Legal practice can be used to differentiate the body of legal precedents, rules, practices, philosophies, and regulations from other legislative enactments like statutes and Constitutions. The legal profession includes a wide range of professional specializations that serve different clients. The scope of practice varies by geographical area, legal tradition, and area of focus.
Broadly speaking, there are two main types of specialization within the legal practice: Personal and Commercial. Personal services include, but are not limited to, estate planning, probate, and family law. Commercial legal services deal with trademarks, corporate names, intellectual property, trademarks, and trade names. Different areas within the commercial area may encompass different areas of the legal practice. This includes but is not limited to insurance, real estate, labor, partnerships, franchises, and licensing.
One important distinction between Personal and Commercial legal practice is that Personal attorneys provide limited assistance to their clients, whereas Commercial lawyers perform more extensive work on behalf of their clients. In addition, Commercial lawyers are permitted to practice before the courts, whereas Personal lawyers cannot. Personal attorneys can also file legal actions in Federal or state courts, while Commercial lawyers must file in local courts. There are exceptions to this general rule, depending upon the specific legal practice.
The differences between Personal lawyers and Commercial lawyers is often due to differences in training. Personal lawyers pursue a higher education and pursue advanced degrees in law in order to be able to conduct the most effective legal practice. They therefore have better access to higher paying jobs and tend to advance much quicker than Commercial lawyers. Personal lawyers also have no restrictions on who they can hire or fire, whereas Commercial lawyers must frequently hire new staff in order to continue to be successful. In the business world, where competition is fierce, it is usually much easier for smaller firms to hire fresh talent, hire part-time workers, and cut costs by reducing overhead, than it is for larger corporations to do the same.
Due to the differences in training, it is becoming increasingly common for Personal lawyers to partner with a Commercial law firm in order to achieve legal delivery. In this model, the lawyer and the partner to complete all the required courses and fulfill all the requirements needed to receive an attorney degree from an accredited law school. Once the attorney has become a full member of the partnership, they can then work together to provide a more personalized and specialized legal service to their clientele.
The partners involved in a Commercial law firm typically share a number of services, including corporate litigation, transactional law, and real estate planning and management. Many lawyers also choose to work with several different firms, especially in the more rapidly expanding area of intellectual property, such as trademarks, design patents, and domain names. This practice helps to guarantee that each partner maintains a unique level of expertise relative to his or her individual specialty area.
The main difference between a Legal services firm and a traditional law firm partnership model is that in the former, lawyers are responsible for all the legal services provided while in the latter, a partner assumes that responsibility. Some legal services firms have moved away from the partnership model in recent years because they found the cost of providing legal services to multiple clients too prohibitive. Legal delivery is still delivered by lawyers, but now they are responsible for delivering those services to a variety of clients.
In many cases, the cost savings of a legal services firm working as a partnership model may outweigh the cost of providing the legal services alone. This is because many people do not want to take the time to partner with a law firm. For these individuals, the services provided by a solo-professional are a convenient alternative to full-time solo-professional employment. The new legal services industry is seeing a tremendous amount of growth, which means competition for solo-professionals will only increase. As competition increases, solo legal lawyers are sure to receive more compensation and benefits.