The Role of Geographic Choice in Your Legal Career

For some individuals, geographic choice may be the most important element in the career planning process. Many law students are tied to a particular geographic area. They own a house or other property there. They have a working spouse. They have family and contacts in the community. They have an interest or avocation that can be pursued most easily in a particular geographic area.

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Many students select a geographic locale for lifestyle reasons. For the most part geographic choices should be factored into your priorities. For most of us, geographic choices represent preferences. For some percentage of students, the reasons for particular geographic choice may be so compelling that they represent outside boundaries on the job search. Such parameters will limit inevitably the choices available to you, so try to distinguish strong preferences from inflexible conditions.

The role of your law school in geographic selection is often underestimated. Two-thirds or more of the graduates of virtually every law school in the United States go to work within 250 miles of where they went to law school. This is true of so-called national law schools as well as local ones.

Some of this may be attributed to convenience and the fact that students develop ties to an area when they live there. Some of it may be caused by people selecting law schools in areas where they plan to practice. Much of it is the result of gradual accretion; over the years greater numbers of any school's graduates settle in the region where the school is located, and this in turns expands the opportunities for current graduates. While graduates of nationally prominent law schools may be able to make a move from coast to coast more easily than their counterparts in new or less widely recognized institutions, regionalism is still a reality.

Major Legal Markets

The availability of particular jobs in certain geographic locations is one of the two main considerations in geographic choice.

There are four super-markets for lawyers: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The first three of these are the most populous American metropolitan areas. The fourth is the seat of the federal government and attracts a special universe of practitioners.

In addition to these four legal centers, there are a number of other large cities that have leading legal markets. These metropolitan financial or government centers attract and employ large numbers of lawyers.

This suggests a correlation between population and legal activity. In fact, the number of lawyers per capita population tends to decrease as population increases. While the ratio of population to attorneys usually exceeds 1,000:1 in rural county seats, it may be 100:1 or less in the major cities.

In all the leading legal markets, the makeup of the bar is diverse as to organization, substantive practice, and demographic composition. These communities are supported by strong local bar associations, large libraries, including those at local law schools and in many cases, a dedicated legal press.

These institutions help to restore some of the cohesiveness that is lost when the attorney population becomes so large that bar members can no longer know all of their fellow lawyers. Such cities frequently have a number of law firms containing more lawyers than can be found in most rural counties in their state.

Secondary Legal Markets

Another group of legal markets include medium-sized cities that have significant lawyer populations and substantial legal activity. These cities are frequently state capitals, regional commercial centers, and transportation hubs.

The bar in these second-tier cities has frequently lost the camaraderie and cohesiveness associated with small town practice, but may not have developed all of the resources and communication services of the largest cities. The largest firms in these cities frequently approximate the size of medium size firms in the largest metropolitan areas. Law practice and the bar are frequently less diverse than in the first tier legal markets, often reflecting the specific population and economy of region.

Tertiary Markets

Cities which fall within a range of metropolitan population between 100,000 and 500,000 are legal centers within a well-defined geographic area. The economy is frequently dominated by one or several clearly identifiable industries.

In most cases, even the largest firms contain fewer than 50 lawyers, and the bar itself retains some vestiges of a small town legal community. These smaller cities include many state capitals for less populous states, university towns, and business centers in the country. County seats throughout the United States generally under the population of 100,000 serve as centers of local government and business.

Frequently, the bulk of legal activity in the county is conducted in this city, if only because the courthouse is there. Generally, there is some agricultural economy in the area, as well as some local industry.

Although the practice of law is defined by the population and economy, there are certain common threads that run through law practices in this size town almost anywhere in the United States. The largest firm may contain 20 lawyers or less. The total number of attorneys often will be less than 100.

This means that everyone knows everyone else. A handshake can still bind a business deal. Grievances are frequently handled informally. Reputations are slowly made and quickly lost. Family ties can be as important as legal expertise in developing a clientele.

Lawyers frequently retain a greater degree of the social standing that is sometimes lost in more anonymous urban centers. Their income is often less than it would be in the large cities, but the cost of living is less, and for many people lifestyle considerations more than compensate for the lack of economic advantages.

Small Town and Rural Areas

For lawyers who practice in small towns and rural areas, much of their business involves representing individuals and families. Frequently many of these clients are linked to farming and ranching in some way or another local industry, such as fishing, logging, or tourism.

For these lawyers, going to the county seat may be an excursion. They are frequently on the periphery of the organized bar and may even practice law part-time.

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On the other hand, modern technology and the media make it possible for more lawyers to practice outside metropolitan areas. Nationally-known trial lawyer Jerry Spence, for example, practices from a ranch near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Suburban Practice

Of the many changes that characterize post-World War II America, none is quite as pervasive as the rise of suburbia. Without discussing the sociological aspects of this phenomenon, the demographic patterns are quite clear. Large numbers of residents of many older cities have abandoned the city center for more pastoral habitats. As newer cities developed, the suburban model became the predominant housing pattern.

In some cases, the suburbs simply assimilated the pre-existing towns and villages. In others, whole new communities blossomed on the sites of farms, ranches and forests.

Shopping malls and commercial strips replaced downtown as the nation's number one shopping destination. The U.S. Census Bureau had to invent new categories to categorize the suburban sprawl, i.e., the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA), and the Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA). A whole generation of adults grew up in the suburban culture, and, in fact, the chances are extremely good that at some point during your professional career you will make the choice to live as a suburbanite.

The suburbs represent a geographical choice for law students in two different ways. First, there is a geographical option for any lawyer who works in a city: to live in the heart of the city or to live in the suburbs. The tradeoff is often between a house with grass and trees and a formidable daily commute to the city versus the problems and crowds of the urban environment and the relatively easy access to work and cultural events.

While most lawyers in these bedroom communities trundle off to the city each day to work, a significant number practice in the community where they live. Since suburban communities can vary from small towns to cities of several hundred thousand people to vast unincorporated areas, it is difficult to make generalizations about suburban practice. It is in many ways more like small town than big city practice. The clients are basically individuals and small businesses. But unlike the small town that may be a county seat or at least have a distinct identity, the suburban town's identity is merged into both that of its parent city and of its sister suburbs.

First, suburban cities cannot escape their satellite nature. Not only do many of their citizens work in the city, but city newspapers, television stations, and other media and events dominate the culture. The financial and governmental heart of the metropolitan area is inevitably elsewhere. Non-suburban towns and cities seem more like microcosms of larger municipalities. The distinction is hardest to make in towns that pre-existed urban sprawl, especially those on the periphery of the metropolitan area. Second, there is a definite suburban culture that is not small town and is not big city.

The legal business will reflect the particular problems of suburban populations. Courts and administrative agencies are likely to be "downtown." Law offices are more likely to be located in shopping centers and small detached buildings than in large office buildings.

The bar will be less cohesive than the small town bar, and lawyers themselves are likely to perceive as much identity with the larger community of lawyers as with the local bar associations.

Conclusion

Making geographical choices can be a complex but enlightening venture if based on careful consideration of how you want to live. Unfortunately, many law students make snap decisions about where they want to practice while they agonize over what to practice.

There is no shortage of demographic information analyzing places to live. There appears to be less information about regional differences in how law is practiced, so you may have to do some research on your own. Local newspapers, information interviews, chambers of commerce brochures, census figures, and other business research data will all prove valuable to you.

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