How To Start A (Career) Revolution

For those with an appetite for risk, there is limitless potential within the practice of law, according to columnist David Perla.

Last time in this space, I talked about the extensive and wide-ranging career possibilities open to law school graduates willing to venture outside the world of legal practice. But what about those who want to work as lawyers? They paid a lot of money for that degree, after all—it’s hard to blame them for wanting to use it. Does a choice to practice law, however, require one to forgo the career adventure promised to those who skip the bar exam for a future in venture capital, sports management, or some equally sexy-sounding alternative career? In a word: no. The possibilities for lawyers are expanding outside the profession, yes; but they are also changing and expanding within it. And for those with an appetite for risk, there is limitless potential.

It’s tempting to perceive legal practice areas as being static. Walk into a law firm in 1960, and it might have had a litigation group, an employment group, and a corporate group. That sounds a lot like a law firm today. On closer inspection, though, we can see that those areas have undergone seismic change since beehive hairdos were a thing. Employment groups of 2015 spend a lot of their time on ERISA-related matters, which, of course, did not even come into being until that legislation was passed in 1974. Corporate law has changed a lot too. The go-to takeover defense known as the “poison pill” did not exist until Marty Lipton invented it in 1982. Securities litigation, for its part, has been upended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These are more than evolutionary developments in the law; they are revolutionary changes. And that kind of revolutionary change has implications for lawyers. Namely, for those willing to bet on it, it creates opportunity.

This is not a career prescription for all lawyers. There’s nothing wrong with finding a stable area—tax comes to mind—that you enjoy, becoming good at it, and making a professional home there for your career. That’s a route I considered taking as a law firm associate working on M&A and securities matters. But I also had an itch to branch out, and as a fairly junior associate I began spending up to half of my time dabbling in a collection of areas—trademark, advertising, privacy—relating to a new thing called the Internet.

There was risk involved in that approach. No one knew just how big the Internet would become (although there was this one online bookstore that demonstrated some potential). And by spending my time tinkering in the Internet space, I was hurting my chances of becoming partner in the corporate department.

The risk paid off. The various disciplines that I had been studying assembled themselves under the umbrella of Internet law, a valuable body of knowledge to have as the new technology took off. The fact that I possessed it opened the door for me to become VP – Business & Legal Affairs at Monster. The entire ceiling for my career, in short, was lifted by my decision to pursue my interest in the Internet.

My story is one among many. And the Internet is just one area of revolutionary change among many that has driven new opportunity for lawyers. In recent years, Sarbanes-Oxley created a whole new sub-field of corporate law; meanwhile, the scourge of cybercrime has fueled a huge demand for privacy and data security lawyers. Lawyers who positioned themselves early as experts in these areas have benefitted tremendously.

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For those who would like to reap similar benefits, the first step is to identify an area ripe for revolution. To do that, look around you. The Affordable Care Act, artificial intelligence, digital currency, drones, the aging of our population, even the legalization of marijuana—these are all areas of obvious and rapid change that could spawn great demand for legal services in coming years.

Are you willing to bet your career on it? No one can answer that question for anyone else. Only one thing’s for sure: if you say yes, your legal career won’t be a boring one.

Earlier: The Renaissance Law Student: 3 Tips For Getting The Most Out Of Law School


David Perla is the President of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg BNA’s Legal division. Perla plays a key leadership role in the continued growth of the company’s legal business, which includes legal, legislative, and regulatory news analysis and the flagship Bloomberg Law technology platform. You can reach David at dPerla@bna.com and follow him on Twitter at @davidperla.

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