I may go to law school, what specific field should I go into?

Question

The idea of being a public defender interests me, regardless of the decreased pay, so criminal law. Immigration law is another field that interests me. Also, constitutional law fascinates me, but seems like an extremely tough field to find a job quickly, like maybe it is an area you work into after years of practicing law. Also, international law/treaties, etc. sounds interesting. The truth is that I would probably not be accepted into a top tiered law school, so should that influence the area of study? And is practicing law a "young man's game"? Not that I am old but I am 36 and probably would not finish until around 40. So should that have an influence on the field I'd like to study or whether or not I should even study law in the first place (i.e. would I face discrimination, realistically in one or any fields of law because of my age?) Thank you so much for your help!

Answer 1

I went back to law school at 40, and I do think that there is discrimination against those who go back later in life, but it is more that the big firms are less likely to hire you, and you are more likely to end up with a small firm or in a government position.  

Know that you don't have to go back to school with any specific specialty in mind.  In fact, my experience was that with the exception of those in Tax and Intellectual Property, few of my classmates ended up practicing in the area they thought they were preparing for.  You will spend at least half your time in law school taking a standard set of courses, and while you then take electives, they don't all have to be clustered into some specialty.  I took some business law, some international law, and some juvenile law classes, along with a few things like arbitration and jurisprudence as my electives.

Many law students find a job which requires them to learn their specialty area after finishing law school.  That's pretty standard.