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Alternative Legal Careers [Danielle D. Hansen] So you went through three years of law school only to eventually decide that you don’t want to practice law? No problem. Your J.D. offers you a plethora of other opportunities that don’t involve typical attorney work.
Last week, we began our look at alternate
these editors must sometimes “translate”
Several publishing companies have made
careers you can explore with your J.D. if you
the legalese of the authors and turn that
Legal Codes for the states available for
find that you just don’t have it within you
language into something simpler for lay
years, and over the past decade, the laws
to actually practice law, per se. Yes, your
readers, or at least first-year law students,
within those books have made their way onto
friends and families will think you’re crazy
to handle.
the Internet. While this conversion requires
and that you’ve wasted your time and hard-
plenty of work by programmers and web
earned money-especially if it’s your parents
On the other hand, oftentimes these books
designers, people with legal knowledge are
who have wasted THEIR hard-earned money.
cannot and should not be altered. The legal-
also required.
But the bottom line is that thousands of J.D.
ese should not be changed in many cases,
graduates each year will never go into actual
especially if a professor/writer is trying to
Before they make their way from the books
legal practice. So, despite what the naysay-
make an intricate point about a detailed and
into their online version, these laws need
ers will complain about, you’re not alone in
complex matter of the law. In these cases,
to be checked and double-checked. And
wanting to explore an alternative career.
the publishers’ editors and proofreaders will
who better to do that than an attorney with
be lost. They lack the expertise to realize if
(at least) a basic understanding of the law?
the author has made a spelling or gram-
It’s not as simple as taking the Workers’
mar error. Would a publisher’s average
Compensation Code, for example, and copy
One of the big options for J.D.’s who don’t
proofreader realize that the sentence, “She
and pasting it into one gigantic HTML file.
want to practice law is in the field of legal
was a summer of counsel and then externed
That would work, technically speaking, but
publishing. This is a multi-million-dollar
elsewhere,” is a complete thought and very
it would only give users a clunky document
industry that employs thousands of attorneys
understandable to legal readers? Probably
with which to work. Instead, the documents
throughout the U.S. and the world. It’s also
not. That sentence looks like a train wreck,
are broken up into sections.
an industry with dozens of options within the
but grammatically there is nothing wrong
field.
with it. And more than likely, it would take
Researchers-again, these researchers are
someone with legal expertise to understand
mostly attorneys-must track the laws and all
For example, there is the world of textbooks.
this. An author might become irate with a
applicable amendments. Publishing an out-
These are generally written by attorneys
publisher for changing such a sentence; so
of-date law enters into dangerous territory;
who are well-established in their respective
the publishers hire plenty of specialized edi-
it not only looks bad from a public relations
fields and who have some formal academic
tors with specific sets of skills.
point of view and will not help a publisher win
Publishing Careers
and writing training. Writing such a book on
over customers, but there could be potential
your own when you’re fresh out of law school
The boom of the Internet has given new life
legal ramifications involved if a trial lawyer
might prove to be futile; your lack of experi-
to legal publishing over the past few years.
uses outdated information in court.
ence will not endear you to book publishers,
Dusty old tomes cluttering valuable space in
whose bottom-line is, “Will this book sell?”
law offices are slowly being replaced by the
With printed books, there’s somewhat of
More than likely, yours will not.
mouse and the monitor. Stacks and stacks
an expectation for things to be out of date.
of yellowing paper were first replaced by the
That’s why we were always instructed to
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t break
floppy disk and now the CD-ROM. There are
check the pocket parts first before diving into
into the textbook industry. This field employs
countless websites devoted to the law and,
the statutes themselves. But on the Inter-
thousands of expert editors who, at the very
like our own LawCrossing, to legal profes-
net-with its ever-growing immediacy-people
least, must know the intricacies of “legal-
sionals.
expect legal sites to be up to date. The major
ese,” the language of lawyers. Moreover,
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legal online publishers realize this, and they
continued on back