Is there any advantage to earning a master’s degree before applying to law school? Additionally, if I go to graduate school before law school, will the law schools to which I am applying want my graduate transcripts, undergraduate transcripts, or both?
I think there are at least a couple of advantages. First, ordinarily you would be much less likely to get an MA or MS after your JD because of the pressure to become employed. (Exceptions might be a masters in taxation, or a one-year overseas law program.) So if you want it, do it now. Also, if it is important to you, it can be a way to add a prestige school to your resume, since some grad programs are sometimes easier to get into than undergrad at elite universities. This could give you an edge with potential employers, especially if it is a STEM related degree.
Second, it means you would be a year or two older, with more experience. This can be a real benefit in law school (or in med school, for that matter). OTOH, if it means going more deeply into debt, that would warrant serious consideration.
And yes, law school adcoms will want to see all transcripts. If your undergrad school has a pre-law advisor, I’d suggest making an appointment with her to discuss pros and cons.
Everything MidwestDad3 said above. You should really do a master’s if you want to pursue that discipline for your own enhancement. It will add value, but graduate work is a commitment, not just a feather in your cap.
I didn’t attend law school, but I did complete an MA before entering another professional program. I do believe it helped me, but again, I didn’t originally enroll in my MA as a step toward a professional / terminal degree. I have other friends who actually completed PhD’s, and then went on to law school. They did very well. In fact, if you did an MS, for example, you could be in a good position to focus on patent and trademark law. Etc.
You will have to send all transcripts, yes. That should be seen as a positive, and should you choose to do an MA – I think it’s a great idea, so long as you don’t incur unreasonable debt – you should intend on getting good grades.
Having a Master’s degree, in and of itself, is no advantage at all, and can be a big disadvantage if you will be incurring debt to pay for it. Why would you want to get a Master’s? If you want to be a lawyer, just apply to law school. If there’s a joint program of interest(e.g. JD/MBA) check out the schools that offer that.
And if you’re independently wealthy-well then enjoy the student’s life!
Crankyoldman, your post is worthy of your handle. That’s a myopic, and stridently careerist position you’re taking here. What if this prospective student wants to, you know, learn something more in his life? Or contribute more in whatever path he ultimately chooses? Or (gasp) even distinguish himself? Considering I also already mentioned he should not incur much debt to do this, I have to take issue with your advice. Especially so, since the OP wouldn’t be asking on this forum, unless he were actually interested.
Fwiw, I did my first master’s on a full-ride assistantship. So yes, it is possible, and worthy of consideration.
I do think a joint program could be a very nice option, but without further details, we might assume the OP’s proposed area of study lay outside conventional joint program tracks.
on another thread, the op posts that s/he is a DE student in Florida, who will earn a HS diploma and a juco AA; thus, matriculating to a 4-year college as a junior (at age of ~18).
Given that young age is always a negative to professional school admissions, I’d highly suggest graduating at 20 and working for a couple of years (for maturity and growth). Only apply for a MA if you can find some $$ support.
OP: law schools WILL count your juco grades for admissions purposes, and will all but essentially MA grades. (Law Schools only report u-GPA to the ranking services and ABA.) Thus, if your interest in an MA is to replace your low juco grades with grad A’s, it won’t work.
bluebayou, thank you very much for reporting this info. This clearly changes the situation, and your advice takes precedent in this rather particular case.
OP, you might have saved all of us time and energy by clearly indicating your status and background in this thread. You still would have received useful advice, per above. If it appears you are covering up some of your background, even inadvertently, it will not help your graduate admissions process for any program – law or otherwise.
@ianeberle: It seems the obvious first question is: Masters in what? If it’s in in a field relevant to law, I’d say go for it. If it isn’t, I’d say why bother?
@anhydrite: “What if this prospective student wants to, you know, learn something more in his life?” may be the silliest thing I’ve ever read on this board.
