Originally Posted by Unregistered

As a practitioner in community law (namely criminal and family), I would encourage those who have the interest to try out being a criminal lawyer. Good criminal lawyers are harder to find nowadays as the excellent criminal litigators have retired/passed on and only a few young lawyers are willing to do criminal litigation. But when there's scarcity, there's opportunity. And if you establish yourself as an excellent criminal litigator, "bigshot" clients will look for you and willing to pay a lot.

For family law, it is getting more difficult to eke out a decent income with specialist family law firms undercutting their fees. And generally, I feel the fees earned are not worth the huge amount of time spent. A contentious divorce can be very taxing, especially if the other side is a LIP and uncooperative. Furthermore, family courts are reluctant to grant costs order against any party so there's that.