As plenty have stated, you can really major in anything – do what you love and want to explore.
I would think that a good liberal arts & math/sciences mix would prepare someone well. I think that these areas especially would be helpful for someone considering a career in law:
English (gotta be able to write)
Philosophy (gotta be able to argue)
Economics (understanding producer, consumer, and investor behavior)
Thanks for your reply. You couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m very grateful for the other replies that were helpful enough to offer advice and guidance without judgement. My life is great and beautiful and I’m so fortunate to have a child that can feel comfortable enough to ask questions and gain insight into something he MAY be interested in.
hey there! as others have stated, there’s no one major that students must pursue to be admitted to law school. there’s no one major that defines how well a student will do in law school either.
i will say, though, that those who major in philosophy tend to score higher on the LSAT, specifically because philosophy is geared towards reading comprehension and logical thinking/reasoning, which the LSAT tests.
i think the best advice to give your son (if he’s thinking about law) is to encourage him to study what he loves and what fulfills him in high school and see how that translates over into college. imo, the sooner he realizes what he loves, the easier college will be for him! it’ll also help his GPA (a really important factor in law school admissions) since he’ll be engaged with the material and, assumedly, getting good grades.
There are many different type of legal careers and a different path for each. IMO, you have to have a certain type of personality to become a lawyer. Most people think it’s the ability to debate and persuade. Law school is mostly reading a lot of dense text. That’s basically all you do - sit behind a desk and read for the entire semester and then take a final exam.
I went to law school because I hated accounting. I hated law school more than accounting. My opportunity cost was low because of merit aid scholarships ($4k tuition per year).
I finished law school and passed the bar with a pretty good score but went straight into financial services. It wasnt a total waste as my legal background has been a great asset to my professional career.
Not the experience of the lawyers in my family. Between working at the law school clinics (Innocence projects, environmental activism, immigration reform, etc.) and working on law review/publications, they barely had time to “sit behind a desk”.
And both the prosecutors and the public defenders would argue that debate and persuasion is an essential component to what they do professionally.
I think many liberal arts colleges/liberal arts majors also are based on significant reading & writing. I can’t remember from when I read Colleges That Change Lives if most of them had more extensive writing, or if it was just some. I do recall that Millsaps was one that had an increased focus on writing. If it was all of them, looking at the Colleges That Change Lives schools (an association of schools mentioned in the book that later formed an association) might be helpful.
I am generalizing because yes, you can do clinics (I did a legal aid clinic) but reading and analyzing text is, in my opinion, the biggest part of law school work.
And to this day, I still do not understand the rule against perpetuities.
Agree that experiences vary with each student, although the reading load will be heavy for any student.
At least for me, going to a T10 law school, it was more 3 years on the philosophy or theory of law vs learning about black letter law. I enjoyed the intellectual challenge, but would say that it did not give me a great preview about the actual practice of law.
I started in litigation in Big Law and did not enjoy it. The role of the junior associates in big litigation was to sort through discovery or research or update research on cases being cited. Even when I was given smaller cases to handle, hated the motion practice. IMO, to be a good litigator and enjoy it, the satisfaction of “beating” an opponent had to be very high. I was lucky enough be be able to latch on to a few partners whose practices were primarily M&A and corporate finance for their clients. The deals had defined goals and timelines, and for the most part completed deals were wins for every party involved. I got way more job satisfaction out of that than anything I did in litigation.
Everyone thinks we have too many lawyers until you meet someone who has been incarcerated for 20 years for a crime he did not commit (policeman confessed eventually to have lied, fabricated the evidence which would have exonerated the person), met a 3 year old whose mother has been illegally deported and is living in a shelter, or met a family who has been illegally evicted from their apartment because a landlord lied to the housing court in order to “flip” the building and make a few extra million dollars (buildings are worth more empty than with tenants already in place).
For anyone reading this who is interested in working at a big law firm post-graduation:
If your primary motivation is to make money, you have two options:
Go to a T14 law school.
If you cannot get into a T14 law school (or Top 25 law school), you probably need to finish near the top of your class and at least be on Journal or Law Review to secure a job at a big firm.
Law school admissions is far more transparent than the undergrad admissions process as it is primarilly based on GPA and LSAT (work experience, personal statement may also be factors).
Take a practice LSAT, look at your GPA and you will probably have a good general idea of what type of school you can go into.
This is a general statement and Im sure there are exceptions.
It is possible that there are too many lawyers doing other things, but not enough lawyers providing criminal defense against fabricated accusations, defending people against incorrect deportations, or protecting tenants against illegal evictions. It may be that lack of lawyers for such people has to do with lack of money, and insufficient amount of pro bono offering and public defender funding relative to the need.
Obviously, someone going into any of these areas of law with a “social justice” type of leaning needs to consider the pay levels relative to any educational debt that may be accrued. People who are food insecure or homeless typically do not have the money to pay for any lawyers that they may need. Charitable organizations that help such people also may not see paying for lawyers (as opposed to food or housing aid) as their core mission. A lawyer with high law school debt may find it difficult to pay off the debt doing these kinds of jobs.