That’s a lamentable attitude, @Demosthenes49. Particularly as you seem to have cherry-picked one line, and disregarded the overall context and intent of my postings contained in this thread. Such as my quote above:
“I have other friends who actually completed PhD’s, and then went on to law school. They did very well. In fact, if you did an MS, for example, you could be in a good position to focus on patent and trademark law. Etc.”
Hopefully that doesn’t seem as silly for you, as a Master’s “in in [sic] a field relevant to law” seems to me. And this, after it had already been clarified by @bluebayou that the OP is in a particularly restricted position re: academic background. I consequently acknowledged as much, and it really didn’t merit further ruminations.
I still stand behind my singular line that you have disparaged. One of the primary attributes that characterizes the practicing attorneys – and I speak of those whom I know personally, and who have attended top law schools – is a love of learning, above and beyond their legal training. And if you think elite admissions committees cannot recognize this trait, I’d rather not waste my time on you.
As it seems you have an established penchant for dissuading potential law candidates from pursuing additional graduate work on this forum, I’ll instead leave you with the sound advice from another poster that you’ve apparently disregarded. [My apologies for re-quoting @spayurpets here – I could not imbed your individual post link properly. If there is a problem, please pm me, and I’d be happy to rectify.]
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01-18-2015 at 2:33 am edited January 18
@Demosthenes49, you appear to have very little actual experience in T14 law school admissions or working in BigLaw, while I have both, so I don’t know why I need bother debating your abilities to fetch data of dubious value from various websites. I can tell you as someone who has done law firm hiring, in-house legal hiring and law school interviewing that schools, firms, companies all value people who have specialized training that is relevant to the legal practice they want to pursue and that is especially true for advanced degrees. Yale, Harvard, Chicago and Stanford especially have a large number of people that have masters or PhDs or people who pursue other advanced degrees while they are in law school. At my DC law firm, I’d say roughly twenty percent of the lawyers I worked with had more than one advanced degree. Are you honestly going to tell me that Stanford Law would rather take some kid fresh out of Harvard undergrad who has never worked a day in his life or the guy who has a PhD in electrical engineering from UC Irvine? When Merck is hiring a new FDA or patent lawyer, would they take the guy from Columbia who has no experience in any science whatsoever or the guy who has a PharmD and a JD from Rutgers? I can tell you that, all other things being equal, I’d definitely hire the one who has the specialized knowledge and degree in the area that I am hiring in. And for you to say otherwise tells me that you have no real world experience at all in the legal profession.
anhydrite, your fatuous response is mind-boggling. Law school is an extremely expensive endeavor and ususually, you know, people go to law school to become, you know, lawyers. What exactly do you know about legal hiring-or even the practice of law, for that matter? To advise someone to get a Master’s just because-which is exactly what you have done-is terrible advice if s/he wants to go to law school. It was a running joke in my law school years ago that a large portion of our class went to law school because they had run out of Master’s degree programs to attend.
And if it helps any, yes my advice is “careerist”-beleive it or not, a lot of people actually make a career out of being a lawyer.
Crankyoldman, I must review international contracts in my field on a per-project basis. Though, as I have said, my professional program was in a different discipline. One of my parents had a PhD in the natural sciences, and then went on for patent certification (both at Ivies). These would be the two examples closest to me. So yes, I am familiar with pursuing graduate degrees other than / in addition to the venerated JD, and still engaging with legal practices.
And now, for the third time, I shall mention that a master’s or a PhD can indeed be an asset on the way to a career in law. You can dispute this until you’re blue in the face; I don’t really care.
Finally, as I already stipulated, I would adhere to MidwestDad3’s advice that one should likely pursue this before the JD. At least that is the succession I have seen peers complete successfully.
Cranky, “fatuous”???
Just on a personal note, 35 years ago I did a 2-year masters (in the humanities) overseas before going on to law school back here in the US. In the time since I have not spent one second regretting any aspect of that decision. To the contrary, those were two incredibly productive years that I have valued greatly. And professionally it has opened doors.
