Lawis fast emerging as a popular career option in the country. Over the years, Law has also diversified into different streams and sub-stream. Today, there is a need of lawyers and legal professionals in almost every field from corporate, to criminal, to civil to intellectual and property laws and many others. Wondering which one should you take up?Let’s look at some of the popular law specialisations and you might just find the one that suits you the best.
Civil Law
Civil Law is the field of law that deals with the disputes related to private rights of individuals, divorce, child custody, property ownership, disagreements of contracts, personal and property damage etc. Civil law cases are mostly related to private law and not public law. These cases falls under 4 different categories namely - Contract Laws, Tort Laws, Property Law and Family Law. Cases filed under civil law category offer opportunity to solve problems on personal level.Lawyers who specialise in civil law are often hired by government institutes, private law firms and non-profit organizations, National Human Rights Commission and many moresuch organisations.
Criminal Law
Criminal Law -the oldest and most widely known specialisation in the field of law. It is a good fit for people who are passionate about solving crimes, investigations and collecting evidence. The job of a criminal lawyer is to represent or defend his client accused in criminal cases. As a criminal lawyer one usually starts one’s career by assisting a professional and renowned criminal lawyer. Criminal defence lawyers who are employed by the government are known as public defenders. The work of criminal lawyer mostly constitutes of communicating with clients, collecting evidences & actual facts by interviewing the witnesses, interacting with the police & researching in detail about the case.And although the field promises a good pay it can be a little taxing at times.
Corporate Law
This is one of the most sought after specialisations among law students in the country. A degree in corporate law offers one the opportunity to work with and consult big corporate organisations on topics contracts, ordinances, corporate privileges and more. Corporate Law helps provide a level playing field for all the corporations. The field of corporate law is apt for students who enjoy reading, have good reasoning skills and are comfortable considering the thought of long term client base. The responsibilities of a corporate lawyer also includesadvising the client on important issues such as mergers and acquisitions orhandling clients’legal work and representing them during court proceedings in both, defence and prosecution cases. Some of the popular areas of recruitment for corporate lawyers are big corporate houses & Industries, legal publishers, consultancies etc.
Cyber Law
The field of Cyber Law is a relatively new specialisation in the field of law. Cyber Law is a field that deals with illegal activities orcybercrimes that are carried out with the help of internet.Cyber criminals engage in criminal actions such as fraud, defamation, forgery, theft, and mischief.One of the most popular cyber crime today are hacking an individual’s personal accounts, cyber terrorism and spreading of computer viruses.There are 3 major types of cyber crimes - crimes against a person, crimes against property andcrimes against government. With a degree in cyber law one can find great career opportunities in police departments, IT companies, corporate houses, public & private organizations, lecturer at Universities & many more places.
Intellectual Property Law
Intellectual Property Law defines a set of rules and regulations for securing and enforcing legal rights for protecting an individual's inventions and creations. Simply put the intellectual property law deals with patents, copyrights and trademarks. Patents are exclusive rights granted for an invention. Getting a patent for an invention prevents the invention from being developed, sold or used by other parties for a certain time period. Copyrights are used to protect expressive arts; they provide owners with the exclusive rights for reproducing and public display of the work. They also give them economic rights to benefit from their work while preventing others from doing so without the owner's prior permission. Trademarks protect the names and identifying marks of products and companies. They are automatically assumed once a business begins using certain mark in order to identify itself.
So, here is all you need to know about popular law specialisations. These are just the top 5 law specializations in India, but there are many more which are not on this list.You can find details about these on www.jagranjosh.com.