Hello all. I stumbled across this site and feel fortunate. I need to pick the brains of some of you legal folks.

Let me start by discussing my situation. I just became recently middle-aged, and have plenty of life left, unfortunately, after a 20-yr career in engineering and sales engineering, my options for finding new work seem unlikely. Unfortunately, the interview processes are taking 6+ months, and if you know anything about unemployment, that's a serious problem.

My background includes aerospace engineering and environmental engineering, specifically, water quality issues. I think I'd be good at patent law, corp defense against environmental lawsuits, product liability and eh, maybe even criminal defense.

So what are my goals? Simple.

  • Find out which type of law might best suit me.
  • Compare that to whether I will be able to make a long-term living by entering that field.
  • Find something that will give my family the financial stability we need. I'm not into getting downsized again.
  • Obviously doing something I enjoy.
I'm also very interested in the possibility of hanging out my shingle, but want to be realistic as well. I do have some lawyer friends / ex-classmates.

Ok, I'll sit back and listen to your comments before we get too far down the road.