You are entitled to your opinion. But there are others of us who think differently, who have the first-hand experiences to inform our opinions.
Some of the comments here are turning me off of law school and pushing me towards academic work… Why MUST everything be about a career? I’m planning on double majoring in economics and public policy as an undergrad. Then, if all goes well four years down the road, I’d like to pursue an MA or PhD in one of those fields (whichever I end up liking more).
Quite honestly, from what I can conclude from reading books and blog posts on the subject, I do not have the personality to work at a law firm, especially a giant firm in a big city. I don’t want my life to revolve around billable hours and money. I’d much prefer to work somewhere like a think tank or university, so I think a PhD in economics or public policy combined with a JD would be quite valuable, even if I don’t use the JD to be a practicing lawyer. I am currently a dual-enrolled high school student taking classes at the local community college, and so far I’ve taken an American Government course and a Criminal Procedures course (among other non-related courses, as well). Both were taught by professors with PhDs in their field (political science / criminal justice) as well as JDs. Is it not possible to attend law school as an academic?
Have fun paying off the $240k debt for the JD you won’t use.
@Vctory “Won’t use” the JD?
Universities employ JDs in lots of different capacities, from running the student disciplinary office, to research and teaching, to personnel, development and general counsel, etc. Really don’t have any idea what you are getting at.
And you would be wrong, wrt to the latter.
Indeed they do, but the real question…is the JD required for the job? Is a JD recommended for the job? My point is that there a thousands --perhaps hundreds of thousands – of JDs doing non-lawyer stuff. But that does not mean that the JD – and three years of life and hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense – is/was valuable in finding that job. It may just mean that, like many who enter the legal profession, hate it and move on to other stuff. And/or it may mean that the federal projections are correct: the US produces 2x the number of JDs which the market can absorb each year. In other words, recently minted JDs go do some other stuff because they HAVE to; there are not enough jobs requiring a JD.
You may think it lamentable. That’s up to you. What I find lamentable are the students, pushed to “follow their dreams” faced with the reality of crushing debt with no reasonable prospect of escape. It’s easy to tell people to “love learning” when you aren’t the one footing the bill. You also didn’t even know what the Master’s is in–makes it awfully hard to give advice in my opinion.
I didn’t focus on the rest of your post because it contained only somewhat erroneous advice (an MS is not necessarily sufficient to qualify a person for the patent bar). I aimed for the larger point.
I genuinely doubt anyone can recognize that trait, since I expect it depends a lot more on what the observer thinks than how the observed behaves. Even if it could be easily recognized, however, there’s no basis for thinking law schools would care.
Had you actually read that thread you would have noted the intense irony present in your comment. His criticism was in part based on my background (since I do not generally provide it) and the claim that I wasn’t really a lawyer and therefore am in no position to give advice. Here, you admittedly never went to law school, but nevertheless feel his point supports you, a person (assuming logical consistency) it would apply most strongly against.
@MidwestDad3: First-hand experience is largely meaningless. It’s even more meaningless when it predates the Great Recession. No one is denying that in the past graduate degrees may have been worth pursuing. They were an awful lot cheaper back then. Now, the cost/benefit has shifted such that it is generally inadvisable to pursue them. I’m not clear why this is so controversial to so many people. Has no one here ever gone grocery shopping? You buy more when things are cheaper, and less when they are more expensive…
@ianeberie:
Because you have to pay back your student loans. As a high school student I presume most everything in your life is provided by your parents. That changes for many when they go off to college and most of the rest when they start law school. Law school is a very serious decision that will potentially impact the next three decades of your life. Badly designing your approach to law school, in strictly economic terms, will create a weight on your life that you may never recover from. People here are focused on careers because they recognize that fact.
