<p>I'm only a rising sophomore in college but I've known what I wanted to do for years: crisis management. This past summer and during my freshman year, I worked in my university's communications office wherein I saw not only how to deal with the media but also the strategic planning involved when dealing with potential and ongoing crises. My school has been involved in an investigation of sorts that has attracted national media attention for the past year, so I've been seeing a lot of strategy-planning sessions between the PR staff and our university's lawyers. Obviously I don't get to participate much in the planning of our PR approach (I only write press releases, respond to phone calls and emails and collect press clippings), but I do get to see a lot of the work that goes into crisis management. I also have a close family friend who is a top PR executive at a large corporation, and hearing her stories over the years about her job(s) and what she's had to do is really what sparked my interest in this field.</p>
<p>So, yes -- I do know what I want and it's definitely not to become a lawyer. However, the field of public relations in which I hope to work involves dealing with lawyers frequently because, as in any crisis, there is always potential for legal trouble. I know that crisis managers generally don't NEED a law degree to work in this field, but seeing the constant conflict between PR practitioners and lawyers makes me think that having a strong knowledge of the law will make me a better crisis manager in the future. I've found that there is so much wasted time on the part of the PR staff because they present crisis management audits that are quickly shut down by lawyers for possible legal issues. Even the most senior PR staff need to cross-check every detail of their plans with lawyers. By knowing the law thoroughly, I believe that I will be more effective and efficient in creating solid crisis management plans that won't further endanger my future clients in the court of public opinion AND in the court of law.</p>
<p>Debt is not an issue because I have scholarships to cover the cost of my undergraduate education, and my dad, mom and stepparents are willing to support me through law school if I choose to attend and don't receive enough scholarships.</p>
<p>Will law school be a good investment or will it be a waste of time and money? Though I won't be paying for law school, I also am trying to consider the opportunity cost of attending law school versus actually working full-time and just learning the ropes along the way. However, I do find that even those people who are in senior-level PR positions and have been working in the field for a long time still struggle with the intricacies of the law. Also, though I ultimately want to work in public relations, I have always been fascinated with legal studies and even strongly considered becoming a lawyer before I realized how much more I love PR work. I have a minor in business law, and even now I frequently read various universities' law reviews. I feel that law school won't be such a horrible, draining mental burden for me.</p>
<p>Many people have given me different opinions on this, but I haven't really been swayed in either direction yet. I know I have time, but I do like to plan things out well ahead of time whenever I can and I try my best to gather as much information as possible in situations such as these. What do you all think?</p>
<p>The problem with going to law school and not wanting to be a lawyer is that non-legal employers won’t want to hire you. So you will interview with PR firms who will ask you why you aren’t a lawyer (and may assume that you’re not good enough to get a job as an attorney), or will not want to hire you because they won’t want to pay you for the law degree. It’s only of a marginal benefit to them, but will cost far more than it’s worth.</p>
<p>Likewise, it’s a bit of overkill to become a lawyer just because your chosen area works with lawyers. Actually, it’s a lot of overkill. No matter what, you’re going to need to run your PR strategy by the lawyers - the lawyers who work in this field every single day and understand the intricacies of the relevant law. Law school will teach you very, very little of that.</p>
<p>If a law degree would truly help you in PR, then do NOT go to law school right after graduation, and do NOT take time off to do it. Work in PR. See if the law degree would actually help you. If it would, then go through night school. That approach signals to non-law firm employers that your academic track is really about PR, with the helpful “thinking like a lawyer” law degree on the side. </p>
<p>My two cents.</p>
<p>Can you afford to pay the cost of law school without consideration of your future income? I know many lawyers who do non-lawyer jobs (marketing, practice support, paralegal, human resources) and the payscale for non-lawyers is much lower. If it costs you $150,000-$200,000 for law school, can you afford to make ends meet and have a decent life on a non-lawyer salary?</p>
<p>AWFUL idea. You should ONLY go to law school if you want to practice law.</p>
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<p>Huh? In true crises, you hire the best, experienced counsel that you can, and it won’t be in house counsel.</p>
<p>I agree with all of the above. Law school is for those that want to be lawyers. You should not go for any other reason.</p>
<p>It’s a bad idea to go to law school unless you want to practice law. </p>
<p>I can remember a political science PhD who taught Con law to undergraduates. He went to law school to become a better teacher. After he finished he didn’t even take the bar and felt he had wasted his time.</p>
<p>Moderately bad idea. You can learn the law through experience working with lawyers. Once you work in a sector for 10 years, you start to learn the basic legal issues and what not to propose. You won’t know the intricacies of the law, but that won’t be your job - that’s the lawyers’ job. If you’re the JD in this transaction, your job won’t be the actual crisis management plan - it’ll be the legal issues, which doesn’t actually sound like you want to do. And lawyers shutting down plans is not wasted time - the lawyers are doing their jobs.</p>
<p>However, you could definitely work in this field with a JD (I think of Judy Smith, the character on whom Olivia Pope is based - she is a lawyer who does crisis management, obviously). However, lawyers who do non-lawyer jobs usually do this because they either couldn’t get work as lawyers after college, or they were lawyers and didn’t like it.</p>
<p>Go work in PR for 5-7 years. You may decide then that you really want a JD because you want to do the legal side of this. Or (more likely, IMO) you may decide that a master’s in PR or an MBA is better.</p>
<p>There are disadvantages to waiting 5-7 years to go to law school. One is that the opportunity costs are higher - you’re generally giving up a higher salary seven years into a career than you are one year out of college.</p>
<p>I also noticed that my older law school classmates had a tougher time finding jobs than their younger cohorts. There’s a belief that a 27-year-old lawyer may be willing to work longer hours than a 33-year-old lawyer. (It’s not even illegal to discriminate against people based on their age until they are 40.)</p>