<p>Opinionated answer...</p>
<p>Prelaw is not a major, programme, arrangement, or even anything you need to fill out a form for. It's the plan of going to law school. I personally did not know that I was going to law school until the end of my senior year of college and was fine. I know people here who didn't know they wanted to go to law school until years after graduation - and they got in. So don't think that you need a certain major, school, or plan to go to law school. There are two requirements for law school: a college degree and an LSAT score.</p>
<p>So... now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's answer your other questions.</p>
<p>Legal studies, IMO, is worse than useless for law schools. The better schools don't want to see that sort of thing - they would prefer something that involves heavy writing, analysis, and research. Nothing you learn in undergrad will directly help you with law school. Any major is fine - so long as you get a good GPA and it isn't so laughably easy (like media communications) to bring doubt to your application.</p>
<p>For fun, here is a description of legal studies courses: <a href="http://www.umass.edu/legal/pdf/csedesgdF05.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.umass.edu/legal/pdf/csedesgdF05.pdf</a></p>
<p>I just googled "legal studies" and too the first one I found.</p>
<p>Not being a poli sci major, I can't tell you the difference.</p>