Campbell Law School provides a legal education designed to assist students in developing superb professional skills for purposeful lives of leadership and service. Most students will elect courses from multiple Practice Areas to deepen their knowledge in specific curricular areas and also to cultivate a breadth of knowledge that will enable them to become well-rounded lawyers. Students are not required to elect a Practice Area, but should use these course groupings to design a curriculum best suited for their professional goals.
Course groupings for each of the nine suggested Practice Areas are available.
View Practice Area Course Groupings
Business Law
What does a business lawyer do? The answer varies so widely that no two business lawyers seem exactly alike. Business lawyers help clients choose and form entities, such as corporations, partnerships, and limited-liability companies. They draft and negotiate contracts of every kind, including sales contracts, financing documents, and intellectual property licensing agreements. They help businesses comply with the many laws that govern them, including tax, securities, and employment laws.
A business lawyer often works with other lawyers in a collaborative style. A business lawyer typically works in a transaction-oriented practice area in a law firm or serves as in-house (employed) counsel for a business. Because more and more businesses operate worldwide, business law can provide unique opportunities for international travel and cross-cultural exposure.
Civil Litigation
Civil litigators become active when people, businesses, or government agencies sue each other for damages or other relief. Modern civil litigation covers the waterfront of subject areas, including, just for example:
• business competition
• civil rights
• consumer protection
• contract disputes
• disputes within families (such as divorce, child custody, and distribution of property)
• financial and securities fraud
• injuries from accidents or from intentionally harmful acts
• intellectual property
• labor and employment, and
• the law of the seas
Modern civil litigators master one or more substantive fields like those listed above. Equally importantly, they master the workings of American court systems, including the procedure for civil lawsuits, the principles of evidence, and courtroom advocacy. Campbell Law’s Civil Litigation Practice Area prepares students to resolve disputes—inside or outside the courtroom—effectively and fairly. We help students blend strategy, skill, and substance, the ingredients that make a civil litigator a polished advocate and a community leader.
Criminal Litigation
Criminal law fascinates Americans. We share this fascination because crime and punishment affect everyone—not just victims and accused offenders, but also citizens, who must decide how safe they are in our society.
Lawyers who work in criminal law play vital roles. Criminal defense lawyers represent people who entrust their lives and their liberty to their defense lawyers. Prosecutors speak with the voice of the community and seek justice for victims of crime. Regardless of his or her role, a lawyer practicing criminal law needs to master three areas of law: the law that defines and punishes crimes, the procedures for criminal trials, and the constitutional principles that govern criminal investigations and prosecutions. Equally importantly, a criminal lawyer must become a skilled advocate in the courtroom.
Campbell Law’s Criminal Litigation Practice Area develops students into lawyers who command all of these skills. This practice area challenges students to become effective advocates in today’s—and tomorrow’s—criminal justice system.
Estates & Trusts
Attorneys practicing in the area of Estates and Trusts are primarily involved in a transactional practice. These attorneys draft wills, trusts, family partnership agreements, and other essential documents to accomplish clients’ goals. An estates and trusts attorney may represent families, individuals, corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and other legal entities. Various skills are required, including, but not limited to, drafting documents, negotiating agreements, counseling clients, and interpreting complex statutory material.
Those seeking a practice working with people representing their individual interests, as opposed to officers and agents for corporate entities, will find opportunities in this practice area. Others in this area may find themselves serving as a trust officer at a large bank and being responsible for administering trusts and estates according to the terms of the governing instruments and applicable law. Still others may find fulfillment representing the elderly as they enter the last stages of life. The possibilities are many, as well as challenging and rewarding.
General Practitioner
An attorney engaged in a general law practice is often considered a quintessential all-around lawyer capable of representing clients with widely ranging legal needs. General practitioners frequently represent one client in a family law matter, another in a probate proceeding, and the next in a litigation dispute. These attorneys serve the many needs of their clients in small firms or solo office practices, particularly in smaller communities. Campbell Law’s General Practitioner Practice Area is designed to expose students to a wide range of legal issues and develop the varied skills necessary for those interested in maintaining a general law practice.
Government & Regulatory Affairs
Attorneys practicing in the Government and Regulatory Affairs Practice Area find opportunities in both the private and public sector. Private attorneys who practice in the area of government and regulatory affairs can expect to interact with government regulators at every level—federal, state, regional, and local. Their clients may include individuals seeking to obtain benefits from the government, or may include major corporations in regulated industries, such as banking, telecommunications, utilities, health care, or pharmaceuticals. Public attorneys who practice in this area enjoy opportunities within all three branches of government, including as staff attorneys for agencies, as advisors to legislators, or as clerks in the judiciary. The opportunities to practice in this exciting and constantly changing area of law are particularly rich in Raleigh, the capitol and center of state government.
Health Law
Delivery of health care is one of the most highly regulated activities in modern society. Health care lawyers may resolve issues involving corporate hospital transactions; medical facility development and expansion; or any number of unique questions about what care must be provided in the emergency room, who speaks for an incapacitated patient, what payment arrangements are allowed between physicians and facilities, and who can access medical records. Health lawyers may represent professionals or organizations in licensing disputes before administrative agencies, or they may negotiate on behalf of researchers who have discovered a novel treatment. Health care lawyers enjoy the opportunity to develop subspecialties in areas such as privacy, fraud and compliance, payor systems (Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and others), professional licensing, clinical research, or bioethics, and they may practice in litigation (courtroom) or transactional settings.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property law continues to grow rapidly in importance as technology and innovation remain at the forefront of economic development and competitiveness. What was once an obscure niche in the law is now an area of fundamental importance for many practitioners. Additionally, because intellectual property law seeks both to incentivize and regulate technology and creative expression, it is one of the most interesting areas in the law. Intellectual property law includes a core trio of copyright, trademark, and patent law, as well as a host of other doctrines, including publicity rights and trade secrets.
Real Property
An attorney practicing in the area of Real Property is involved in a multi-faceted practice. At times, one will be involved in negotiating and drafting complex buy-sell agreements between many parties or even trying cases involving such agreements. At other times, one will be advising and assisting a family purchasing a family home. This area of law practice also may find the attorney representing large corporations involved in the acquisition and development of commercial properties in a wide range of settings. Real property attorneys often appear before governmental agencies as they assist clients in obtaining approval for various projects and developments ranging from residential subdivisions, large commercial shopping centers, and multi-use property arrangements of all kinds. The variety of matters a lawyer specializing in a real property practice may handle is great. A property lawyer’s practice may include representing individuals, families, and multi-national corporations in a variety of settings.