·
Get a good,
well-balanced undergraduate education
·
Choose a major
that reflects your talents and challenges you
·
Learn about
lawyers. Shadow, Intern, Volunteer!
·
Case-Law courses as a
“Personal Diagnostic”
Prelaw advising is available in the
Get a good, well-balanced undergraduate education
If you are considering law school, it is important to get the
most out of your undergraduate education now. Law school admissions committees
are impressed by applicants who have pursued a challenging and diverse course
of study. The CORE curriculum at CU-Boulder is a good foundation for prelaw
study. It is important for you to make the most of your experience at the
university. You will have the opportunity to meet and work with world-class
scholars, learn from some of the best teachers in the nation, and become
involved in research projects outside of the classroom. Take advantage of the
unique intellectual opportunities that attending a major research
university offers. Take small seminars led by world class teachers in
the Honors Program. Follow up on basic classes by arranging Independent Study
projects with faculty. Talk to your teachers during their office
hours—especially during the “quiet times” between mid-term exams and course
assignments. Over the years, you should be building up a group of faculty who
can provide you with strong supportive letters of recommendation for law school
admission.
You are also going to have many opportunities to get involved
with extra-curricular activities. Select carefully. Become involved in a few
clubs or organizations that you enjoy and in which you have the opportunity to
distinguish yourself and develop your leadership skills. However, remember to
pursue quality in your experience,
not quantity. If you enjoy sports, then get involved in intramurals or club
sports or with the sports desk at the CU radio station (1190 AM). If you loved
your high school debate or mock trial experience, then try the CU clubs. Do not
join a club or organization simply because you think that your participation
will somehow impress a law school admissions committee. Remember too that
organizations are made up of people—not all of whom are compatible, so don’t stay
with a group if you are not enjoying the experience.
Seize the opportunities the university offers! CU has a $30
million a year student government. There is a place for you on the various
Boards and Commissions that help run this campus. If Health Law interests you,
then volunteer to work with the
Choose a major that reflects your talents and
challenges you
There are no specific prerequisites for law school.
CU-Boulder does not offer a “prelaw major.”(Nor do most Universities.) The term
prelaw is simply a declaration of intent to apply for admission to law school.
Your major should be in an area that interests and challenges you. In a few
instances long-range career plans can affect prelaw preparation. For example,
patent law requires an extensive background in engineering or natural science; tax
law requires an understanding of accounting; and international and comparative
law require proficiency in at least one foreign language. Law schools do not have a
preference for any particular major. They are interested in applicants
who have strong reading, writing and thinking skills and an understanding of
human institutions and values. These skills can be acquired in a number of
disciplines. Choose a major that you are good at and care about. Pursue
a “no regrets” education. If you end up NOT going to law school, you
will not have “wasted” your time doing classes you disliked but that you
thought were going to help get you into law school.
Your undergraduate grade point average (GPA) is one of the
most important factors in your admission to law school. It is essential that
you maintain the highest GPA you can to keep your options open at as many law
schools as possible.
However,
it is common that students have one or two semesters of weak grades before they
settle down and find a focus for their academic work. If your
overall GPA is not going to be great, make certain that at least your last two
years are strong. If you do find yourself slowly raising your GPA out of a deep
hole, then you may want to wait until after you graduate to apply to law
school. Then, your last two semesters of grades will become part of your record
and your upward trajectory of grades will be obvious and complete. Remember that
more than 60% of first year law students have been away from college for more
than one year.
Learn about lawyers. Shadow, Intern, Volunteer!
During your first few years of college you should work hard
to learn as much as you can about lawyers and what they do. You should begin by
talking to any lawyer you know (or you have access to) and then ask him or her
to refer you to others. Try to talk to lawyers in every kind of specialty and
practice—large and small firms, government, public interest, etc. Talk with men
and women. Find out how much they work early in their careers and later in
their careers. Develop a good understanding of exactly what kind of work a
lawyer does on a day-to-day basis. Check with your academic advisor about
internships in your major that will put you into contact with working lawyers.
Don’t neglect volunteer opportunities that will also allow you to work with
lawyers in the criminal justice system or mental health field. The Volunteer
Clearing House in the UMC has lists of opportunities with non-profit groups and
government agencies, some of which allow you to work alongside lawyers. This
knowledge will help you to decide if a legal career is the right choice for you
and if it is, you will be well prepared to tell law schools who you are and why
you will make a good law student.
Among
the volunteer and Academic Internship opportunities in
CU’s Office of Career Services, located in Willard Hall, room
34, has several services that will assist you as you learn more about lawyers.
Their internship program and part-time jobs will provide you with opportunities
to work with lawyers in a variety of settings. The Alumni Association has a
database of thousands of CU alumni who have volunteered to work with students
interested in their field—there are lots of lawyers on the network. Use all
resources available to you to learn everything you can about lawyers.
