How To Become a Criminal Lawyer: A Complete Guide

Criminal lawyers specialise in criminal cases and represent either the state or the party charged with the Read this crime. Regardless of what side a criminal lawyer works on, it is their job to argue on behalf of their client’s legal interests. A career in criminal law can provide you with a good salary depending on your speciality and location. In this article, we will discuss how to become a criminal lawyer, including what skills and qualifications they need and their job roles, duties and responsibilities.

What is a criminal lawyer?
A criminal lawyer is an attorney who either defends or prosecutes individuals or organisations involved in criminal cases. Criminal law specifically governs conduct that is considered harmful or endangering to the public. This may be in relation to the safety of property or moral welfare. Governments define and impose penalties for criminal misconduct, to moderate people’s actions and to help them understand the consequences.

Criminal lawyers often need to perform the following job duties:

Identifying and gathering witnesses
Conducting interviews of witnesses
Examining crime scenes and evidence
Developing strategies for cases
Building good defences
Drafting, filing and countering appeals
Criminal lawyers may also take on ‘pro bono‘ cases where they work for the public good without taking payment. Handling high profile cases can put criminal lawyers in the public eye and subject them to media coverage. They may have to give interviews and statements in relation to a case on behalf of their clients.

How to become a criminal lawyer
If you are wondering how to become a criminal lawyer, here are some steps you need to take to build a career in this field:

Complete higher secondary education and appear for entrance exams.
Towards the end of your 10+2 education or after, you have to prepare and appear for law entrance examinations. You will require an aggregate of 50-60% marks in your board exams to be eligible to pursue undergraduate courses. These are some of the important examinations you should look out for:

CLAT (Common Law Admission Test)
LSAT (Law School Admission Test)
AILET (All India Law Entrance Test)
SET (Symbiosis Entrance Test)
Delhi University Law Entrance Exam

Complete an undergraduate course in law
You must complete a bachelor’s degree in law from an accredited university or college. There are two ways you can do this. You can pursue an LLB degree, which focuses solely on legal studies or a BA LLB degree, which is an integrated bachelor’s course that also has arts subjects. After completing a bachelor’s course, you are eligible to start your independent practice or to work for a legal firm.

Pass the bar exam
After you get your bachelor’s degree, you need to appear for and pass the bar council exam of a particular jurisdiction, to be able to appear in high court or supreme court cases.

Pursue a post-graduate law degree
You can pursue advanced legal studies through a master’s course in criminal law, which grants you an LLM (Master of Law) degree on completion. Master’s courses offer scope for specialisation within criminal law.

Pursue a doctorate degree in law
If you want to take your legal studies further, you may pursue a PhD or Doctorate in law. This usually requires you to complete a dissertation.

Gain work experience
Parallel to your studies or after, you should try to gain work experience under an established criminal lawyer or in a legal firm. Field experience and specialisation are very important for developing a successful career in criminal law.