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So I recently made a podcast episode where I talked about the importance of identifying practice areas of interest in networking your way to your first legal job. In this episode, I want to talk about two questions you probably should have answered when you are starting that networking process and identifying the practice area that you want. Let's talk about it.

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Welcome to Law School Decoded, the podcast that pulls back the curtain on what it's really like to succeed in law school. Let's get started.

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So I did a whole nother episode about how important it is to identify the practice areas that you're interested in before you start and as you launch your career search in law school. That is going to help you target the right people to meet, to network with the people who are doing what you want to do in the place where you want to be in a way that is going to be efficient and effective that can be really helpful to enhance your job search and to support your success in that process. In this episode, I want to talk about two questions that I think you as a law student should have answered regarding what practice area you want to work in before you start your job search. Two important questions that every law student should have answered. And if you don't have these questions answered, they're going to be something that you want to think about as you move forward and network, because the answers to these questions will help narrow the pool of people who you want to network with. Let me jump right into it by getting to the first question, because this is important and straightforward. The first question that I think you should answer before you start networking with lawyers on your way to your first legal job is Do I want to practice as a litigator or as a transactional lawyer? As a litigator or as a transactional lawyer? What do I mean by that? Well, a litigator is someone who goes to court, they may go to trial, they take depositions, they are dealing with disputes of some kind, usually in the court system or in arbitration, or maybe in front of administrative agencies. Dispute lawyers. Are you a lawyer who is going to deal with those kinds of disputes? That is what a litigator is. They fight for a living, right? They write legal briefs, they deal with legal arguments, they submit things to courts, they speak in court, they put on trials to judges and juries, they submit letters to administrative agencies about disputes that those agencies have with their clients. They are dispute managers. So that is what a litigator is. A transactional lawyer does deals. They're not going to court. They are not arguing in front of judges. They are helping parties write contracts. They are helping parties close deals. That's how I'm defining litigators and transactional lawyers. They're definitely more nuanced definitions. And some might not view the law under those two umbrellas. But I think in considering what kind of legal career you want to have, you can very easily divide lawyers into those two categories: litigators and transactional lawyers. People who manage disputes between parties that are in the court system, and people who don't do that. People who are working on business mergers and acquisitions, people who are working on drafting contracts, people who are consulting with a business on how to protect the privacy of consumers or of health data. I would consider all of those transactional practices. And there's a ton of nuance, again, within that definition. It's a very broad brush I'm painting with, but you have litigators and you have transactional lawyers. When you're in law school searching for your first job, I would suggest to you that it would be a good idea to have an answer to the question, do I want to be a litigator or do I want to be a transactional lawyer? And the reason that I think it's important to have the answer to that question is because it's going to help you determine who you need to network with and how to network. The reality is that most lawyers are either a litigator or a transactional lawyer of some kind. Most fall into one of those two buckets in the jobs that you're going to get right out of law school. Those are very different kinds of lawyers. Those are very different day-to-day lives. Transactional lawyers have no idea what to do if they were to walk into a courtroom. Litigators may have no idea how to write a contract or a term sheet to close a deal. So it's very different types of work. It's very different types of lives. Now, back in the day when every lawyer was a generalist who did everything, sure, maybe a lot of people did litigation and transactional work. And I am sure there are plenty of good lawyers out there who are doing both types. In fact, in my practice, I even do work day to day, some of which would be considered litigation and some would be considered transactional. But for most people coming out of law school, you will probably be focusing on one or the other. The day of just hanging up a shingle and helping close deals while also filing lawsuits isn't really here anymore. You have to be focused on whether you want to be a litigator or whether you want to be a transactional lawyer. And the reason it's helpful to make that decision in law school and very helpful in your job search is because most lawyers will do one or the other. So if you want to be a litigator and fighting cases in court, it may not be very useful to network with associates in the corporate transactions group of a law firm. That is probably a waste of your time because those people don't do what you want to do. You want to meet the people who can help you learn how to find a job in litigation and who can help you learn more about what it's like to be a litigator. In contrast, if you want to work on commercial contracts and drafting them, meeting a trial lawyer who's in court all the time probably isn't going to be the most efficient way to get yourself to that career. And you also don't want to go into interviews as we've talked about and say, well, I just I want to kind of try out everything. I don't know exactly what I want to do yet. I may want to be a litigator or a transactional lawyer. I don't know. Those are two different lives. Those are two different paths. It will benefit you to have an idea of which one you want to pursue on your job search because that's going to narrow the scope of the people who you want to try to meet in your individualized job market that you're going to create. And it will make you come off as more genuine and more intentional and more professional when you do meet with those people. It will help you to connect with them. So consider how to position your search for a law job by answering the question: do I want to be a litigator or do I want to be a transactional lawyer? That's the first question that I think every law student should answer very early on in your job search. Look, it is still possible that you start out wanting to be a litigator and you learn more about it and you pivot. Or you start out wanting to be a transactional lawyer and you learn more about it and you pivot and decide, I want to be a litigator. Not saying you need to sign on the dotted line and determine what you're going to do for the rest of your life right now. But the earlier you can make that determination, the easier it will be to figure out who you want to meet with and why. That's the first question I think you should have answered. The second question that I think you should have answered before you start your job search is if I want to be a litigator, do I want to be a criminal litigator or a civil litigator? Do I want to be a criminal litigator or a civil litigator? Criminal disputes, of course, are crimes. Governments prosecuting defendants who allegedly have committed crimes. Civil litigation, of course, is usually between two private parties, people or companies, typically. It's people suing over damages, people suing over breach of contract, over torts. The work of criminal lawyers is quite distinct from the work of civil litigators. They are all tremendous litigators, and it is possible to switch from one kind of litigation to another. But the reality is that the work that you will do as a litigator will be very different if you're practicing a type of civil litigation versus practicing a type of criminal litigation. The work will be quite distinct and different. So if you've decided, hey, I want to be a criminal litigator, well, you can go meet criminal attorneys and network with them on your way to a job. You probably also want to start deciding, do I want to prosecute people or do I want to defend people? Those are very different jobs. Within civil litigation, there are different types of civil litigation. Do you want to bring privacy lawsuits? Do you want to bring class actions on behalf of consumers? Do you want to defend personal injury lawsuits? Those are all specialties. However, there's a little bit more similarity between those specialties. If you can pick one and network with attorneys to do it on your way to a job, you should. You should drill down and get more granular about what your interests are so you can meet the people who do what it is that you want to do. But the fact is that you first need to decide do I want to do criminal or civil work before getting to that step. That can be very helpful to narrowing down your job search. So if you're listening to this podcast episode and you're saying, gosh, I haven't really thought about this. I don't know which of those I want to do. I don't know if I want to be a transactional attorney or a litigator. I don't know if I'm a litigator, if I wanted to be civil or criminal. I would highly suggest you work your way to the answers that are right for you. I can't answer the question for you. It's going to come down to your personal preference about what you want to do professionally with your career. But I'd highly suggest that you work your way to answers to those two questions. Once you have those, you can and should get more granular about what you want to do. You can and should try to identify specialties that you may actually want to practice. But those first two questions are threshold questions. Once you've answered those, you can get more detailed. If you don't answer those questions, your job search will be completely aimless. You will be applying to roles that lead to a completely different life depending on what you end up in. That isn't strategic. That isn't efficient. That isn't effective. So try to answer those two questions, and I hope that will help you on your journey and your search for your first legal job. Thank you so much, everybody, for joining. We will see you next time.

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That's it for today's episode of Law School Decoded. Visit us online at Lawschooldecoded.com and make sure to subscribe. Until next time, keep decoding the law one step at a time.