Partner ranks inside a law firm
Practice area says what a lawyer works on, and rank says who owns the firm and who signs for what it buys.
Types of Lawyers and What Each One Does
Types of lawyers are named by practice area, the field of law each one works in, and this guide covers 34 of them, from bankruptcy and personal injury to patent, immigration and maritime work. Compare them in a single table below. No federal list fixes the number: the Census description of Offices of Lawyers names 6 areas as examples, and the Labor Department's occupation profile has a lawyer specialize in 1 area or practice broadly across many.
Key facts
- Practice areas covered here
- 34
- Areas with their own contact file
- 28 of the 34
- Official NAICS examples
- 6 areas named under 541110
- Occupation code
- SOC 23-1011, Lawyers
- Certified specialties, North Carolina
- 15 areas
The count
How many types of lawyers are there?
No official list fixes the number. The Census Bureau's description of Offices of Lawyers names 6 areas as examples, the North Carolina State Bar certifies specialists in 15, and this guide covers the 34 practice areas that US attorney records carry. A lawyer works in 1 of them or in several at once.
The occupation itself is a single class. O*NET, the occupational database sponsored by the US Department of Labor, describes code 23-1011, Lawyers, as people who represent clients in criminal and civil litigation and other legal proceedings, draw up legal documents, or manage and advise clients on legal transactions, and it records that a lawyer specializes in 1 area or practices broadly in many areas of law.
Industry classification is no more granular. NAICS 541110, Offices of Lawyers, names criminal law, corporate law, family and estate law, patent law, real estate law and tax law purely as illustrations of what an office can handle, and the code stops at that level.
Counting is therefore left to the market. Directories, bar specialization boards and contact databases each publish their own list, so the 34 types below are the practice-area values this attorney data carries rather than a government taxonomy.
The 34 areas
What does each type of lawyer do?
Each type of lawyer is named for the field of law it works in, not for a separate license. The 34 practice areas below run from admiralty to workers' compensation. 28 of them have their own attorney file, and 6 are reported inside a broader area.
One line per practice area gives the working definition, and the last column says where the attorney records for that area sit.
28 of the 34 areas carry an attorney file of their own, and the other 6 travel inside a broader area, so a request for family lawyers is filled from the divorce and family selection.
| Type of lawyer | What the practice covers | Where the contact data sits |
|---|---|---|
| Admiralty and maritime | Transport of goods and passengers by water, vessel purchase and charter, crew hiring, and marine insurance | maritime and admiralty lawyer contact data |
| Bankruptcy | Reduction or elimination of debts under Title 11 of the US Code, for consumer and business debtors and their creditors | bankruptcy lawyer contact data |
| Business | Commercial and consumer transactions: formation, contracts and the trade rules that govern a going concern | Reported under corporate and business |
| Civil litigation | Disputes resolved by filing or answering a complaint in the public court system, under the civil procedure rules | civil litigation lawyer contact data |
| Class action | One or more plaintiffs suing on behalf of a larger class of people harmed the same way by the same defendant | Reported under civil litigation |
| Construction | Building contracts, payment and lien disputes, delay claims and construction defect cases | construction lawyer contact data |
| Corporate and business | Companies as legal persons: formation, governance, shareholder relations and commercial transactions | corporate and business lawyer contact data |
| Criminal defense | Answering a prosecution, the side opposite the government where the state seeks to punish an act or omission | criminal defense lawyer contact data |
| Divorce and family | Marriage, divorce, child custody, adoption, domestic violence and other matters of family relationship | divorce and family lawyer contact data |
| DUI and DWI | Driving after ingesting alcohol or a controlled substance, charged as a criminal offense | DUI and DWI lawyer contact data |
| Elder law | Legal needs of older people: retirement benefits, estate planning, health care and health management | elder law attorney contact data |
| Employment | Rights and responsibilities in the employer and employee relationship, under federal and state statutes | employment lawyer contact data |
| Entertainment | Contracts, rights, licensing and royalties for performers, writers, studios and production companies | entertainment lawyer contact data |
| Environmental | Protections for the environment under statutes such as the National Environmental Policy Act, passed in 1970 | environmental lawyer contact data |
