practice areas

[Natty]

sorry, i posted this over at xoxo, but thought it'd be nice to ask here as well: by any chance does anyone know which practice areas are known to have good QOL (measured at least in part by lower actual hours billed)? i'm not shying away from hard work or long hours, per se, but i am curious if some practice areas are known to have better QOL than others. thanks.  

(i heard tax and IP but i have a liberal arts background, so probably can't get into IP. and tax sounds kinda boring.)

[Krisace]

From what I gather tax seems to be the least demanding.  To the contrary I wouldn't expect IP to be very much less work than any other practice group.

[fushyuki]

When ever a firm comes to campus, their entire real estate department shows up.  I take that to mean that they're not swimming in work.  On the other hand, only a few litigators and transactional people are able to make it.

[AmicThisDOTcom]

Collection work!

[Bored 3L]

Probably tax and related areas like ERISA, trusts and estates, and perhaps real estate.

By all means take QOL into consideration when choosing a practice group, but you should really focus on what you'd like to do.  For the most part, the differences in hours are probably not hugely significant.  Also keep in mind that in most firms, more QOL practice areas like trusts and estates usually don't have that many attorneys, and turnover is also probably lower.  So if you tell a firm you only want trusts and estates, or give that impressionn without coming out and saying it, the firm might not call you back simply b/c they don't anticipate needing anyone in that dept.