What's a good area to practice law without doing litigation?

[yellowperil]

I asked my sister and she suggested estates & trusts (drafting wills and that sort of thing). Reason is, I did my final oral argument for appellate advocacy class last night and I stunk it up. The judge they brought to sit in didn't even grill me that hard with his questioning but I still answered "I don't know" twice and dodged another one of them. The other 2 "judges" (my TA's) told me I did great but I think they were just trying to make me feel better. I went home and got the beer out of the fridge, and I haven't done any of the reading for today. Suffice to say I hope this is my last experience with any kind of courtroom setting. Just wondering if any lawyers/law students out there could give advice for what classes to take this fall.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I think you're on the right track, Estates & Trusts looks like a good one, & seems to provide a good revenue source over time.

BTW, pity me, I have a lawyer that's determined to play Perry Mason (he does estates & trusts) for us in a Determination of heir's hearing next month....

He's just too nice to be a good litigator, & has already screwed the pooch in another hearing for us.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: yellowperil
I asked my sister and she suggested estates & trusts (drafting wills and that sort of thing). Reason is, I did my final oral argument for appellate advocacy class last night and I stunk it up. The judge they brought to sit in didn't even grill me that hard with his questioning but I still answered "I don't know" twice and dodged another one of them. The other 2 "judges" (my TA's) told me I did great but I think they were just trying to make me feel better. I went home and got the beer out of the fridge, and I haven't done any of the reading for today. Suffice to say I hope this is my last experience with any kind of courtroom setting. Just wondering if any lawyers/law students out there could give advice for what classes to take this fall.

Geez, just failing one time (even if you did fail, according to your TAs you did great) and you're ready to give up?

 

[yellowperil]

Geez, just failing one time (even if you did fail, according to your TAs you did great) and you're ready to give up?

I suppose you're right. But I'm not a very good public speaker, I'm much better at writing down my arguments in a brief rather than doing it on-the-fly. I'm afraid if I do litigation I'll get sued for malpractice or something.

 

[xuanman]

I'm only a 1L, and I just went through our 1st year moot court, but I found the whole process to be pretty fun and a good learning experience (and I am by no means someone who enjoys public speaking). I wouldn't get too frustrated if you feel like you didn't do so well. At this point, we're only students, and we're supposed to make a lot of mistakes.

At my law school there seems to be a heavy emphasis on going into large firm jobs, so the real dichotomy only seems to be between Litigation and Corporate Transactional work (and to a lesser extent Bankruptcy, estates) but with the state of the economy being what it is, there really aren't too many jobs on the corporate side.