This did not used to be true. Law school used to be much cheaper, loan programs lower interest rates, and job placement much better. People really could just go to law school. Sadly, that is no longer the case, and yet a number of people give advice as if it were. Just ask when they got their law degrees and you’ll see a clear divide. You don’t need to take my word for it. Just spend some time googling “law school” and any number of reputable publications will pop up explaining the dangers.
As for going to law school as an academic, you have the same problems as going to be a lawyer but magnified several times. The academic market is miniscule and shrinking. That’s true in both Polisci and law, the only academic fields in which I think a JD might be useful. Think tanks do employ JDs, though not particularly many, and when I lived in D.C. I don’t remember my think tank friends working terribly fewer hours than I do. The problem is that, while there are a few jobs that like JDs, there aren’t enough of them. Banking on getting one just isn’t worth the bet.
Hey, @demosthenes49 and I agree on something. Before you are even in college, it is much too early to be thinking about whether you need an MA to apply to law school. Go to school and do well; you’ll see whether law school is a good idea after that.
I’m just thinking ahead. Thank you for all the advice, though. I imagine I’ll end up in an economics PhD program and not law school, but in my opinion it is never too early to start thinking. I’ll probably change my mind 10 times between now and my senior year of college, but at that point at least I know that I made the choice that I truly wanted to make.
MWD: First, unlike other posters here I do not offer advice on admissions at colleges coast to coast, or on the strength of programs at those colleges. Instead, I usually limit my advice to what I know from experience: the practice of law and law school.
Second, while it is a positive thing that your two years spent obtaining your Master’s degree was worthwhile for you, it is important to note that this occurred 35 years ago. A lot has changed in 35 years including, significantly, the enormous cost run-up of school tuition. A graduate degree that could be had very cheap 35 years ago is now pretty outrageously priced. For example, I attended State U Law School over 30 years ago; I was able to pay all tuition/fees/books with my part-time(full time in summers) job working for slightly more than minimum wage. That’s not possible any longer. Now the cost-well here’s debt amounts for law school from USNWR:
So in my opinion, incurring any cost for a Master’s degree with the plan to go to law school is generally a bad idea. And please note that OP listed a “MA” as the degree sought; I can’t think of an MA which would make a law school grad more marketable in terms of law school admissions. And that’s the key-people go to law school to be lawyers and to get jobs practicing law. I have no argument that, if you are independently wealthy, obtaining significant and time-consuming education is time well spent. But if you want to practice law, the graduate degree ought to be in something that makes one more marketable. But in light of cost and associated issues, going to law school without the additional degree makes more sense.
Third, as ancedotes seem to rule for some posters here: I work in a large government law office. We hire dozens of clerks a year from the law school at State U. We had an intern last year who had a MS in Biochem, but decided to go to law school even though she had a high-paying(100K) job in biochemistry research. She gradutated and couldn’t find a job; instead she’s working for the local USA’s office-for free. Her commitment there ends in a few months; she still has no job lined up.
Another clerk graduated from a big name law school(Virginia) and started looking for work; the only job he was offered was as an investigator at the local PD’s office.
These were both pleasant, intelligent, and personable young people caught up in a terrible law job market. I have no doubt both will be fine attorneys once(sadly perhaps if) they get hired as lawyers.
But both have massive amounts of debt. I didn’t get specifics, but both were over 100K, and as it stands now neither has a way to pay it back.
So it’s my experience that informs my opinions. Getting a Master’s degree when one plans to go to law school makes at best marginal sense, and in fact the cost alone could negatively affect the future of the person for years to come. Education for education’s sake is a wonderful idea. But people usually go to law schools to become lawyers.
So I don’t have a Ph.D, and I only have one parent who attended an Ivy league school; it’s clear that these types of “credentials” are viewed by some who have never attended law school or practiced law as sufficient to offer advice on a world of topics, including law school. I don’t agree. OP, like many posters, would benefit from real-world advice about the practice of law.