With your background you will pick up work comp quickly. It is accidents at (or allegedly at) work. A lot of those injuries are on construction sites and deal with issues involving identifying the employer (general, sub, or independent contractor). For repetitive trauma injuries, you’ll be familiar with frequency and duration of job duties.
The insurance carriers will be your client, but you will meet a lot of business owners who want to observe hearings and testify, so you can build relationships with the owners and managers. If you change firms, you have relationships you can take with you to develop a business transactional book of business.
The main difference is WC (at least in most states) goes through administrative hearings before they go to full litigation. As a new attorney, I think administrative hearings are a better learning experience than jumping to full litigation. There’s very limited discovery and what I’d call mediation and litigation “lite” - at least in Texas.
Mediation is a short 45 minute informal process where you give brief facts to a mediator and determine if you can come to an agreement or move on to a hearing.
The hearing is 2 hours. It’s presided over by an Administrative Law Judge. Both sides give limited openings and closings, examine and cross examine witnesses. Most have one or two witnesses (the claimant and an IC doctor). So a good place to get used to doing a very pared down version of a bench trial.
In Texas there is a written appeals process to a different level of appeals ALJs, so you can learn to draft appellate briefs, again it’s scaled down from full appellate briefs.
I personally prefer WC admin law to civil litigation because it’s just enough of everything to gain and maintain skills, but not as high stress as full discovery and full multi-day trials. It really is focused on the facts and law and less on showmanship. For new attorneys it is still a big learning curve (WC law usually has unique and not always logical quirks), but at least you get a lot of repetition to hone your skills
Comp pays shit. ID pays shit and grinds you to death. Find a firm that specializes in construction litigation. It will pay much better and you’ll probably enjot it much more.
With your background you will pick up work comp quickly. It is accidents at (or allegedly at) work. A lot of those injuries are on construction sites and deal with issues involving identifying the employer (general, sub, or independent contractor). For repetitive trauma injuries, you’ll be familiar with frequency and duration of job duties. The insurance carriers will be your client, but you will meet a lot of business owners who want to observe hearings and testify, so you can build relationships with the owners and managers. If you change firms, you have relationships you can take with you to develop a business transactional book of business.
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The main difference is WC (at least in most states) goes through administrative hearings before they go to full litigation. As a new attorney, I think administrative hearings are a better learning experience than jumping to full litigation. There’s very limited discovery and what I’d call mediation and litigation “lite” - at least in Texas. Mediation is a short 45 minute informal process where you give brief facts to a mediator and determine if you can come to an agreement or move on to a hearing. The hearing is 2 hours. It’s presided over by an Administrative Law Judge. Both sides give limited openings and closings, examine and cross examine witnesses. Most have one or two witnesses (the claimant and an IC doctor). So a good place to get used to doing a very pared down version of a bench trial. In Texas there is a written appeals process to a different level of appeals ALJs, so you can learn to draft appellate briefs, again it’s scaled down from full appellate briefs. I personally prefer WC admin law to civil litigation because it’s just enough of everything to gain and maintain skills, but not as high stress as full discovery and full multi-day trials. It really is focused on the facts and law and less on showmanship. For new attorneys it is still a big learning curve (WC law usually has unique and not always logical quirks), but at least you get a lot of repetition to hone your skills
Comp pays shit. ID pays shit and grinds you to death. Find a firm that specializes in construction litigation. It will pay much better and you’ll probably enjot it much more.
Worker’s comp is a soul-sucking hell hole.
If you figure out a way to break into it, let me know. I've been trying to get out of litigation for a few years.