<p>Okay,</p>
<p>I am frightened. I have heard lawyers talk about how there aren't any jobs in the law market for people who have graduated from law school. For some reason, I still want to go to law school, but not at this moment. I would really love to get a Masters in Human Rights Studies. Is this a good idea? I am currently working undergrad as Writing and Philosophy. If it is a good idea, where should I go? </p>
<p>What to do....what to do? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Are you willing to take on grad school debt (which will be mostly in the form of loans) along with Law school debt, which will be mostly in the form of loans?</p>
<p>If you really want to be a lawyer, go to law school.</p>
<p>Ya there are plenty of top law students who end up with no jobs after graduation about 20-30%, of the class. In addition to many lawyers being laid off</p>
<p>Just so you know, a Masters in Human Rights Studies will not hurt your future law school application but don’t expect it to help very much. The grades you receive in the Master’s program won’t matter (only your undergraduate grades will be considered) and unless the Master’s is from a very prestigious program, it is pretty much a neutral factor.</p>
<p>I have a friend who did precisely what the OP is thinking of doing. When I asked him about his gap year in retrospect, he said, “If you want to take one, spend it making money! Don’t spend it borrowing money.”</p>
<p>I’ve never understood why people invest in useless graduate degrees. (Unless of course your parents are paying or you get a full-ride. In this situation, you only have the opportunity cost of not receiving a salary for 1 to 2 years.) Still though, that master’s degree is completely unemployable and won’t really help for law school admissions or for getting a job. </p>
<p>It’s risky going to law school right now, but I wouldn’t waste my time getting a worthless degree to bide time until law school. Get a job in the interim period and gain some useful skills. Besides, people with legitimate work experience tend to do better at OCI.</p>
<p>Are there compelling reasons which speak to a strong need/passion for studying Human Rights Studies and/or to fulfill a career prerequisite which you can clearly articulate here?</p>
<p>If so and finances are not an issue, do it.</p>
<p>If you’re just doing so because you are not sure what you want to do when you graduate, then no. </p>
<p>Ask yourself the same question regarding why you want to attend law school/be a lawyer. </p>
<p>Also, have you pursued an internship in a law firm to see what the actual practice of law would be like?</p>
<p>["I’ve never understood why people invest in useless graduate degrees. (Unless of course your parents are paying or you get a full-ride. In this situation, you only have the opportunity cost of not receiving a salary for 1 to 2 years.) Still though, that master’s degree is completely unemployable and won’t really help for law school admissions or for getting a job. "]</p>
<p>Depends on the Masters program, reasons for pursuing the degree, and the types of jobs the student seeks after graduation. </p>
<p>For instance, some students I knew pursued Masters programs because they were passionate about pursuing an academic area in greater depth and/or managed to pick up some valuable skills to boot such as fluency in one or more foreign languages or being more conversant in cross-cultural communications. </p>
<p>The former demonstrates the commitment of a student in finishing an advanced educational program he/she started and the latter will help him/her in OCI and legal career provided he/she is able to convince the interviewer(s) about how much added value leveraging such skills would be to the law firm concerned. </p>
<p>For instance, I can see how Human Rights Studies may be a plus for some public interest legal organizations or NGOs. However, it won’t do much if the OP hopes to pursue biglaw or any areas where clients are mainly corporations who may have possible business dealings with human rights violators.</p>
<p>I am not in law school, but I believe the OP does not need a Master of Human Rights. Most law schools have a decent international human rights curriculum. If the OP wants a master’s degree, he or she should either pursue a Master of Social Work (macro/community focus) or a Master of Public Policy (international focus).</p>
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<p>Of course it depends on the program, but most of the programs in the liberal arts are useless and unemployable. (Many of my classmates in my law school have M.A.s…) I think foreign language skills may be useful for certain fields, but getting a master’s degree in political science, for example, without the intention of becoming an academic is a waste of time.</p>
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<p>If OP wants to work in biglaw, getting a master’s degree in Human Rights Studies might actually work to his or her detriment during OCI. My friend worked in public interest for 3 years before law school and career services told my friend to leave off half the work experience during OCI because biglaw firms will question OP’s interest in biglaw given his/her resume. </p>
<p>But I’m mainly against getting a master’s degree in Human Rights Studies because it sounds like another unemployable, relatively useless degree. If OP is interested in working for NGOs, then he or she should get a PI job, not a useless degree. While good grades are also important for PI, PI hiring tends to emphasize work experience and volunteer work.</p>
<p>I am considering legal work in the field of LGBTQ and Immigration law. With this in perspective, would grad school be feasible and worth-while? I am going to be in debt either way.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>–but do you want to be a lawyer? If the answer is yes, then start doing a bit more research on law schools.
