How to Become a Lawyer

Law is the science and art of justice enforced by the government or social systems to deal with crime, business agreements, and social relationships. Being a lawyer, you must be aware of not only the laws of the land but also the culture and hierarchy of society and a basic idea regarding human psychology. A lawyer is respected in society as he is the one who could bring balance in any given society.

How to Become a Lawyer?

To become a lawyer, a candidate should be 10+2 pass from a recognized educational board. The minimum age to enroll in L.L.B is 20 years while the maximum age is 30 years. Candidates need to think before they choose their career as a lawyer because becoming a powerful lawyer is not an easy task. To become a lawyer is very simple, but to continue as a successful lawyer is tough. Because as a lawyer one should require a lot of patience, hard work and dynamism in their profession. Aspiring candidates must have technology Skills, listening and comprehensive, patience, business management, written and verbal communication, and logical thinking in order to become a successful lawyer. 

Steps to Become a Lawyer

Let us have a look at the following steps to know how to become a lawyer.

• To become a successful lawyer, candidates must obtain an undergraduate degree with a GPA above 3.0.
• An aspirant needs to have a degree in maths or a technical science such as computer science, electrical engineering, chemistry, or biology in order to appear in the patent bar as well as the bar that requires maths or technical science degree.
• Candidates must clear the LSAT Exam to get admission into the law school.
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a candidate needs a legal education that culminates with a law degree to take the bar exam. 
• Admission to law school is selective because law schools have their own requirements for admission and graduation.
• Before writing the Bar exam, aspiring students must write and pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE).
• After the MPRE exam, candidates have to appear for the BAR exam, which is the final stage of the exam to become a lawyer.

Duties of a Lawyer

Candidates who wish to become a lawyer must be aware of the following duties.

• As a lawyer, you will be attending court hearings with prior preparation, drawing up contracts and legal documents
• Explaining the law and giving general legal advice, settling disputes, and supervising agreements
• You will be responsible for researching and gathering evidence, analyzing legal documents, and supervising legal assistants
• Handling cases like a diplomat
• Backing up with accusations with evidence
• Defending and Prosecuting
• Heeding to the Plaintiff's demands and requests

Jobs for Lawyers

After becoming a lawyer, a candidate needs to work in any of the following capacities:

• Private practice
• The district attorney or prosecuting attorney
• Public defender
• Legislative drafter
• Law professor
• Non-profit, charity attorney
• Advocacy and lobbying for a client
• Advocacy and lobbying for a charity on behalf of underrepresented groups
• The judge in the judicial system
• Administrative law judge
• Magistrate
• Research assistant for a judge
• In-house counsel for a corporation
• Attorney for a government agency

Lawyer Qualities

A lawyer must have the following qualities in order to succeed in his carrier.

• Communication skills
• Ability to make judgments
• Analytical skills
• Research skills
• People skills
• Perseverance
• Creativity based skills

Importance of Lawyer

A lawyer needs to have his client's best interests including reimbursements, negotiations. He will help an individual to find the best way to resolve a dispute or prevent one from occurring.

Legal Specialities

Lawyers have to practice in many specialities as mentioned below in order to become a successful lawyer.

• Business
• Estate planning
• Criminal law
• Appeals
• Contract law
• Worker’s compensation
• Disability/Social Security
• Personal Injury
• Family law
• Adoption
• Landlord/Tenant
• Constitutional law
• Tax law
• Administrative law
• Professional discipline

Job Growth and Career Opportunities

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), as of May 2016, there were 792,500 practicing lawyers across the United States with estimated job growth of 9% over the next 10 years.

• A lawyer may decide to build their own law firm depending on a person’s career goals and use their legal training in order to launch a political career.
• The career path for a lawyer largely depends on the attorney and their personal career goals.
• lawyers might choose academia as their focus.

Salary of a Lawyer

As a lawyer, a person will be entitled to get an annual median salary of $118,160 and an hourly mean wage of $56.81 per hour. However, this figure can vary widely depending on the attorney’s years in practice, their specialty, and their geographic location of the practice.

Types of Lawyer

Here, we have provided a list of various types of lawyers. Go through the various types of lawyers and their job responsibilities form below:

Intellectual Property lawyer

The job profile of an Intellectual Property lawyer involves protecting legal rights to inventions, designs, and artwork. A candidate should possess in scientific, engineering, or the technology-related degree to become an intellectual lawyer. Intellectual Property law protects and secures assets like personal property and real estate.

Personal Injury Lawyer

The personal injury lawyer accountable when a person gets injured physically and psychologically as the result of the misbehaving of another person. 

Bankruptcy Lawyer

The job of an bankruptcy lawyer is to help the people repay the debts to the bank who are financially weak and also not in a position to clear the loans to the banks. Bankruptcy is generally imposed by the court and then initiated to the debtor.

Family Lawyer

Family Law also called Matrimonial law deals with cases that are related to family matters and domestic relations. Divorce, Adoption, Protection orders, Child custody, Marriage dissolution come under a family lawyer.

Employment Lawyer

Both federal and state government has approved employment laws from protecting employees based on discriminatory treatment, unfair labour practices, unsafe work conditions, etc. Employment law applies when a person is entering into a job market for the first time or terminated from the firm or company.

Mergers and Acquisitions Lawyers

Mergers and Acquisitions law denotes when one company purchases another company or merging of two companies into a new entity (Merger). A merger is where two companies join and form single and continue to exist as one. Moreover, acquisitions are divided into two they are private and public.

Immigration Lawyer

An immigration lawyer has to deal with immigrating issues that are related to visa, passport, and other immigration issues.  This attorney is required when a person wants to settle abroad and the lawyer acts as a consultancy solving immigrant issues.

Criminal Lawyer

A criminal lawyer has to deal with criminal cases such as drug trafficking, thefts, extended to murder. The job of a criminal lawyer is to fight against criminals. Crimes are generally classified into two categories:

Felony: A crime is a felony when the person is charged with a high penalty than one year in jail.

Misdemeanour: A crime is a misdemeanour when the person is charged with less penalty than one year in jail.

Digital Media and Internet Lawyer

The job of a digital media and internet lawyer is to deal with the issues that are related to the website's terms and conditions also in case of piracy issues related to movies, and copyrights issues.

Medical and Malpractice Lawyer

Medical and malpractice lawyer deals with cases relating to the medical side. This law is applied when a health care practitioner does not show a reasonable, competent degree of skill when providing medical care to a patient, this law applies.

How to Choose a Law School?

As we know most law schools teach the same basic first-year courses, but from there, law schools vary considerably. Students can choose the law school that has a clinical focus or elective courses in their chosen field if they already know their chosen speciality. 

• Some law schools have generous scholarship and grant programs that can cover the cost of legal education. 
• Students can consider their financial aid package when they make a decision.

Law Course Duration

Out of numerous courses, LLB, a three-year undergraduate program is the most common Law course opted by the students. Students who complete LLB and want to pursue masters in this field can opt LLM which is masters and the duration of this program will be no more than two years. 

The duration of the LLM program also called the integrated program is five years. It is the integration of LLM and LLB.