College is the perfect time to figure out what you want to do with your life and what your true passions are. However, once you’ve picked the field in which you want to work, there’s usually still more deciding to do. Especially when the area you want to work in is very general, like medicine or business, it takes a little more effort on your part to find out what specific part of that industry interests you and will make a good career for you. So if you’re decided that law is the way you want to go, here are three tips to help you decide which area of law you should practice.
Experience All You Can Before Choosing
The best way to know what you enjoy and what you’ll want to stay involved in for years after you’ve started your career is to get some experience in that area before you have to fully commit. To do this, Josh Richman, a contributor to The Guardian, recommends that you take advantage of things like placement programs, job shadowing, internships, volunteer work, and more to get you as much experience can you can. If you’re able to have a handful of these types of work experience, you’ll be able to get a good feel for various parts of the law field and better be able to tell what you’ll actually want to do with your law degree.
Look Beyond Opportunity and Salary
As you get closer and closer to graduation, you may start to worry about actually being able to get a job and support yourself. While this things are important, it’s equally important that you don’t wind up wasting all the time and effort you put into going to law school by picking a practice that you don’t enjoy and get burnt out on in just a few short years. To keep this from happening to you, FindLaw.com advises that you look beyond just what areas have the most opportunity to get a job and can offer you the largest salary. In the grand scheme of things, there’s a lot that will end up being more important to you than these two things.
Consider How You Handle Conflict
When most people think of lawyers, they picture someone who spends all day arguing. And while this is a part of what a lawyer does, the practice you choose will play a big role in determining how much arguing you’ll really be doing. So before you pick a practice, Alison Monahan, a contributor to The Balance Careers, suggests that you really think about how much you like to argue. Arguing all day can quickly become very exhausting. So if this isn’t something you enjoy and are passionate about, consider picking a practice that requires less of this and more of the other tasks that lawyers excel at.
If you’re concerned about picking the right law to practice, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you make the best choice for you.