– Berkeley has an International Human Rights Law Clinic
– Georgetown has an International Women’s Rights Clinic and a Certificate program in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies
–Tulane has a Journal on Law and Sexuality</p>
<p>Point is, you might find a good fit for a particular law school without doing the grad school route too. IMO- it just costs way too much to go into debt for both grad school and law school.</p>
<p>[I am considering legal work in the field of LGBTQ and Immigration law. With this in perspective, would grad school be feasible and worth-while? I am going to be in debt either way.]</p>
<p>I’d recommend interning and/or working in organizations dealing with LGBTQ and Immigration Legal issues during and after college rather than immediately pursuing grad/law school. </p>
<p>You would not only gain some working experiences in those areas, you’ll also strengthen your law school application…especially to public-interest minded law schools like Berkeley. Better yet, if you find you don’t like the realities of the practice of law while interning/working in those organizations, you won’t be hundreds of thousands of dollars in grad/law school debt</p>
<p>What is being overlooked here, potentially, is that a lot of people that go to law school never actually practice law or take the bar exams. Law school can be excellent preparation for a lot of careers, including being very useful in a human rights organization. That being said, I concur with those that say the Master’s degree would probably be useless. Well, maybe that is a bit strong, so let’s say probably not needed. Law school at most places will indeed let you get completely involved in these issues. My S is looking at law schools now with the possibility of earning a Master’s in Russian Studies concurrently. Michigan, Texas and others have this as a formal program. His thinking is that having the law school education combined with being fluent in Russian and having the extra education in Russian issues will be very marketable. I think you can say some analogous things regarding your plans, except you don’t need the extra Master’s.</p>
<p>If Tulane particularly focuses on these issues, look into it, because if you have decent LSAT scores and GPA, you can get scholarship money and avoid some of the debt. This seems like a much smarter way to go, to me. As part of law school you would be interning and otherwise helping at LGBTQ non-profits, and of course New Orleans has a fairly large community that falls into these categories. So focus on making great grades (since you are almost halfway through your junior year hopefully you have already done that, like a 3.5+) and definitely take some LSAT prep course. My S started out in a practice test at the 80th percentile and ended up at the 90th on the real thing. The courses do help most people, and the LSAT score is crucial for admissions and scholarships.</p>
<p>[What is being overlooked here, potentially, is that a lot of people that go to law school never actually practice law or take the bar exams. Law school can be excellent preparation for a lot of careers, including being very useful in a human rights organization. That being said, I concur with those that say the Master’s degree would probably be useless. Well, maybe that is a bit strong, so let’s say probably not needed. Law school at most places will indeed let you get completely involved in these issues. My S is looking at law schools now with the possibility of earning a Master’s in Russian Studies concurrently. Michigan, Texas and others have this as a formal program. His thinking is that having the law school education combined with being fluent in Russian and having the extra education in Russian issues will be very marketable. I think you can say some analogous things regarding your plans, except you don’t need the extra Master’s.]</p>
<p>It is certainly an extremely expensive way to prepare for those non-legal careers considering the average cost of most law schools runs around $200k+ at the very least…and may not be the most effective way of doing so. After all, law school’s main purpose is to provide foundational training for those who intend to become lawyers. </p>
<p>I’d recommend reading this link to my undergrad’s pre-law advice to students considering law school: [Law</a> School: Getting Started](<a href=“http://www.oberlin.edu/career/students/school_law_start.html]Law”>http://www.oberlin.edu/career/students/school_law_start.html)</p>
<p>As someone who has worked in law firms, has ongoing contact with attorneys, and from personal observations, the advice above is very much on the mark…though it still gives only a glimpse into what the realities of legal practice is like in a law firm or court setting. The part about the feasibility of a JD being a multipurpose degree is dead-on…and takes far more work than most people initially thought. </p>
<p>There’s also the factor that many potential non-legal employers may take a far more dim view of a job applicant with a JD applying for a non-law related job as opposed to someone fresh out of college or those with more relevant work experience. </p>
