I work at a small general practice law firm. Despite that description, I’m not Familiar with all areas of law. There are dozens of areas of law, some broad in scope and others very specific. Some law firms choose to practice in limited areas of law, while others, like the one I work at, practice in multiple areas of law. There are pros and cons to each law firm model; however, I prefer to work at general practice firms because they provide diversity every day. Forrest Gump famously said, “…life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” The same goes for general practice law firms.
Unfortunately, “general practice” is commonly confused with, well, almost everyone. Friends and family ask me questions about all kinds of law which is fine, fine, fine, except when I tell them that I have no idea because I have never worked in that area of law before. They are almost always dumbfounded when I don’t know anything substantive about copyrights, patents, bankruptcy, or the dozens of other legal areas I haven’t been able to work on (yet). Apparently people assume and/or believe that once someone starts working in the legal field they are automatically granted knowledge of all things legal, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
In addition to not knowing everything about law, I also don’t know everything about the following legal things:
- All legal procedures;
- All Latin terms;
- All laws/statutes/rules/codes;
- All attorneys/judges;
- All current events related to the legal field; and,
- Over and over, ad nauseam (<--- see what I did there?).
As much as it pains me to admit it, I really don’t know everything. Google is my best friend, me!
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