Is Compliance the Practice Area for Job Security?

Lawyers are always interested in the next big trend in practice area. One practice area that continues to enjoy strong growth—for better or for worse—is compliance. Anthony Effinger's BloombergBusiness article, "The Rise of the Compliance Guru—and Banker Ire: The real growth area in U.S. finance is compliance. That’s definitely a bummer for people trying to make money. Is it also bad for the economy?" dives into the world financial services compliance, with interviews from compliance officers at finance and banking giants like Charles Schwab and DynCorp, before taking a look at compliance as a broader industry.

The fines, penalties, and legal fees involved for noncompliance can be staggering, totaling hundreds of millions—or even billions—of dollars. And so the growth in compliance has likewise been staggering.

All this means tremendous job and career development opportunities for compliance attorneys (and non-lawyers) on both the proactive side of compliance and the reactive side of noncompliance.