<p>Moreover, a professional degree in public policy or international relations with a Human Rights Concentration may be more applicable for someone hoping to pursue a career in Human Rights from schools like Columbia’s SIPA, Tufts Fletcher School, John Hopkins’ SAIS, Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, Harvard’s Kennedy School, etc. However, I would check with each school and its recent graduates to see what kinds of jobs and organizations their graduates end up getting placed in.</p>
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I didn’t say one had to attend a top 14 law school if one’s intention is not to practice law in the end. Many good law schools farther down the list offer significant breaks on tuition in the forms of merit scholarships and grants. While I agree with much of what that article says, there are in fact literally hundreds of examples I personally know, and undoubtedly thousands more, of people that used the training of law school to do well in other areas. After all, that same article says
Well, duh! Even if you want your law degree to be for practicing law, you bear the responsibility for that as well. If law isn’t good preparation in conjunction with these many other areas, why do so many law schools, including such luminaries as Columbia, Michigan and Texas, have joint degrees with areas such as Russian (and other foreign) Studies, Social Work, and Business, among other areas? It isn’t just because you need them to practice business law or whatever, you can do that without an MBA. It is because they recognize the need for leaders in various fields that have a solid legal foundation. You are right, however, that you will still be trained as a lawyer. That is what law schools do, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that is only what they are for.</p>
<p>BTW, to quote you just do [q uote=NAME]put quote here[/q uote] except obviously without the space between the q and u.</p>
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<p>I’m not convinced that is true, despite the law schools’ spin. And in particular, relative to other types of preparation which could occur instead. $200k plus three years of opportunity costs is a lot of “preparation” to only practice law. It just seems to me that LS is excellent preparation to be a lawyer, period.</p>
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<p>I’ve often wondered the same thing, but unfortunately don’t have a good answer. For some joint programs, the extra degree might even be a detriment to LS gpa since they require additional coursework to be completed. And since LS gpa appears to be critical for obtaining jobs from Career Services…Or, the joint degree could hinder summer legal internships…</p>
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<p>I have no doubt that law schools think that way (or at least spin it that way), but I do not believe that the employment market concurs.</p>
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<p>Absolutely.</p>
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<p>My point about the expense applies to law schools at all levels, even the ones at the very bottom such as a few I know of in the NYC area. For instance, Hofstra and Touro both cost about as much as NYU or Columbia Law school…yet have far poorer employment prospects for legal and non-legal jobs…especially in this economy. Even may public university based law schools aren’t that much cheaper than their private counterparts. </p>
<p>Know several graduates from those two lower ranked schools who have endured long-term unemployment upon graduation because they’re in stiff competition with graduates from the T-14, top 5-10% graduates from the rest of the first and second tier schools, they’re not top 5-10%(curves tend to be harsher in lower ranked schools), and have little/no work experience to balance out their relatively weak profiles. It is one reason why I emphasize that if you’re planning to attend law school, having worked 2 or more years at a full-time job gives you a leg up not only in admissions, but doubly also in searching for post-law school employment…whether legal or not. </p>
<p>Moreover, the “scholarship deals” at the lower ranked law schools aren’t as good as they may initially seem. A few friends at lower ranked law schools have mentioned how such schools have dubious policies such as placed all the scholarship students in the same section so the curve will purposely eliminate at least half of the scholarship holders after the first year because one needed to be above the median or in some cases…even the top 20% of the section to keep it. Several of them ended up dropping out of law school after losing such scholarships because the debt they would be undertaking wouldn’t be worth paying sticker price considering their post-law school prospects. </p>
<p>In addition, regarding the people who you know who managed to leverage their JD into non-legal jobs, I’m thinking they had a far more impressive profile whether it is impressive pre-law school work experience, superb networking skills, and more than your average law school graduate who went straight from undergrad or who had little to no full-time work experience in the area relevant for the non-legal job in question. </p>
<p>Also, did any of them graduate law school within the last 5-7 years, didn’t graduate from a first or second-tier law school, and graduated well below the top 20% of their graduating class?</p>
<p>You seem to have trouble addressing the point. But you did learn fast on how to quote, lol.
