Lawyer Job
What is a lawyer? A lawyer is a person who gives legal counsel and advice to people based upon the rights given to them in the Constitution. The process of law has been around for a great many years. The first series of written laws were Hammurabi’s Code, written by King Hammurabi of the Babylonians in the 1700’s B.C. At that point in time there were not lawyers, it was simply an eye for an eye. The birthplace of Democracy was in the Greek city-state of Athens. In this form of government, every citizen had one vote, which meant that there was no electoral college. This form of Democracy, called Direct Democracy, can lead to problems, because if the people are manipulated, than a dictator can come into power. The other problem with this system was that only men who were direct descendants of the founders of the city-state could vote, which left the voting power in the hands of rich land owners, who would only be looking out for their own well being. James Madison studied all of these past forms of government, and tried to take the best parts of each, and his proposal, spoken by Edmund Randolph, was the basis of the Constitution we have today. As previously stated, it is the job of the lawyer to make sure that the rights that each person is given under the Constitution are recognized. There are many different kinds of lawyers ranging from defense to prosecution, civil to corporation, maritime to bankruptcy, just to name a few. Each of these different types of lawyers have different specialties that make them unique, and yet the same foundation which all good lawyers have.
The two major job tasks of a lawyer are as an advocate and an advisor. They are advocates for their clients in court, and advisors to them on their rights outside of it. Now there are many more job tasks of a lawyer depending on which type of law they specialize in. For example, lawyers who work for large corporations would draw up legal contracts, monitor government regulations, represent the corporation in court, and many other things. A defense attorney will spend a lot of time in law libraries, looking up the rights of their clients, and prior cases that are similar to the one at hand, they will also provide legal advice to the person on what to do in certain situations, and most importantly, they will fight with their heart and soul to make sure that their client receives justice. In that same trial, the prosecution lawyer, usually from the District Attorney’s office, will be spending a lot of time looking at the evidence at hand, to try and build a case that will break down the wall that the defense has put up around its client. There is a wide variety of lawyers who have unique specialties and responsibilities.
Lawyers primarily work inside, and at multiple locations. When inside, you will commonly find them either at work in their offices, at law libraries, or at a courtroom; due to the fact that there are many courtrooms and law libraries, lawyers do tend to travel quite a bit.
In order to become a lawyer, one must attain a four year college degree, and three years of law school. It should be noted that competition to law schools are very intense. Recommended collegiate courses are English, foreign language, public speaking, government, philosophy, history, economics, and computer science. After college and law school graduation, you must take a bar exam in each state in which you wish to practice.
The job growth in the law industry is the average for industries right now. There were 759,200 jobs held by lawyers in 2008. By the time it is 2018, it is predicted that the law industry will contain over 857,000 workers. The majority of lawyers (26 percent) are self employed, working in private practice as partners, or individual lawyers. The fastest growing branch of law is work in the public sector. The reason for this is because it is so difficult to establish yourself nowadays as an individual lawyer; the rate of increase projected in that sector is a measly one to two percent. If you are looking to become a well known and respected lawyer, the best path to take would be to gain a strong financial base in public law, and then open your own private practice, one you can be sure that there is little or no financial risk involved.
The mean salary of a lawyer in 2008, was $110,590. The best paid lawyers were managing companies and enterprises, with their average salary being $145,770. The worst paid lawyers are ones who work for the state government, who only make $78,540.
As a lawyer, there are many personality traits that you must possess in order to be successful. First, you must get along with your clients. This is probably the most important one because if you cannot get along with the person (or people) you defend, than it will be impossible to build a case for them, no matter how smart you are. The next quality that is important to being a lawyer is having logic. You must be able to think logically how you can build up a case that will stand up in court. Having an extremely complex case built, the jury might not understand where you are coming from, and rule against you. The next thing that you must be good at to be a successful lawyer is to be able to understand both sides of the issue. This will allow you to make your case more solid, and better your ability to find holes in the opposing lawyers case. The last thing that you must be able to do as a lawyer is being able to think on your feet. If the opposing lawyer brings up an unexpected point, you must be able to come up with a solution quickly, or suffer the consequences.
The job of a lawyer is extremely difficult, and extremely taxing, from being in school for seven years, to having to spend many hours either in the office, or law library away from your family, and also having to be a good orator in order to make money. The profession of a lawyer is not one for the faint of heart.
