Becoming A Personal Injury Attorney

By Frank Leggors


A Charleston SC personal injury lawyer has many responsibilities in representing his or her clients. These responsibilities include both professional and ethical rules and codes of conduct set forth by the SC bar associations. Once a lawyer has passed his state's bar exam they are legally permitted to file legal complaints, argue cases in the state court, draft legal documents, and offer legal advice to victims of personal injury in South Carolina.

In order to practice personal injury law in the state of South Carolina, the candidate must pass a tough written bar examination and in a lot of cases, an additional ethics exam. These state bar exams do vary from state to state, however, excluding California, most states require the applicant have a four year college degree followed by a law degree from an accredited law school. If and when admitted to the South Carolina state bar, personal injury lawyers in Charleston, SC must remain up-to-date on many legal and non-legal developments in their chosen practice fields by attending and completing a number of required continuing legal education courses aimed to help the lawyers stay abreast of all relevant developments in their chosen fields. The total number of classes each year varies from state to state.

The career structure of many lawyers varies widely. Once they are licensed, a Charleston lawyer may take on any kind of case whether or not they experience in that category. However, SC legal ethics require that inexperienced lawyer to enlist appropriate help or take the time to learn more about the issues to competently represent his or her client. Most Charleston lawyers prefer to stick to one practice area of the law to gain the knowledge and experience necessary to provide the competent legal representation to their clients.

Charleston personal injury lawyers may choose to delve into a more specialized area involving only SC personal injury litigation. Personal injury litigation involves a large number of claims including accidents, medical malpractice, workplace injuries, car accidents, defective products and more. Some Charleston personal injury lawyers choose to devote the majority of their time and energy to one area of litigation within personal injury law, becoming even more experienced at handling very specific types of cases like medial mistakes, aviation accident, trucking accidents, etc.

Just like in other industries, South Carolina personal injury lawyers get to choose whether they will venture out on their own starting a sole proprietorship, joining a medium size company as a partner, or taking a position as an associate with a big firm hoping to one day make partner. There are benefits to all of those choices. A small firm can be attractive to potential clients because of the attention and dedication they will receive from the lawyer. Also, the prices and costs are usually lower with a small firm.




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