Other people and companies hire these lawyers when they need them. Some lawyers work for only one person or company all of the time. A few lawyers teach other people to be lawyers. And some lawyers work for the government. Sometimes they must travel to get more facts for the cases they are working on.
Lawyers often work long hours.
About half of all lawyers work 50 hours a week or more. There were about 681,000 lawyers in 1998. Most of them worked for themselves or in companies with other lawyers. To be a lawyer, a person must have a license from the State in which he or she wants to work. To get a license, the person must go to college for 4 years.