Even once you begin your legal career — that is, after law school — you will need to make sure that you have some job skills. These are crucial to success in your career, and by keeping, as well as maintaining, your marketable job skills, you can ensure that you rise up the ladder of success. That said, you might find that while in school, you start to slack a little in this department.
It’s easy to do so, after all, when you are so busy with your classes and such. However, you must not lose sight of your goals. If you want success in your career after school, you have to work hard while in school to make it happen. During the summer, you should also seek to boost these skills by obtaining employment or an internship with a law firm or other business in the legal field.
While in school itself, you should not only focus on your law classes, but maybe consider other types of classes to improve on your skills and experience. For example, writing is an extremely marketable job skill. As such, you will want to be sure that you obtain the ability to write well, and that you keep on improving your writing as much as possible. Doing so will only help you in the future and take your legal career to a higher level later on.
There are two sets of courses that you will likely be looking at. The first set consists of the general courses — i.e., those which all law school students are required to take. These are the starting point of your entire career, and when it comes to these classes, you have no choice: If you want a legal job someday, you will have to take these courses. These courses include:
- Civil Procedure
- Constitutional Law
- Contracts
- Criminal Law
- Legal Methods
- Civil Rights
- Research and Writing
- Legal Reasoning
- Real Property
- Torts
- Legal Writing
- Evidence
- Professional Responsibility
The second set of courses that you need to look at consists of the specialized courses. Specialized courses typically become a factor in your second and third years of law school. It is during this time, and through these courses, that you can determine what ''type'' of lawyer you want to be. Do you want to be a litigator? Do you want to be a corporate lawyer? You have many choices, and you can typically choose to be a:
- Patent Lawyer
- Tax Lawyer
- Environmental Lawyer
- Family Law Attorney
- Contract Lawyer
- Property Lawyer
- Commercial Lawyer
Indeed, these are just a few of the areas of specialization that you can choose from. Once you choose to specialize in a certain field, you will need to take classes to concentrate on that area. In general, the courses already required will give you the elements you need to pass your bar exam. However, if you want to become a corporate lawyer, for example, you might want to consider courses that are geared more towards the corporate world, instead of those that are geared towards, say, family law.
One thing that most states require of all attorneys is a legal ethics course. So, be sure that you include this course when making your decisions.
Utilize the Law School's Career Services Department
Law schools typically have a career services department, and it is important that you make use of this department as often as you can. It is there to help you in a variety of ways, but its primary purpose is to help you in choosing and defining the career of your choice.
There are a variety of services offered by this department. Some services might include job fairs, helping you locate recruiters, finding internships and externships, among others. They can help you with identifying your specialty, help you search for jobs, offer resources to help further your career, and even help with creating resumes and cover letters.
When you are preparing for law school, it is extremely important to be sure that you are ready. You want to understand what courses you are required to take, and in your second and third years of study, you want to be sure to understand how to specialize your career, which means taking the right courses in your chosen field.
There is a wide variety of resources available to you to help you in your preparation for your legal career; however, make sure that you do not forget about all of the services offered by the career services department located right at your own school.
