Lawyers

People in this career often have these skills:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
• Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.

• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
• Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
• Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
• Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
• Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Systems Analysis - Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.

People in this career often know a lot about:

• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.

People in this career often have talent in:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.

• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Selective Attention - The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.

People in this career often do these activities:

• Identify implications for cases from legal precedents or other legal information.
• Provide legal advice to clients.
• Interview claimants to get information related to legal proceedings.
• Meet with individuals involved in legal processes to provide information and clarify issues.
• Represent the interests of clients in legal proceedings.

• Research relevant legal materials to aid decision making.
• Prepare legal documents.
• Arbitrate disputes between parties to resolve legal conflicts.
• Supervise activities of other legal personnel.
• Prepare documentation of legal proceedings.
• Evaluate information related to legal matters in public or personal records.
• Draft legislation or regulations.

• Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers

• Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates

• Equal Opportunity Representatives and Officers

• Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Sales Agents

• Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators

• Fraud Examiners, Investigators and Analysts

• Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Teachers, Postsecondary

• Judicial Law Clerks

• Law Teachers, Postsecondary