Few Useful Skills Utilized at Law Colleges

Foreign Languages

Americans rarely study languages as Europeans do, beginning in childhood and continuing as a routine and required part of all formal education. The American students you will find studying, say, French to the point of fluency are overwhelmingly people whose career goal requires knowledge of that language.


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Prelaw students rarely perceive value in the study of foreign languages. This is unfortunate because many attractive legal careers are open only to bilingual lawyers. International law, a specialty largely concerned with the legal environment of multinational corporations, is expanding rapidly. American businesses are increasingly establishing themselves in Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim countries, and they need lawyers who understand international commerce and can operate in more than one language.

Thus, you'll need to be bilingual for a career in international law, and this requires more than simply completing a few college courses. If you're lucky enough to have learned a foreign language as a child, you should by all means keep up your competence. Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and other languages spoken by recent immigrants or families with strong international ties are in great demand in the business world. If you're starting from scratch, you should begin as a college freshman. In either case, you should plan on doing something in your foreign language each semester without fail. This can be coursework, or reading, or simply belonging to a foreign-speaking social club and attending Sunday dinners. And you should invest in whatever travel, junior-year-abroad, or exchange programs you can afford. Try to make friends in your foreign country, subscribe to a newspaper, and get into the routine of living some of your life in your/foreign language.

Computer Literacy

If you're below the age of thirty, you probably can't imagine a world without Nintendo and word processors. Even if you're not very good with computers, you have probably passed a college course in computer literacy. But you may not be aware of the extensive use of computers in contemporary legal practice. Much legal research is now done on computerized systems like LEXIS and WESTLAW. Law firms use computers for billing, time management, fee calculation, check writing, scheduling, and electronic mail. And many of the legal issues that lawyers negotiate and litigate involve the use of computers.

Law schools won't expect you to know how computers work, and they certainly won't teach you programming. You'll never have to be more than an end user. But if you're a whiz with computers, you may want to investigate a minor or double major in a technical subject: there are good jobs out there for lawyers who really understand technology and who can serve as specialized resource persons for law firms or corporations. But technology is like a foreign language: you don't learn enough of it simply by taking a few college courses. You have to spend part of your life working at it regularly, and you shouldn't plan on going into this field unless you really enjoy it.

Learn to Type!

The only computer skill you absolutely must possess is typing. You don't need to be a hundred-word-a-minute speed demon. But you should be able to clack away without looking at the keyboard and without making so many mistakes that the text you produce is unread-able. Even a mediocre typist can type faster than the average person can write in longhand. Once you get into the habit of typing, you'll find a thousand timesaving uses for the skill. Some law professors will allow you to type your essay exams. (They provide a separate room.) And I now occasionally see students typing on their laptops during law classes.

Shorthand

Since so much of legal study involves taking notes, shorthand is a useful skill. I know several lawyers who use it to take notes during conferences and trials. (They don't show lawyers taking notes on "L. A. Law," but in real life they do.) Unlike typing, however, shorthand is difficult to learn. If you find that you're good at note-taking, it isn't worthwhile to invest the large amount of time you'll need to develop a good facility at shorthand.

Speaking

If you watch a lot of television, you probably believe that lawyers must possess the gift of public speaking because they make dramatic courtroom orations. Actually, few lawyers make a lot of speeches in court. (Most lawyers rarely go into court.) You can have a rewarding legal career even if you don't possess the forensic skills of a Ronald Reagan or a Jesse Jackson.

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However, all lawyers need to be able to express themselves clearly. If nothing else, they have to confer with clients and negotiate with other lawyers. Law students have to answer questions in class and speak in public at mock trials. If you speak reasonably clearly and performed reasonably well in your required college course in public speaking, you won't need any special training in forensics. But if you're painfully shy or have trouble expressing yourself in classroom discussions, you should schedule some remedial work. Speaking skills are skills, just like reading and writing, and can be improved-sur-prise, surprise-by practice. If you're not good at speaking, you should take coursework in your college speech department.

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Many colleges offer forensics programs or teams as extracurricular activities. These represent an opportunity for people with extremely good oral skills to develop themselves, with coaching and practice, into polished orators. If you want to be a trial lawyer, or to go into politics, you may want to investigate forensics as a sport. These programs are also useful for very shy or inarticulate people. With an appropriate challenge, and with the support of teammates and coaches, shy people can usually develop into capable speakers. Sometimes they blossom into extremely good speakers.

Fewer schools now offer programs in debating. That is a pity. Unlike forensics, which emphasizes speaking only, debate combines persuasive speaking with researching and writing. In debating, points are awarded for the strength of the arguments as well as for the skill of the presentation. In the nineteenth century, college debate teams were training grounds for politicians and trial lawyers. If you have access to a debate program and you feel the need to develop your oral skills, debating is an excellent choice for an extracurricular activity.

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