<p>Hi everyone. I am an Accounting undergrad, going into my 3rd year of college this fall. I am considering going to law school, although not sure where yet. Before, I was planning to get my Masters in Accounting but I realized that law interests me more. Also, my father wants me to pursue being a lawyer. Anyway, I don't know if it's an indicator, but I topped my "Business Law" class under my Business School.</p>
<p>I do have some questions about going into law school:</p>
<ol>
<li>I am introverted; I am more interested into being a "behind the scenes" lawyer than a litigation attorney.</li>
<li>My family doesn't make much; and I don't want to get loans. My only choices are either to get a scholarship, or go to some inexpensive law school.</li>
<li>Is it really worth it? I've heard that the demand for lawyers are decreasing because of the oversupply of graduates and bar passers.</li>
<li>Do they still use the Socratic method a lot? I don't mind the question answer, but I do worry about the professors interrogation method to the students.</li>
<li>English is not my first language, although I can speak it pretty fluently(not overfluent).</li>
</ol>
<p>First of all, may I ask why are you getting a masters of accounting? I always thought that the most sought after are the CA designations and whether one has a masters is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Curiosities aside, here are my answers:</p>
<p>Alot of times lawyers do not go through the adversarial procedures (standing in front of court). However, you still have to talk with alot of people and I dont know what your degree of introverted is and so I would not provide any feedback on this.</p>
<p>Law school is expensive, especially if you are going to full time and not working as an accountant. Why not do it part time and work at the same time? Get the CA designation and finish law school parttime so that you can be more competitive in tax law and business law.</p>
<p>Alot of areas of law are shrinking, but if you have other professional designations ( such as a chartered accountant) you would be entitled to pursue some rewarding legal careers with much less competitions.</p>
<p>You do need to write alot of english in law exams. However, they are not marking you on how well your english is, you are marked on how well you can use legal principles and cases to back up your arguments.</p>
<p>When one becomes a lawyer in a law firm, the young lawyer’s writing IS graded and assessed every year during the partnership process. Writing ability is one of the most important skills for a lawyer.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think you are crazy to even think about going to law school. Become an accountant and have security and make some money.</p>
<p>Finish up with a BS Computer Science.
Work full-time and get a MS Computer Science (part-time).
Consider a JD (part-time).</p>
<p>Of course I would only attend a public university in NJ because of State Tuition Waiver for Guardsmen. It can’t hurt to pay almost nothing (tuition-free).</p>
<p>Yeah if you have another professional designation and a few years of relative experience (on that designation), your school brand would weigh much less. I myself is pursuing my professional engineer designation while working towards my law degree part-time. Since its part-time it cost less and the cost is a very very small fraction of what my salary is. My plan is to either be a patent lawyer or business lawyer and as you are working you can start looking for internal positions that uses both sides of the knowledge ( that is exactly what I did and now I use both my knowledge in contract law/business law/engineering standards and regulations to advise the employer on different decisions that it needs to make such that it is both effective and legal)</p>
<p>“You do need to write alot of english in law exams. However, they are not marking you on how well your english is, you are marked on how well you can use legal principles and cases to back up your arguments.”</p>
<p>This is not true in my experience. There is no such thing as an excellent law school exam that’s poorly written. If there’s a school out there where students at the top of the class make grammatical errors throughout their exams, I think you should avoid that law school.</p>
<p>Again in my experience, there is zero accommodation for the English skills of foreign-born attorneys by hiring partners, courts, etc. If you recruit your own clients, they may not care, but if you want another lawyer to hire you, your written English needs to be correct every time. An accent is fine; written errors are not.</p>
<p>It sounds like staying in accounting, at least for a while, would be a better path for you. Most law students do have to take out significant loans.</p>
<p>I am actually fluent in English being a noncitizen. English is actually my country’s second language. I am talking more about those “only from America” terms, but I think I can handle the essays and such.</p>
<p>@BEngineer That’s actually a good idea. I am probably going to try finishing up my Accounting degree, hope to get my CPA designation, then work. Then probably entering law school part time. That way I can support myself financially as I’ve heard, and as what everyone says, law school is expensive. </p>
<p>Is the job market for lawyers really that bad? I mean, if I go to let’s say, a state school, am I not competitive enough in terms of employers?</p>
<p>I can address your first question. I am an extrovert, but am very conflict-averse, so it is somewhat amazing that I became an attorney! I actually enjoyed the work I did, advising corporations how to comply with the law, because I liked becoming knowledgeable about a specific area of law and I felt that I was truly helping my clients, who were grateful. </p>
<p>In 6 1/2 years of working as an attorney (before having children), I went into a courtroom as an attorney only once, to be sworn into Federal District Court.</p>