Becoming A Lawyer: How To Choose A Niche

At the very least, everyone knows that lawyers are well-paid, represent different parties in a legal case, and really have to grind at education. However, there’s a little more to it than that! If you’re working to become a lawyer, the niche you choose can have a big impact on what your future career will be like. Here’s a brief guide to choosing the one that’s right for you.

My first piece of advice is to decide what really matters for you when it comes to your future career. All legal niches are pretty financially rewarding, but I bet you want the one you pursue to be personally rewarding as well! To pin this down, you need to be targeting work which you’ll genuinely enjoy. When you find a line of work that’s intrinsically rewarding, rather than one where you’re thinking about a big juicy paycheck, you’ll be all set! You should also think about which niche suits you best based on your own skills and traits. What makes a lawyer a top accident lawyer is completely different to what it takes to work in a criminal practice.

Once you’ve got your priorities in order, you can work on actually selecting a specific niche to go into. There are a few important considerations you should take at this point in the process. First of all, narrow down your choice to a handful of industries, such as banking and finance, intellectual property, or personal injury law. Then, within that niche, you should try to find out how much revenue you stand to make, and the best way of attracting those affluent clients. It’s also a good idea to have some kind of spin on the services you offer. For example, some firms advertise that their lawyers are bilingual, or that they deal with complex litigation turned down by other lawyers. By doing your homework on these three areas, you’ll have a great start to your practice.

Finally, before you settle on your specialization, you should have a look at the kinds of lawyer which are popular in the area you’re going to be working in. Some geographical areas have barely any accident cases, and criminal law cases which are through the roof. In others, it’s the opposite situation. Although you may have your heart set on one particular niche, setting up a certain practice could be a way of shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t think things through. If you really don’t want to worry about the competition, then you could try targeting a niche that’s only just beginning to emerge. For example, all those drones you see whizzing around the sky have brought up a number of new legal disputes. This is just one of the ways technology has been changing the scope of law as we know it.

I hope these three steps bring you closer to your dream of being a lawyer. There’s a lot of choice out there, but don’t shy away from it all! Choose a niche that’s right for you, and everything else will fall into place.