| Estate planning | Arranging the transfer of assets in anticipation of death, through wills, trusts and tax planning | estate planning lawyer contact data |
| Family | Domestic relations, the name many states use for the same body of law | Reported under divorce and family |
| General practice | A range of matters without specializing, the pattern NAICS describes for offices serving many areas of law | general practice lawyer contact data |
| Healthcare | Hospitals, physician groups and insurers on patient privacy, licensure, billing and program rules | healthcare lawyer contact data |
| Immigration | Movement of people into the country to reside, including status, petitions and removal proceedings | immigration lawyer contact data |
| Insurance defense | Defending policyholders and insurers against claims under contracts that indemnify a defined category of risk | insurance defense lawyer contact data |
| Intellectual property | Products of original human thought: inventions, writing, software, logos and music | intellectual property lawyer contact data |
| Landlord-tenant | Rental of residential and commercial property: lease terms, screening, repairs, habitability and eviction | landlord-tenant lawyer contact data |
| Mass tort | An act or omission that harms numerous people, grouped as individual suits against the same defendants | Reported under civil litigation |
| Medical malpractice | Professional negligence by a medical professional who breaches the duty to follow accepted standards | medical malpractice lawyer contact data |
| Mergers and acquisitions | Absorbing one corporation into another, or buying controlling shares to take over a company | mergers and acquisitions lawyer contact data |
| Patent | The right to exclude others from making, using, importing or selling an invention, under the Patent Act | patent lawyer contact data |
| Personal injury | Injury to a person's body, emotions or reputation, as distinguished from injury to property rights | personal injury lawyer contact data |
| Probate | The judicial process that proves a testamentary document is a valid will and settles the estate | Reported under estate planning |
| Real estate | Land and everything permanently attached to it, from purchase contracts to title and closing | real estate lawyer contact data |
| Securities | Investor information duties, because a security's worth derives from rights in the issuer's assets and earnings | securities lawyer contact data |
| Social Security disability | Claims for the old age, survivors and disability insurance benefits created by the Social Security Act of 1935 | Social Security disability lawyer contact data |
| Tax | Federal and state taxation, grounded in the taxing power in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution | tax lawyer contact data |
| Trademark | Any word, name, symbol or design used in commerce to distinguish one seller's goods from another's | Reported under intellectual property |
| Workers' compensation | Fixed monetary awards for workers injured or disabled on the job, in place of litigation against the employer | workers compensation lawyer contact data |
Grouping
How are legal practice areas grouped?
Practice areas group 4 ways: by side of the dispute, by client type, by subject matter and by forum. A criminal defense lawyer and a prosecutor share a subject and face each other, and a personal injury lawyer and an insurance defense lawyer do the same in civil court.
Litigation against transactional work is the first split. Civil procedure governs the judicial resolution of claims by one party against another, and criminal law deals with crimes and the punishment of the people who commit them, so litigators earn their living in court. Transactional lawyers in corporate, real estate, tax and estate planning practice draft the documents that keep a matter out of it.
Client type is the second split. Divorce, personal injury, immigration, bankruptcy, elder law and Social Security disability practices serve individuals and families, while corporate, securities, mergers and acquisitions, employment and healthcare practices serve organizations.
Subject matter is where the long tail sits: admiralty for shipping, environmental for pollution statutes, entertainment for rights and royalties, construction for building disputes. Types of lawyers and their practice areas line up with the statutes and the industries those statutes regulate.
By employer
Which types of lawyers work outside law firms?
In-house counsel, government lawyers, legal aid attorneys and judicial clerks all practice outside private firms. The practice area stays the same and the employer changes: a securities lawyer advises a bank from inside it, and an employment lawyer sits at an agency instead of a firm.
Employer is a separate attribute from practice area, and the occupation code covers both. O*NET lists General Counsel and Counsel among the job titles reported for lawyers, alongside Prosecutor, so the same classification holds a law firm associate and a company's legal chief.