Case-Law courses as a “Personal Diagnostic”
After
you have some experiences with “law as a career”, consider trying another form of “personal
diagnostic”—law as an intellectual framework. It will be very useful for you to
try to discover whether the way that problems are defined and addressed within
the legal system “fits” your personal beliefs and values. To do this I suggest
that you experience one or more upper division (limited to Juniors
and Seniors) “case-law” courses. Among these I would include Political
Science Department offerings such as International Law, Sex Discrimination and
Constitutional Law. Media Law is offered to Journalism students and Business
Law is provided within the Leeds School of Business. Law Schools DO NOT value
such courses as preparation, but many
students find that if they enjoy the experience of these types of courses, this
is a good indication the they will find law school a
positive experience. By the same token, NOT enjoying and feeling comfortable
with case-law courses, should give you reason to carefully reconsider your
desire to attend law school.
Other courses that deal with law and legal studies include
Philosophy and Law courses in the Philosophy department and Criminology classes
in Sociology.
• Money: There are few
professions in which you can come directly out of school and earn as much as
$90,000 and be making six figures by the age of 30! Admittedly, the majority of
law graduates will not fit this scenario, but many do and find they like the
lifestyle. Earning this type of income requires long hours and involves a great
deal of pressure, but many find it worth it. Remember that law is one of the
professions that bills by the hour, so your compensation requires that you
generate a large number of “billable hours”.
• Public Service: Everyone
likes to feel good about the work they do and to believe that they are making
the world a better place. Few professions offer more opportunities to help
people than the law. Legal aid lawyers, assistant district attorneys, public
defenders—all affect people’s lives in a positive way.
• Credibility: Despite the
many “lawyer jokes” you may hear, a law degree commands a certain amount of respect.
Society still recognizes “attorney-at-law” as a respectable profession and
accomplishment.
• Mobility: Lawyers are
everywhere these days. No longer does a law degree mean that you will
automatically practice law. Today, you will find lawyers running movie studios,
managing baseball teams, becoming FBI agents—and the list goes on. Lawyers have
increasingly infiltrated almost every field—indeed more than one third of JDs
do not “practice law”. A law degree provides you with more opportunities for career
mobility than most degrees and gives you added credibility when you enter a new
field.
• Excitement: Most law
school applicants realize that the life of an attorney is not exactly as it is
portrayed on television, but it is an exciting career. Trials, trial
preparation, investigations, making big deals happen—all of these can be a
great deal of fun. Not every minute is action-packed, but most legal work is
quite interesting.
• Intellectual Challenge:
Every year many students discover that they really enjoy studying the law.
Taking apart a Supreme Court case and analyzing the rationales for the
differing opinions can be a challenging and engaging task. Law school
professors push students to think in new ways. Many lawyers look back on law
school as a
• Money: Just as money can
be a good reason to get a law degree, it can be a trap. Many lawyers make six
figure incomes, especially in large, big city firms. But don’t be deceived;
they earn it. Seventy to eighty-hour weeks, pressure from clients and partners,
and competition from lots of other lawyers are all part of the game. Large
firms see hundreds of resumes each month and many are cutting back instead of
hiring. Even if you decide you are up to all the hard work, the opportunities
to make big bucks are not always there.
• “I’ve got nothing better
to do with my English, history, or political science degree.” This is a very
bad reason to go to law school. There are better career options than going
heavily into debt, working hard for three years in grad school, and emerging
with a degree in a field in which you have very little interest. Studies show
that students who have little interest in the law perform poorly in law school
and quickly leave the profession.
• “I’m good at arguing.”
One of the most common reasons people give for going to law school is that they
believe they are great at arguing. Unfortunately, oral argument is a small part
of a legal education and for most lawyers, a very small part of their practice.
Additionally, a legal oral argument is quite different from the average spat
with your parents or siblings.
• “I love Law
and Order reruns.” The scariest and most amusing trend of law school
applications over the past two decades was the correlation between law school
applicants and the popularity of particular lawyer shows on television—much
less hit movies like Legally Blond. Most people realize
that a television drama is not a great source of career information; be sure to
go to better sources when making important life decisions.
• “I’ve known I was going
to be a lawyer since I was five years old.” Most five-year-olds don’t know much
about the law or the demands of a legal education. Be sure that you reassess
your goals as an adult. Do your homework—find out
exactly what lawyers do, what skills it takes, and if it is a good fit for you
—Adapted from Kaplan, LSAT All-In-One, 1995
Arron, Deborah. What Can You Do with a Law Degree? A
Lawyer’s Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside, and
Around the Law.
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. Women in Law. 2d ed.
Goldfarb, Sally F. Inside the
Moll, Richard. The Lure of the Law: Why People Become Lawyers and What the Profession
Does to Them.
Munneke, Gary A. 4th
ed. Non-legal Careers for Lawyers.
Smith, Janet. Beyond
(for a longer list
of sources see: ABA-LSAC
Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools,
2006 ed. Appendix C)
The
Produced
by the Academic Advising Center, 5/05.