kukululu

What types of lawyers are there? And which one earns the most money?

heelate

Types of Attorneys:

1. Corporate Law Attorney: basically you draft/proofread documents such as contracts, M and A documents, and other paper work. You don’t really get to go into courts, but you will love it if you love drafting/editing contracts.
2. Civil Litigation: it's broad, but here I mean people who just do lawsuits between people and not between government and people. For example, those class action against big corporations, that’s civil litigation.
3. Criminal Litigation: go into courts for stuff like homicide or drugs
4. Immigration: most of the time you are filling out application and represent immigrants in front of court houses.
5. Labor Law: either defend the big corp or defend the single individual
6. Patent Attorney: you need to major in either computer or science/engineering in college, pass the patent bar and pass the general bar exam for this. Then you get to register patent/copyright/trademark and defend those who are being infringed.
7. International Attorney: if you practice law that concerns with 2 countries or more, then you are an international attorney. However, they are mostly just another form of corporate attorneys. You will be dealing with a lot of Securities and Investment related law, M and A between 2 international corporations, and tax regulations. So if you are thinking weekends in Bali Island = International Attorney, think again.


and who makes the most money?
In general, if you can get into a big law firm, then you can make a lot of money. As of 2007, some of the biggest law firms in NYC actually pay more than 160,000 for first year associate. However, that means long hours, stellar performance during your 1L, and lack of personal satisfaction for many. Since big firms work for big corporations, laws required by big corporations are needed more so than the others. Recently, Patent Attorneys and Corporate Law Attorneys are asked for more than the others. The key is, no matter what you practice, if you can get into a big law firm, then that usually means big money. So try to be the top 10 of your class during the first year of your law school.

Source:www.abanet.org