Attorneys in The United States - Specialization

Specialization

Many American attorneys limit their practices to specialized fields of law. Often dichotomies are drawn between different types of attorneys, but these are neither fixed nor formal lines. Examples include:

• Outside counsel (law firms) v. in-house counsel (corporate legal department)
• Plaintiff v. Defense Attorneys (some attorneys do both plaintiff and defense work, others only handle certain types of cases like personal injury, business etc.)
• Transactional (or "office practice") attorneys (who negotiate and draft documents and advise clients, rarely going to court) v. litigators (who advise clients in the context of legal disputes both in and out of court, including lawsuits, arbitrations and negotiated settlements)
• Trial attorneys (who argue the facts, such as the late Johnnie Cochran) v. appellate attorneys (who argue the law, such as David Boies)

Despite these descriptions, some states forbid or discourage claims of specialization in particular areas of law unless the attorney has been certified by his or her state bar or state board of legal specialization. Other states allow indirect indications of specialization (in the form of advertisement language such as "our practice is limited to . . ."), but require that the lawyer states that he or she is not certified by a state board of legal specialization in the advertised practice area. Patent attorneys are allowed to advertise their specialization in all jurisdictions, since registration for patent law is administered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) instead of a state-level body.

Some states grant formal certifications recognizing specialties. In California, for example, bar certification is offered in family law, appellate practice, criminal law, bankruptcy, estate planning, immigration, taxation and workers' compensation. Any attorney meeting the bar requirements in one of these fields may represent himself as a specialist. The State Bar of Texas, for example, formally grants certification of specialization in 21 select areas of law.

The majority of lawyers practicing in a particular field may typically not be certified as specialists in that field (and state board certification is not generally required to practice law in any field). For example, the State Bar of Texas (as of mid-2006) reported 77,056 persons licensed as attorneys in that state (excluding inactive members of the Bar), while the Texas Board of Legal Specialization reported, at about the same time, only 8,303 Texas attorneys who were board certified in any specialty. Indeed, of the 8,303 certified specialists in Texas, the highest number of attorneys certified in one specific field at that time was 1,775 (in personal injury trial law). Despite the relative large number of lawyers that presumably would handle divorce, adoption and child custody matters, Texas reported that of 77,056 attorneys, only 697 in the entire state were certified in family law (which is, arguably, the applicable specialty).

Specialization in patent law is administered by the Office of Enrollment and Discipline of the USPTO, which imposes stringent requirements for applicants to become registered as patent attorneys or patent agents.

About half of American attorneys work solo or in small firms; see law firm. There are also many mid-size firms, with anywhere from 50 to 200 attorneys and since the 1970s, some law firms have merged to form giant firms with 1,000 attorneys or more.

However, whether a law firm is large or small is also a relative concept depending on the size of the community served. A law firm with six attorneys in a small community may be considered a large firm for that area. Because of conflict of interest rules, the maximum size of a law firm is dependent upon the size of the population it serves. Conflict of interest rules prevent one attorney in a law firm from, for example, representing a client in litigation that has an adverse interest to the interests of another client represented by a different attorney in the same law firm. A 2012 survey conducted by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell determined 58 million consumers in the U.S. sought an attorney in the last year and that 76 percent of consumers used the Internet to search for an attorney.