[apoc527]

Separate post for a reasonable list of substantive areas...

First, we consider the required first year curriculum at most law schools in the USA (obviously, I know little to nothing about other countries): Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, Torts, Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law. That's basically all that's required in most places (well, Legal Writing and Research too, but that's not a substantive area).

So, that's a good place to start if you want very few specialities!

If you want more, keep in mind that MOST realistic specialities incorporate concepts and doctrine from one or more of these areas. Almost every lawyer has to know Civil Procedure or Criminal Procedure (which I would not separate from Criminal Law).

I would probably subsume procedure into one of the "main" law groups, which, now that I think about it, should probably be separated by one more step: Civil vs. Criminal. (Civil, in this context, means "not criminal" and shouldn't be confused with statute-based "civil law"...ugh, no wonder people hate lawyers.)

Anyway, other substantive specialties:

Business (would cover both regulation of business from gov't side, defense of business, and interactions between businesses)

Family (definitely a legit speciality). I might consolidate slightly and say "Family/Wills & Estates."

Constitutional/Civil Rights (in the USA, this is gonna cover discrimination suits, Section 1983 violations of civil rights suits, etc)

Admiralty/Maritime

Intellectual Property (copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets)

Consumer Law (a whole host of issues from contracts to debt law to bankruptcy)

Bankruptcy (if you want to separate out from Consumer and Business law...)

I could go on, but that's a fair list. Really, this is a much harder task than I thought, and I think you would do best to limit the total number to less than a dozen specialties.