on block-chain. Block-chain itself isn't a practice area, but it does affect a lot of different practice areas.

I don't see any particular practice area dying, but there are some sub-specialties that have really shrunk over the past decade.

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trebekismyhero

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by trebekismyhero » Tue Jan 14, 2020 4:23 pm

FND wrote:I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned it, but, cannabis law is a growing practice area, and it's moving from the realm of the solo into respectable regional firms. Only a matter of time before it hits biglaw too (if it hasn't already)

I've also seen the crypto-currency field grow in size and respectability. This plays into the earlier discussion on block-chain. Block-chain itself isn't a practice area, but it does affect a lot of different practice areas.

I don't see any particular practice area dying, but there are some sub-specialties that have really shrunk over the past decade.
+1 on cannabis. I have friends at AmLaw 200 firms that are working on it now and really busy. I think as soon as banks are able to accept cannabis money, you'll see all the big firms get involved.

objctnyrhnr

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by objctnyrhnr » Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:54 pm

Can somebody substantiate the claim that litigation is gradually dying? People have been fighting over money, rights, etc. since the beginning of time. Whether it’s in an arbitration or a court setting, it’s still litigation.

What’s the basis for saying it’s gradually dying? People just getting friendlier and more congenial?

QContinuum

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by QContinuum » Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:29 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:Can somebody substantiate the claim that litigation is gradually dying? People have been fighting over money, rights, etc. since the beginning of time. Whether it’s in an arbitration or a court setting, it’s still litigation.

What’s the basis for saying it’s gradually dying? People just getting friendlier and more congenial?
I haven't seen hard data, but the rumours I've heard have it that big companies are not as into taking each other to court these days as they used to be. They apparently prefer to settle early for increased business certainty, and to avoid wasting money on legal fees. So the disputes are still there and still come up, they just get resolved more through negotiation than through judicial fiat after a full-blown trial. Of course, litigators handle the negotiations, but there's much less billable hours involved in negotiating an early settlement than prepping for and going to trial.

And for patent litigation in particular, trolls aren't as much of a problem as they used to be, apparently.

Obviously small-firm litigation won't ever go away, not while we still have the rule of law anyway. You'll always have the divorces, the neighbor disputes, the personal injury cases, the inheritance disputes, what have you.

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nealric

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by nealric » Thu Jan 16, 2020 11:39 am

objctnyrhnr wrote:Can somebody substantiate the claim that litigation is gradually dying? People have been fighting over money, rights, etc. since the beginning of time. Whether it’s in an arbitration or a court setting, it’s still litigation.

What’s the basis for saying it’s gradually dying? People just getting friendlier and more congenial?
I wouldn't say it's dying, just not the cash cow it used to be for biglaw. A few reasons:

1) Discovery costs have gone down due to automation and less willingness generally to get drawn into massive discovery battles. It used to be every large case involved dozens of temps sifting through boxes of papers, or later looking at every email ever sent by anybody who touched the matter. Automation and better software have culled that task considerably, and companies have wised up on firms charging $300/hr for temps they were paying $50/hr.

2) Arbitration provisions are routine, and courts have been very favorable towards enforcing them (even for contracts of adhesion). Arbitration has a lot of features of litigation, but pared down to save costs (lower legal fees for firms).

3) GCs have wised up to the risk/reward of settlement. If you win a big case as a defendant, nobody really cares- it's just business as usual. You might even still get dinged for running up the legal bills. If you lose a big case, it's a disaster, especially if you had previously told management there was nothing to worry about. Far better to negotiate a quick settlement and get the case off your plate.

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Re: Practice areas that will be growing/dying in the next decade

Post by JacksonEsq1 » Sat Jan 30, 2021 12:34 pm

objctnyrhnr wrote:
Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:54 pm
Can somebody substantiate the claim that litigation is gradually dying? People have been fighting over money, rights, etc. since the beginning of time. Whether it’s in an arbitration or a court setting, it’s still litigation.

What’s the basis for saying it’s gradually dying? People just getting friendlier and more congenial?

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