That just obscures the discussion. I am not talking about people that want to practice law. It isn’t clear whether the OP was or not.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I generally like your posts but you didn’t really offer anything here other than the fact that you are “not convinced” and “you wonder”. I called a couple of the programs today and asked specifically about how their graduates had fared in these dual programs, specifically I focused on the Russian Studies area since that is of interest personally. I can only take their word for it, of course, but they say that all their graduates were quickly employed by the government, by companies dealing with Eastern European entities, by the UN and related agencies, or by law firms specializing in these areas. Their stories were so similar and convincing I tend to believe them. As far as hindering summer internships, apparently the opposite is the case. The language skills are extremely valuable. Apparently the employment market indeed concurs, at least in this particular area.</p>
<p>Ah well, this isn’t worth arguing about. If the OP really wants to be involved in legal work (a somewhat ambiguous phrase) involving LGBTQ causes, then they should probably just go to law school and focus on schools that have an advocacy in this area. I would think San Francisco and New Orleans would be logical places to look, but of course I am sure NYC and others have a lot of potential. Having a specific focus in mind can go a long way.</p>
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<p>I was actually addressing both, but you failed to answer my questions about the people you cite as having been successful leveraging their JDs to non-legal careers. </p>
<p>In my experience, the persons who were most successful at doing so had impressive pre-law school full-time working experience, superb networking skills, and/or other above-average traits that most law school grads who went straight from undergrad or had little working experience would be hard pressed to match. </p>
<p>Moreover, many of them attended first-tier law schools, graduated above the top 20% at the very least, and carefully thought through why they needed that JD and did their own research on post-law school prospects and what prerequisites were required well before attending. They weren’t going to grad school/law school for the sake of doing so with vague ideas of what they plan to do when they graduate from those programs. </p>
<p>They certainly didn’t take the word of the law/grad school adcoms or administrators who have an incentive to encourage people to apply and if they get in, not discourage tuition-paying students. Especially when law schools are often cash-cows for universities and it has been well-known in the legal community that most law schools…especially the lower-ranking ones inflate and play games with their career placement statistics to obscure actual post-law school career prospects for the vast majority of their graduates…whether it is for gainful legal or non-legal jobs. Doubly so in this economy.</p>
<p>Well, I didn’t answer your question because I am not going to recite personal acquaintances on here. As a public figure, there are a few I can think of, but you can always say things like
Well of course, most successful people have these kinds of traits. That is true in lots of professions. I have no clue what that proves. Theo Epstein, GM of the Boston Red Sox, went to U San Diego Law, never took the bar. Did he have connections or superb networking skills or whatever? Probably. He was working for the San Diego Padres at the time he went to law school. Does he find his law background useful in his job? Absolutely. He obviously chose to go for a reason. Do all GM’s have law degrees? No, so plainly it isn’t required.</p>
<p>Finally, citing the economy is a red herring. If someone had applied 4 years ago to law school, everyone thought the economy was great, no problem getting a job when you are out. Ooooops. Who knows what it will be like 3-4 years from now? If you know, get off of CC and go make a fortune off that knowledge. Who knows what situation China (which is my other child’s area of study, no interest in law school you will be glad to know), Russia or Brazil or some other country will be in at that time.</p>