Specialization: How To Go About Selecting A Desired Field In Law
“The more you concentrate on what you discover that you will be good for you to pursue, the more experienced you will be while doing it.” – Israelmore Ayivor.
To be specialized could be being proactively and productively engage in a given spectrum of the legal profession. Your focus is on that area of law only. Hence, your resources – human, material and natural – are poured into it for optimum performance.
Undoubtedly, being specialised in a given field in law helps you to be a master of one trade and not a Jack of all trades. Tom Robbins, an American novelist, brilliantly said that: “To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else.”
More often than not, it is not after graduating and perhaps practicing that most law students select an area to specialize in within the legal field. This could be attributed to our legal education system where the regular operation is to ensure that prospective wigs have a foretaste of the general areas of law rather than being specialized in a given area of one’s interest.
It is worth making the point that this trend is changing, gradually. Consequently, budding lawyers should contemplate what area of law they want to specialize in so as to ensure that they are well grounded and armed with the necessary know-how with regard to that field of law for a rewarding future career.
Hence, emerging fields (both conservative and contemporary) of law one might want to specialize include, but arr not restricted to: Energy Law, ADR, Technology Law, Tax Law, Environmental Law , Entertainment Law, Sport Law, Intellectual Property Law, International Law, maritime, et.c.
The following are kits on how to go about selecting a desired field in law.
Your Passion
It has been said that Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity in any endeavour. Your passion is an inherent interest or knack for something. It’s a burning hunger for something such that that thing always catches your fancy and turns you on, intellectually. Hence, your passion for a given area of law could be an indication in that field of law you want to specialize in. There is a friend of mine whose passion for female emancipation has led her into human rights law and activism. In a nutshell, that area or subject matter of law that interests you fundamentally may be a clue to the field of law you can specialize in.
Knowledge
There is no controversy that knowledge is the master key for any field of law generally. However, there seems to be a particular field or subject matter of law that one has vast knowledge of. This may be a reason why law students are encouraged to join associations or clubs with specialized focus in a given area of law. This could serve as platforms to whet you intellectual appetite and thus garner knowledge about that area of law you want to venture into. Similarly, research cannot be taken for granted as regards boosting your knowledge base as it pertains to that area of law. You should thus commit your entirety to it.
Pecuniary Remuneration
For some budding lawyers, the financial rewards they would get is a pointer to the area of law to specialize in. Well, this is predicated on the assumption, however plausible it may be, that some given areas of law pay more or are more financially rewarding than others. So, if you’re that sort whose interest is basically on the money, you just may want to consider that field of law where you can really mine gold or diamond as the case may be.
In conclusion, the world is advancing quite fast, with a ripple effect on all facets of the society. The legal profession in sync with this development has progressed past traditional or the conventional legal practices. Novel and thrilling fields of law have emerged and will continue to emerge. So, one, as a budding lawyer, cannot afford to be stagnant and be a run-of-the-mill lawyer. One needs to explore and be open to changes. Thus, one must constantly engage in research about that area of interest so as to make informed decisions about your career path in field of law.