probably IP or white collar

the most "lay prestige" is criminal defense, so that legions of cornfed housewives will dissect your every move on the nancy grace message boards

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319167)

One night I was drunk and someone asked me why I didn't do sports law like [bro], and I told them I don't because I want to pay my fucking mortgage. Now people think I'm a dick.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319705)

The rest of the time it's either imaginary or simply involves dealing with foreign lawyers/having to look up foreign law as an occasional part of your working day.

I'm in the latter category and I would never say I do international law.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319787)

For every ICJ prosecutor bringing Serbian war criminals to justice there are 50 people arguing about the drafting of some economic treaty.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319849)

*brags about practicing international law at da club*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319899)

lolno...probably white collar crime

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319754)

*holds up iphone and pager*

"when this sues that"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319835)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319865)

before and during law school, non-law ppl would tell me, "you should go into "corporate" cuz that's where the money is"

now when i do patent law (at a V20, doing patent lit), and tell ppl that, they assume im some small time nerd lawyer who files patents all day

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319877)

proles think youre some hotshot ari gold

in reality you're a shitigator for a different subset of f500 companies

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319902)

more seriously, I'd imagine Antitrust or "Securities" sounds pretty badass to laymen

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23319942)

Some people have an idea, even a vague one, based on other people's kids, reading the newspaper, etc, etc. In those situations you can at least usually explain something about what you do.

What's truly hilarious is when you meet someone who doesn't really understand that there is a difference between criminal law and anything else.

Had a guy tell me once "dude, you get someone to avoid the death penalty for murder, that's a really big deal". This in response to what I do, which is nothing close to criminal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23321985)

corporate is clearly NOT the right answer as others have suggested. the notion of a "corporate lawyer" might have a lot of lay prestige, but lay audiences would have no idea what a general corporate practice group at a law firm is. they would think someone who did tax or litigation or regulatory work for large corporations was a "corporate lawyer" just the same as someone in the corporate department at a firm.

sure some lay people might have enough knowledge of terminology to have asked "what group are you in" as opposed to "what kind of lawyer are you" but even those people wouldn't be paying any attention to your answer and would instead be looking at your lips while you talk all the while thinking about how much putting your head on a stick would benefit the world both aesthetically and socially.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2271975&forum_id=2#23327634)