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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
totally random question for lawyers
I've gotten into the show The Good Wife, and on that show, the lawyers in the office take ALL kinds of cases. Like, sometimes they're defending an accused murderer, sometimes they're doing a merger, sometimes they're suing someone. Is this realistic? I thought it was more specialized than that, so like if you work with mergers, that's all you do, or at least pretty much all you do, you wouldn't go defending an accused murderer. But maybe I'm wrong. Also, is your JD and bar certification (not sure if that's the right term) "enough" to do all of those things? Or do you need special certifications for each area of law?
Enlighten me.
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Re: totally random question for lawyers
You JD and admittance to the bar is enough to allow you to practice almost any type of law within the state. There are certain types of law where an additional certification is necessary (for example the patent bar) and some types of law where it's advisable to have a specialized LLM in the area (ie tax law and maritime law).
Some firms are general practice, meaning that they handle a wide variety of cases, but attorneys within general practice firms tend not to work on a wide array of areas of law because of malpractice issues. In those firms they generally have a group of attorneys who work on domestic relations, a group for criminal cases, a different group who work on wills and trusts, etc.
ETA: In a smaller, two or three partner general practice firm there is probably going to be less specialization among the associate attorneys. IME, one partner tends to handle half of the areas of practice, the other the rest and they share the associates between them.
thanks, that makes sense! In the show, a specific lawyer can be handling all different types of cases, so I guess in that sense, it's not like real life. Not that it matters, at all, just curious :-)
I also had no idea there were malpractice issues in law. Is it like, if I'm defending someone, and I miss something crucial, that person can sue me later for missing that?
Pretty much yeah. If you're acting outside of your general area when the mess-up occurs it's an easier case to make.
Although, in NYS it's virtually impossible to sue an attorney for effing up a will because the only person with standing to sue would have to be dead.
huh. ok, so if I usually write wills for people, and I represent an accused murderer, and make a mistake, that would be a case when I could get sued for malpractice?
So, do lawyers have to have malpractice insurance, like doctors?
Publius beat me to it...but basically what she said. Theoretically, I'm licensed to do just about anything, which is scary as hell.
I can't speak to malpractice insurance, since I've never practiced.
Malpractice insurance is covered by the firm, unless you're out on your own, then you need to provide it yourself and it's expensive. A family friend got laid off and wanted to do some pro bono but she told me that the insurance she would have to take out would be too expensive to justify the work. Make sense?
There are other professions that have a form of malpractice insurance too. Personal trainers or instructors at a gym are covered by the gym of someone sues, but if you're a trainer who trains ppl at home, you need to get your own insurance and it's very expensive.
This is not uncommon as they are often intertwined, especially in domestic violence cases.
He mostly does DWI. But I read in the newspaper he is handling a case where some farmer went nuts and killed hundreds of protected birds/eggs.
Sounds like he's got some quality clients!
Yeah, as everyone's said, while solo practitioners might do a hodge podge, generally you're not radically working outside a specific field. Bars typically have ethics rules which stipulates that you're subject to discipline if you take a case w/o the ability to get up to speed on the specific points of law. Of course, it's up to you to decide just what 'up to speed' means. Handy.
I think for most lawyers a natural break is litigation v. transactions (contracts, estate planning, etc). Obviously there's overlap-- you might, for example, litigate a contract claim. Litigators are typically what you see on tv and what most law students aspire to be... they also usually have insane schedules and lots o' stress. Guess what I do
? [transactions, although, sadly, I do get stuck w/ some litigation, blech]. I'd never want to be a litigator. To me, transactions lets you think creatively and help people avoid problems. Once something gets to litigation, odds are good, things are messed up on both sides and no one's going to win (except, maybe the litigator 
).