Criminal law is tough—but if you’re willing to rise to the challenge, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more exciting, diverse, or thought-provoking legal career.

From what criminal law entails to what you’ll study in law school to the skills you’ll need to practice in the real world, keep reading for expert insights into what it takes to succeed in this rewarding legal specialty.

What is criminal law, anyway?

Whether they’re prosecuting people who break the law, defending those who been accused of crimes, or performing related work, criminal lawyers play a critical role in our society and in the administration of justice.

As New England Law | Boston Professor Victor Hansen puts it, criminal law is basically our saying, “the conduct you engaged in was outside of what we as a society approve, and therefore you should receive our societal condemnation.” , who directs the school’s Criminal Practice and Procedure certificate program, says that “societal condemnation” is really the defining factor in criminal law.

Even though a crime may be perpetrated against an individual, it’s considered an offense against the state (aka society) and prosecuted as such. “That’s what distinguishes the whole line of criminal law as different from any other kind of law,”. Criminal law then focuses on what conduct should be punished and affixing the appropriate punishment for those wrongdoings.

How do you become a criminal lawyer?

Whether you hope to become a criminal lawyer or enter another practice area, your career path will begin to take shape once you enter law school. You’ll complete a combination of required courses and electives, many of which will expose you to the practice and particulars of criminal law. It all starts with a first-year course covering the foundations of criminal law (required by virtually all accredited law schools).

In the criminal law course he teaches first-year students, Professor Hansen focuses primarily on two key crimes: murder/homicide (where students look at relevant statutes, different degrees of murder, and the elements of proof needed to prove the guilt) and sexual assault (where students learn how that crime and the law itself have evolved). The class also covers potential defenses to those crimes as well as mitigating factors.

Though such horrific crimes might spring to mind when you think of “criminal law,” there’s more to the specialty than the cases ripped right out of a Law & Order screenplay. In fact, there’s a surprising universality to criminal law. “It really touches on a lot of the different areas that any lawyer would be interested in. “Plus there’s the added component of working with people, whether it’s victims, defendants, family members, or organizations within governmental institutions.”

 

Where can you learn more about studying criminal law?

“Most students have been exposed to some aspects of criminal law through books, television, and movies,” Professor Hansen says. “While that can be helpful to some degree, it can also be somewhat misleading.” Naturally, the examples found in entertainment are designed to be just that: entertaining. The realities are often more subtle.

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