So I assume you want to do patent law?

So all of you 2Ls (or 3rd year evening students) with an engineering degree are probably used to this question by now. If the answer is "yes," then congratulations - you have a job. Bonus points if you worked at the patent office.

But... what if the answer is "no"? There are plenty of other fields that a person with an engineering degree is specially adapted to, and even if you don't want to do one of those, isn't a career change part of why you're going to law school anyway?

So here's a list of legal fields engineers might choose, and why it makes sense... feel free to add your own in the comments.

Areas where technical knowledge is useful:

• Technology Transactions - this one's pretty simple, and seems related to patent law, though most firms treat it as a completely separate practice. You understand the technology, you speak the language of the business people, and you are good at problem solving.
  
• Regulatory: FCC / FDA / EPA /FERC / etc. - fundamentally, these regulations are all about the technology. The clients know the technology very well, the regulators know it reasonably well, but the lawyers generally don't. While arguably lawyer ignorance creates a veneer of plausible deniability, everything is going to go smoother if the lawyer has the technical background to know what is going on.
• Copyright - face it, these days people only care about copyright when it has to do with the Internet, and most lawyers don't understand the Internet. I get sick of all of the lame analogies I hear ("series of tubes"), and a lawyer who understands how the Internet really works, when a copy is made, how a copy is used, etc, is more likely to come out with a useful, legally cognizable result.
  

Areas where the engineering brain is useful:

• Tax Law - it's all about problem solving and numbers, two things engineers are very accustomed to. You have a set of finite physical constraints, and your goal is to maximize efficiency (minimize taxes).
• Corporate / Securities / M&A - if the firm has a technology-centric focus, it's easy to see how an engineering background can help, but even if not, the engineering mind can help. Corporate lawyers always gloss over the numbers, so that's not a factor here. However,this is another place where there is room for creative problem solving within a realm of finite constraints.
• Construction Law - this really could go up there if you're a civil engineer, but construction law involves getting a lot of pieces into place. The loan documents, deed transfer, and construction contracts themselves aren't particularly interesting, but part of what a construction lawyer does is help with the project management. This is something engineers (should) know how to do very well.

I'm sure there are good reasons why engineers are good at family law, general litigation, or aviation law, but I don't know enough about these practices to really get into it. Any ideas?