Company-side lawyers form a segment of their own, and what an in-house counsel email list covers is settled by the role recorded on each attorney rather than by the employer's industry. Government lawyers form another segment, where what a public defender and prosecutor email list covers turns on the office that employs the lawyer.
Practice areas still apply inside those employers. A corporate legal department runs employment, contract, intellectual property and litigation work with its own specialists, then hires outside counsel for the areas it does not staff.
Certification
Do lawyers have to be certified in a specialty?
No. A lawyer practices any area without a specialty credential. The North Carolina State Bar certifies specialists in 15 areas, from appellate practice and bankruptcy law to trademark law and workers' compensation law, so certification adds a title rather than a permission.
North Carolina's 15 certified specialties are appellate practice, bankruptcy law, child welfare law, criminal law, elder law, employment law, estate planning, family law, immigration law, privacy and information security law, real property law, Social Security disability law, trademark law, utilities law, and workers' compensation law.
That list is a bar board's list, not a map of the market. Privacy and information security law and utilities law are certified specialties that contact databases rarely carry as practice-area values, while construction, entertainment and maritime work fill courtrooms with no North Carolina certificate behind them.
So the specialist types of lawyers and the certified types of lawyers are 2 different sets. Attorney records carry the area a lawyer works in, drawn from firm websites, directories and bar listings, and a board certification is a separate credential that only some states award.
Segmentation
How do practice areas segment a list of lawyers?
Practice area is the field a lawyer works in, and it is the first filter on any lawyer list. Selecting bankruptcy attorneys in 3 states returns a different file from selecting immigration attorneys in the same 3 states, because the field separates them, not the license.
Filters stack in a fixed order. Practice area narrows the profession to a field, state and city narrow the field to a market, role narrows the market to a decision-maker, and firm size sets the scale of the office behind each name.
Some areas overlap deliberately. A firm tagged both personal injury and medical malpractice takes both kinds of case, and class action and mass tort work stays with civil litigation because the same firms run all 3.
Types of lawyers by practice area are therefore a segmentation scheme before they are a taxonomy. Anyone planning outreach reads how practice areas segment a lawyers mailing list next, because the same 34 values drive the selection, the state coverage and the quote.
Related lists and guides
Where this segment connects
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Questions
Frequently asked questions
What are the two main types of lawyers?
Litigators and transactional lawyers. Litigators resolve disputes by filing or answering a complaint in court, and transactional lawyers draft the contracts, filings and estate documents that keep a matter out of court.
Which types of lawyers are paid the most?
No federal series reports lawyer pay by practice area. The Labor Department publishes 1 median annual wage for the whole occupation, $159,670 for 2025, so rankings by specialty come from private surveys.
Is a criminal defense lawyer the same as a prosecutor?
No. Both work in criminal law and they sit on opposite sides. A prosecutor pursues the government's case that a person be punished for an act or omission, and a defense lawyer answers it.
What type of lawyer handles family matters?
A family lawyer, called a domestic relations lawyer in many states. The practice covers marriage, divorce, child custody, adoption, domestic violence and reproductive rights, and state law governs most of it.
Can one lawyer cover several practice areas?
Yes. The federal occupation profile for lawyers describes specializing in a single area or practicing broadly in many, and general practice offices handle whatever a client brings through the door.
Sources
- Lawyers, 23-1011.00, O*NET OnLine, US Department of Labor, 2026. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- North American Industry Classification System, United States, 2022 (manual), industry 541110, US Census Bureau, 2022. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Specialty Practice Areas, Board of Legal Specialization, North Carolina State Bar. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Wex legal encyclopedia: bankruptcy, personal injury, family law, criminal law, civil procedure, litigation, class action, mass tort, malpractice, insurance, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Wex legal encyclopedia: patent, trademark, intellectual property, real estate, estate planning, probate, trust, corporations, securities, merger, acquisition, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Wex legal encyclopedia: admiralty law, elder law, employment, environmental law, immigration, income tax, landlord-tenant law, social security, workers' compensation, DUI, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Description for 8111: Legal Services (SIC Manual), Occupational Safety and Health Administration, US Department of Labor. Accessed 2026-09-16.