Putting Your Legal Degree to Good Use

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Gaining a legal degree is by no means an easy feat. You put in a whole lot of time, hard work, and money to walk across the stage on your graduation day and collect your certificate. But while your studies may have provided you with the knowledge required to become a successful lawyer, many institutes neglect to show you what to actually do with your degree once you have it. So, if you’re feeling a little lost and unsure of where to go from here, read on!

Finding an Internship

Once you’ve completed your studies, you’re going to want to find work as soon as possible. However, it’s relatively difficult to walk straight into a full time legal job without any experience in the field. Now, don’t worry. We’re thinking the same thing – how are you meant to get experience before you’re qualified? And how are you meant to gain experience if nobody will give you a job that will provide you with experience in the first place? Not to worry. There’s an answer and that answer is internships. An internship will give you the opportunity to operate in a legal firm, getting to grips with how things are run and what is expected of you.

Finding a Job

Sometimes, you will enjoy your internship so much that you want to stay on at the company that has taken you on for the short period of time. However, sometimes the company may not be hiring, or you might simply want to spread your wings and work elsewhere. Now, the world is your oyster now that you have both your academic qualifications and your experience from your internship on your CV. But how can you find job openings? Well, you can always search for Law & Legal Graduate Jobs through GradAustralia. This company frequently scans the market for jobs and lists openings on their website.

Choosing an Area of Specialism

The majority of bachelors in law are relatively generalised. This is to ensure that you have a good, broad knowledge of the law in general in order to be able to deal with pretty much any case that is brought forward to you. However, you really should consider building on the basics that you have mastered in order to specialise. By specialising you may reduce the number of individuals who may contact you to take on their case, but you do make yourself more desirable, as people are more likely to try to find someone who specialises in the area of law that they need help with than someone who dabbles in all sorts of areas. Remember that it is better to be a master of one trade than a jack of all trades! This will allow you to charge more for your services and maximise your profits. Now, there are various areas that you can specialise in, but here are just a few for your consideration:

• Civil Rights
• Corporate Law
• Criminal Law
• Education Law
• Employment Law (otherwise known as “Labour Law”)
• Entertainment Law
• Environmental Law
• Family Law
• Health Law

• Immigration Law
• Intellectual Property Law
• Real Estate Law
• Sports Law
• Tax Law

Hopefully, this has helped you to muster up an idea of exactly what your next steps towards a legal career should be!