I like Contract and Property Law, what area of law would be good?

[Schooliscool 66]

While I know I am still very early in my legal education, I've been finding those two classes the ones I enjoy the most. What are some areas of the law I can move forward or jobs I can possibly do with these two central themes? Or will I end up hating both by the end of the year?

[WicketStyx 175]

Real estate?

[Twenty 231]

From what I read about the practice, construction litigation is A LOT of contract law. And recalling the cases I read for my contract law class, I fully believe it haha

Edited October 25, 2020 by Twenty

[TrevorPhilips 40]

Like you mentioned yourself, right now is far too early in your legal career to pigeonhole yourself to a specific area of the law (assuming you're in 1L). If you start telling yourself "I only like and am good at X & Y class", then you may never explore some fascinating fields and classes that you would have otherwise experienced. 

That being said, real estate transactions is literally property + contract law lol.

[BringBackCrunchBerries 981]

On 10/24/2020 at 6:00 PM, Schooliscool said:

While I know I am still very early in my legal education, I've been finding those two classes the ones I enjoy the most. What are some areas of the law I can move forward or jobs I can possibly do with these two central themes? Or will I end up hating both by the end of the year?

You can decide on an area of law later. You can even switch it up after articles or at any point in your career. 

The more pressing question for a law student is whether they want to be a litigator, a solicitor, or someone who does a bit of both. You can be a real estate lawyer who deals with contracts all day long closing deals (a solicitor) or you can be a real estate lawyer who solely deals with contract and property disputes in court - these are very different jobs and most people actually do not do both sides. 

I say that this is more pressing for two reasons. One, you will literally get asked this during the formal interview process for 2L jobs and articles. Many of the firms will wonder if you are interested in their litigation departments or their "corporate/commercial" departments. Two, you should fill out your upper year schedule to explore your interests in a very general sense... there are only so many courses related to real property and contracts but if you think you might be interested in litigation you can take trial advocacy, evidence, do a bunch of mooting, etc. 

This is just something I wish was explained to me more clearly as a 1L. I have no family or friends that are lawyers and was maybe a bit naive. I was very interested in "health law" for the first half of law school and I remember during the OCI process getting asked whether I was interested in litigation or corporate/commercial law a bunch of times and I probably sounded like a tool when I answered.

The subject matter (real estate, family, criminal) of practice you can often change or decide on later. Many people just kind of end up doing the type of law they do - maybe they just happen to get hired by a PI firm so they have a PI career. What you want to avoid is say, taking a bunch of criminal and family law and then finding out during articles that you hate litigation. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by BringBackCrunchBerries

[Grey 40]

I'm a commercial real estate associate and the vast majority of what I do is (a) draft and review contracts that (b) involve real property. Property was my favourite class in 1L and I continue to find it fascinating in practice as compared to the law school context. Like others have mentioned, your interests will likely change over the course of law school and your summer / articling experience, but in any event it's probably not a bad idea to look into (commercial) real estate as a potential practice area. 

[easttowest 1520]

Contracts was my favourite class too, so I switched my focus from Crim to corporate. I always wanted to do lit, and commercial litigation is a lot of arguing about contracts. 

[Mal 2556]

Contracts and property is fundamental to almost everything from family to construction to commercial law to employment. 

[Jaggers 10612]

Employment law touches on virtually everything, but not that much property law. Over the course of my career I've cracked all of my first year textbooks open to look stuff up, but I think I have only touched the property one once. There are certainly issues involving IP, shareholder agreements, etc. but we tend to go to the experts for stuff like that rather than trying to freelance.