Legal Careers

Legal Career Opportunities

Law Offers Numerous Career Choices

By Sally Kane
Updated June 05, 2017

It's been said that for as long as there have been people, people have needed lawyers or at
least they occasionally need someone to provide legal services and defend their rights in disputes
or when they've stepped afoul of the law. The legal industry has traditionally thrived and it is a
great option when you're choosing a career.

Plenty of jobs exist within the legal field to choose from. The delivery of legal services is a
complex process that typically requires teams of skilled professionals to provide quality and
cost-effective service.

As a result, the legal field offers numerous career options encompassing a diverse range of skills,
experience, and education. Developments in the law and technology have also created new legal
career opportunities.

Below is a list of popular legal and law-related careers.

Core Legal Careers

Lawyer: Also called an attorney or counselor or a solicitor or barrister in parts of

Europe a lawyer advocates for his clients' rights. He may do this through negotiation
with other parties to a lawsuit or through litigation. He effectively steers the ship. The
failure or success of a firm begins with the abilities of its lawyers.
Paralegal: This person serves as the lawyer's right hand. A paralegal takes over certain
tasks in order to free up the attorney's time so he can take care of things that only an
attorney can do, such as appear in court or give legal advice. Paralegals may draft
pleadings, assists clients and do legal research under the supervision of the attorney.

Legal Secretary: Also called an administrative assistant, this position entails less
responsibility than a paralegal but often more than the average secretarial role.
Responsibilities include the normal sphere of secretarial duties in addition to things like
file maintenance and drafting basic correspondence, such as letters to clients notifying
them of upcoming court dates.

Legal Assistant: Both paralegals and legal secretary may sometimes be referred to as
legal assistants.

Careers in Legal and Administrative Support

Compliance Specialist: This employee implements and oversees corporate compliance

with applicable laws and policies, both locally and at the federal level. The position may
include training employees in compliance procedures.
Conflicts Analyst: A conflicts analyst fills a delicate role within a law firm. He
researches potential conflicts of interest between firm personnel and parties involved in a
case, including judicial staff. Maintaining a high level of confidentiality can be critical.

Legal Recruiter: This position does not involve working within a law firm. A legal
recruiter provides his clients typically law firms with potential employees, usually
attorneys but sometimes paralegals as well. A Juris Doctor degree may be required.
Court Messenger: This is the guy or gal on the go, responsible for making
deliveries of documents and other evidence to courts and to other attorneys.

IT Careers in Litigation Support

Litigation Support Professional: This job can require both tech savvy and an
understanding of the law. A litigation support professional works with software and
applications to integrating client information and manage case data that's crucial to
litigation.

E-Discovery Professional: This role is similar to that of a litigation support professional

but mostly focuses on discovery the exchange of information pertinent to a case
between the courts and parties to a lawsuit rather than the totality of a case file.
Discovery is being condensed into electronic storage mediums more and more in the
millennium.
Document Coder: This is largely a data entry position. The coder maintains a system to
identify and access the various documents in a case file. It's typically an entry level
position in IT litigation support.

Careers in the Courtroom

Judge: The judge oversees trials, pretrial conferences, pretrial rulings and, in some cases,
appeals. This a public sector position. He may be appointed or elected. His overall job is
to interpret and apply the law.

Magistrate: Not all states make use of magistrates. These are "junior" judges or judicial
officers who are entrusted with minor cases and disputes to take some of the weight of
caseloads off judges.
Law Clerk: Law clerks are to judges what paralegals are to attorneys their right
hands. They're often law school graduates who have not yet applied to bar, but they may
be new, young attorneys just getting their feet wet as well. It's a prestigious entry on a

resume. Law clerks manage the judges' case files and do research, drafting condensed
reports on filed documents as guidelines the judge doesn't have to read the entire
bulging case file to get a handle on what the matter involves.
Mediator: Also called an arbitrator or conciliator, a mediator handles alternative dispute
resolution or ADR, which many states require before a civil lawsuit can proceed to trial.
The mediator meets with and attempts to guide opposing parties to compromise or
settlement. He doesn't "represent" either side and may or may not be an employee of the
government.

Careers in Court Reporting

Court Reporter: This is the stenographer you see seated beside the judge's bench, typing
furiously to take down every word as a trial or hearing progresses. She transcribes legal
proceedings, hearings, trials and even depositions. More and more courts are moving to
audio recordings these days, and court reporters also transcribe these tapes.
Broadcast Captioner: Videography in the courtroom is common in this age of
technology. This job involves entering captions on videography, often in real time in the
course of a trial, which is then preserved as part of the case file in the event of appeal.
CART Provider: CART stands for Communication Access Realtime Translation. It
most commonly involves assisting the deaf and hearing impaired, converting speech to
test for their benefit.

Careers in Legal Consulting

Jury Consultant: A jury consultant guides attorneys toward selecting sympathetic jurors
at trial, as well as to avoiding unsympathetic jurors, through the voir dire process the
series of questions posed to potential jurors as lawyers try to narrow down those they
want to sit on the jury. This can involve doing background research and interpreting body
language, both during voir dire and later during trial.
Computer Forensics Professional: This professional analyzes digital evidence and
reports on it. He may also testify regarding it at trial. Think of a hard drive that's been
intentionally erased, but some trace of data remains behind. The computer forensics
professional would unearth that.

Forensic Scientist: A forensic scientist helps to collect, preserve and analyze physical
evidence for attorneys and the courts. A blood spatter analyst is one example.
Legal Videographer: Also known as a forensic videographer, this career option involves
creating video images for trial. The videographer may also present the images at trial
under oath.
Accident Reconstructionist: This individual often has a background in engineering or
law enforcement. He examines the details of an accident to recreate how it might have
occurred and ultimately who, if anyone, is to blame.

Careers in Legal Administration

Law Firm Administrator: Sometimes called a practice administrator, this top-tier

administrative position oversees the day-to-day operations and finances of a law firm.
Contract Administrator: This individual typically works under the practice
administrator, dealing with specific areas of day-to-day finances, particularly those
involving contractual obligations.

Careers in the Courthouse

Courtroom Deputy: You'll typically find him in a law enforcement uniform, helping to
maintain order in the court. He may accompany criminal defendants to and from the
courtroom, or intercede between counsel, such as if an item of discovery must be passed
from one table to the next or to the judge.
Court Interpreter: A court interpreter assists non-English-speaking litigants.
Court Clerk or Prothonotary: This is a behind-the-scenes role in the courthouse but no
less important because duties take place outside the courtroom. Every legal case involves
reams of filed paperwork, even in this time of technology. Clerks accept it from litigants
and keep orderly track of all of it. The job ranges from entry level positions to chief
clerk.

Careers in Legal Education

Law Professor: Law school professors not only teach classes, but are typically involved
in research as well. Many schools also require that they periodically publish in law
journals.
Law School Dean: The dean is the highest ranking administrator in a law school,
supervising operations, academic programs and even sometimes issues of student
discipline.
Law School Admissions Officer: This individual oversees and reviews student
applications and test scores and may also personally interview potential students for
acceptance.
Legal Career Counselor: Many law schools, particularly top-tier schools, employ
someone to prepare graduating students for entering or attempting to enter the
workforce. They might conduct mock job interviews, help to identify potential
employers, arrange interviews with law firms and even make the initial introduction.
Loyalty to the school and marketing the school and its students to future employers is
paramount.

This list is not all inclusive, but it represents a broad sampling of the hundreds of opportunities
that exist in the legal industry. Many of these positions are available only in larger firms.