Litigation attorney
There are basically two types of lawyers: litigators and transactional attorneys. Transactional attorneys are rarely, if ever, in court. Instead, they make deals, draft agreements and handle transactions, the merging of two companies, the incorporation of a business, establishing a trust for a client?s children. The work of litigation attorneys, on the other hand, almost always revolves around the courtroom. Not all litigators are trial lawyers, but most have to plan for trial and draft the necessary paperwork of pleadings, pre-trial motions and legal briefs. Even if they never get into court and many litigators do not, their job centers on the possibility of court and as trial.
Litigation can be an exciting career. It certainly is a demanding one. America is the most litigious country in the world, with hundreds of lawsuits filed every few minutes. The American court system is complicated and very few people enter into a lawsuit without a lawyer by their side. The litigator's job is to navigate the legal system and interpret the relevant laws, to ensure the fair treatment of and try to obtain the best result for, her client. Litigators shoulder enormous responsibility; at stake may be a large sum of money, a client's livelihood or freedom and possibly even his life.
Almost every television show or movie you see about the legal world focuses on litigators of one kind or another. In realty, litigation is seldom as dramatic as the cases you see in television and there is no one kind of person who becomes a litigator. The media like to focus on high drama, but litigation offers a steady career with a wide variety of opportunities for the eager law student. If you are curious to know whether you have what it takes to become a litigator and what your life would be like, keep reading.
Civil litigation
What constitutes a large firm varies from state to state and city to city. A firm, of 20 people may be considered large in California, while in New York it is considered pretty small. Really large, general practice firms have offices of hundreds of lawyers, with branches not only around the United States but also in Europe, Asia or South America. These large, multi-office firms have substantial marketing and hiring budgets and are the firms most likely to conduct on campus interviews. They also tend to have a higher profile than their smaller counterparts.
Some large law firms have litigation specialties, but most are ?full-service? firms, offering a mix of transactional and litigation practice, with groups including corporate, intellectual property and real estate law. The structure in these firms is highly organized and extremely competitive. A first year associate is usually assigned to the practice area of his choice and often has the opportunity to rotate into one of the other departments. The litigation associate usually is assigned to one or more cases, under the supervision of at least one senior associate and a partner.
For the purposes of this section, a firm is mid-sized or large if it has at least 20 attorneys and usually more than one office. Although there are notable differences among mid-sized and large firms in terms of their practice, clients, location and firm ethos, there are certain characteristics many big firms have in common.
Criminal litigation
There is no single career path for a local prosecuting attorney. Some prosecutors join the county district attorney's office right out of law school; others have had years of private practice. The work of a county prosecutor can be very dramatic and makes good fodder for television shows.
The criminal defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and it is the prosecutor ?s job to meet this burden of proof. The first step in any case is the police investigation. Once the police have amassed the requisite evidence against an offender, they go to the local district attorney's office. The deputy or assistance district attorney assigned to the case makes the decision whether to charge the defendant and what to charge him with. In some cases that might be easy, in the case of a man who broke a window in a Radio Shack and was caught filling his pockets with electronics, the charge might be simply be burglary. However, take the example of a man caught standing over the dead body of his wife, with blood on his hands. If he deliberately hit her over the head, he is guilty of murder. If he pushed her violently and she hit her head, he may be guilty of manslaughter. If he was simply talking to her and she slipped and hit her head, he may not be guilty of anything. It is the prosecutor's job to review the evidence, decide what happened and what the charge should be.
After the charge is filed, the prosecutor works with the police, the evidence and the witnesses to put together a compelling case. They may review the police reports as well as the accuser's previous criminal records. A prosecutor might have to present his initial case to the grand jury. This is not a trial; it is merely a forum for the prosecution to present the case before a grand jury who will decide whether there is sufficient basis to proceed to trial, in which case the grand jury issues an indictment. This is the first hoop a prosecuting attorney must prepare to jump through. In addition to these duties and knowledge of both the penal code and rules of criminal procedure, the prosecutor must have a strong grasp of the unspoken rules of his criminal court system.
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