What a Law Degree Will and Won't Do for You

An important question is whether you should go to law school at all. Do not go to law school unless you are quite certain that you want to be a practicing lawyer (and you know the one or two fields that will best suit your needs) or you want to do something intimately related to legal practice, such as legal journalism.

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A Law Degree Is Not a General Purpose Degree

The accepted wisdom is still that a law degree is the most flexible of degrees in so far as it will prepare you to do almost anything. This is utterly wrong. A law degree does nothing but teach you about practicing law. It does not teach you how to administer, nor does it teach you how to start a business (except in the narrow sense of how to file incorporation documents). The true multipurpose degree of today is the MBA, the skills from which would indeed help you in most fields.

Is Law School For You?

There is some correlation between those who most like law school and those who enjoy practicing law, just as there is between those who dislike law school and then dislike practicing law. The correlation, however, is not as strong as one might like. As a result, it makes sense to evaluate both law and law school independently.

Therefore, separate your decision into two parts: Consider first whether you are going to like law school. If you decide that the three years you will spend at law school will be the best three years of your life to date, then you need not have so high a degree of certainty that you will love the practice of law because at least the process of getting there will be enjoyable. On the other hand, if you determine that law school is likely to be a misery, you need to be dead certain that the practice of law is indeed right for you.

You can readily determine what law school will be like by spending time in law classes. You probably live near a law school. Approach the admissions department with a request to sit in on classes, or simply ask a professor for permission. Then follow one or two classes for an extended period. Do not just drop in once or twice. Instead, do the required reading and prepare for the class as if your grade (and life) depended upon it. Be sure to talk with other students about what they think of the process. (Note that the better the quality of the law school, the more representative and valuable this effort will be for someone who is potentially headed to a top school. Lower-tier law schools teach law in a different way, for a different purpose, and to a different group of students than do top schools.)

You might think you already have a fair idea of what law school will be like because you took political science or pre-law courses in college. Such courses, however, hardly even resemble true law school courses, so do not take your enjoyment of these as a sign that you will like law school. Do not rely, either, on what is written or filmed about law school. You need to investigate it for yourself. If you do not go to this small amount of effort because you deem it to be too much trouble, you will deserve whatever you encounter later on!

Is Law For You?

Law is not a single, unitary field; there are many different specialties within it, just as there are many different employers. Although there are certain personality traits that seem to fit most comfortably within law, the range is substantial.

How, then, you might ask, can you sensibly investigate the field? Note, first of all, that you need to do two things. You need to understand your own interests, skills, and needs. You also need to understand what is on offer in law, and see whether the two provide a suitable match.

Understand Your Own Interests, Skills, Values, and Goals

It is important that you choose a career that matches your needs as fully as possible. It may be that no job will be perfect for you—giving you everything you might wish for, and fulfilling you completely—but ending up with one that is not at least a close fit inevitably leads to trouble. Many lawyers end up desperately unhappy, desperately wishing that they had chosen another field. The way to avoid such misery is to analyze your needs before you enter the field. One starting point is to ask yourself and those who know you (family, friends and colleagues) what is likely to be most important to you in a career. What are your interests? Do you like to write, ride horses, travel, fiddle around in a laboratory? What do you have no interest in? You are, of course, most likely to enjoy a career that keeps you in touch with whatever areas or activities you enjoy.

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What do you do well? Your inventory of skills is important for numerous reasons, one being that you will tend to enjoy whatever you do well, and vice versa, so entering a field that allows you to utilize what you do well is a good bet. What are your values} At one level, this asks you to identify what causes you support—free speech, unfettered capitalism, environmentalism, and so on. At another level, this asks how you wish to live your life. Do you value time with your family more than being the highest paid associate in the office, for example? Both types of values should have a major affect upon your choice of career (and how you pursue your career). What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish in life, whether in the short term or the long term? Do not overlook the possibility of using a professional career counselor, but make sure it is someone who has substantial experience dealing with lawyers or would-be lawyers.

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