Diverse career opportunities in law

With the rapid growth of trade and industry in the era of globalised liberalisation, new vistas of opportunities in all professional fields including law have been heralded. Today, with the legal field gaining a lot of momentum, a lawyer’s career is getting diversified due to the number of opportunities they get. As a result, there is a tendancy to specialise in a specific area. Some of the specialisations that law students can consider taking include:

Litigation: Lawyers in private practice advise clients on their legal rights and legal issues affecting their personal and professional interests and also represent them in the courts of law.

Indian Legal Service (ILS): Officers for the ILS are recruited through the UPSC on the basis of their experience and seniority in legal practice. Officers can be posted as law officers, superintendent (legal), legal advisers and assistant legislative counsel among others.

Judicial members of courts and tribunals: They are appointed from the legal profession or Indian Legal Service. Under this, one can have a career as a magistrate, public prosecutor and as a notary.

Labour officers, assistant labour commissioner, deputy labour commissioner and other law officers: Those who have specialised in labour laws can consider applying for these posts. They help prevent and/or settle industrial disputes, help enforce labour laws and promote welfare of workers in the industrial establishments.

Corporate lawyer: Most large companies need in-house legal counsels, and require professionals to advise on important decisions, besides the drafting of agreements and undertakings.

PSU officer: Public sector undertakings or state-owned corporations need dynamic legal professionals to handle their day-to-day legal matters including tackling of the in-house affairs and court cases.

Teaching: Lawyers with good academic record, particularly those holding LLM and PhD degrees, and UGC, CBSE-NET or KSET qualifications can take up jobs as teachers at the university level.  There is a wide scope for visiting professors as private universities are coming up in large numbers and they prefer established people to join them as faculty.

Legal writing and editing: Those who have a flair for writing can consider a career as a legal correspondent. This writing could well mature into writing legal texts and research articles alternatively.

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO): This is a new concept based on the lines of BPO. LPO engages young lawyers to work on computers to draft agreements, research etc for their foreign counterparts. Many experts feel that this area has a huge potential in India. It is of little wonder then that India has emerged as a top destination for setting up LPO companies.

Defence services: One can consider having a legal career in the Indian Army by joining its Judge Advocate General (JAG) department. Individual JAG Corps officers are colloquially known as JAGs. They primarily deal with military justice and law.

Cyber law: If you are a technology enthusiast, a career as a cyber lawyer may be your cup of tea. Lawyers who have specialised in this field usually deal with cases of defamation, stalking or nuisance on social media, dealing with domain name disputes, e-commerce disputes and data thefts.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR): Here, lawyers use dispute resolution processes and techniques that act as a means for disagreeing parties to come to an agreement. The methods used include arbitration, mediation and conciliation.

Tax Law: If you are among the few blessed with a commercial sense, then being a tax lawyer could be an ideal profession for you.

These are just some of the careers that you can explore in law if you are unsure about which area of law you want to work in. So, use these choices as a way to kickstart your research into the law field.

(The author is assistant professor, Vidyodaya Law College, Tumakuru)a