Is The Legal Profession Right For You?

So you think you want to become a lawyer? Have you checked your temperature lately? Have you consulted a psychiatrist?




Seriously, have you really addressed the issue of why you want to become a lawyer? Your motivating factor(s) to practice law could be the desire to earn a lot of money, status, power, or maybe you are driven by an altruistic goal, such as desiring to serve society. Maybe we have not indicated your motivating factor(s) at all. Whatever the driving force, you are at least considering the option of a career in law. Our goal is to help you determine if the legal profession is right for you or if you need to pursue other employment options.

To assist you in this determination, we provide a discussion of both positive and negative aspects of law school and the practice of law at the end of this section, so feel free to use this as a framework for your own list. Then be original and come up with some concepts of your own as we want this to be your own personal listing, not someone else's reasoning.

By going through the experience of making your own account of positives and negatives, you will gain two benefits. First, this list will remind you of why you chose the road you are traveling, and demonstrate that it is worth some short-term pain. There will be days of doubt after you get into law school when you will be asking yourself, "What in the world have I gotten myself into? Why didn't I listen to my family and become an accountant instead?" But these feelings, will pass if you have done your homework and discovered that the goal is worth the trip. The second benefit in preparing a list is that you set a goal and outline your steps for reaching that goal. The old adage, "People do not plan to fail, they fail to plan" is never more true than in the law school context. If you plan to invest three years of your life and thousands of dollars (and we do mean thousands),to become a lawyer, you do not want to struggle halfway through and eventually drop out, or experience the unthinkable and flunk out.

You cannot afford to battle with yourself and law school too, since law school will be tough enough in and of itself. To illustrate, some professors still use, as a scare tactic, the trite cliché of telling students on their first day of class to look to their left and then to their right. One of those two classmates will not be returning the second year-real cheerful stuff! Although the attrition rate for first-year law students varies from school to school, at many law schools it is relatively low. Most students who matriculate eventually graduate. Additionally, part of the attrition rate is based on personal choice. For whatever reason, some students realize that law school is not for them and drop out to pursue other interests.

After determining why you want to become a lawyer, the second question you must answer in your planning process is when you plan to attend law school. We suggest that you attend as soon after graduation from college as possible while study skills and class content are fresh. By delaying entry into law school, you will forget much of the information learned in college. In addition, your ability to effectively study and your patience with the learning process, get rusty the longer you wait before continuing in higher education. That "year off" before moving on often stretches out to many years before you are willing or able to proceed, so get started as soon as reasonably possible once you've selected your goal.

What if you've been out of college for several years and are thinking of switching careers? If you are leaving an existing career, make certain that your interest in the legal profession exceeds your discontent with your current job. Then, if you are still determined to make the leap, consider taking some refresher courses at a local college or university to get back into the practice of learning before considering law school. Law school affords no time for a student to gear back up for intensive study.

Some prospective law students have enrolled in paralegal (or legal assistant) courses and practiced as a paralegal for awhile. Paralegals make relatively good money and this would allow you to experience firsthand what goes on in the legal profession before you become part of it. If this approach appeals to you, try to find a law firm where you will be directly involved in working with attorneys on specific projects. This will allow as much of a "taste" of the field of law as possible.

If, after experiencing the legal profession firsthand, you still want to become a lawyer, then the years and dollars you invest in your legal education will be well spent in an area you know interests you. You might even be fortunate enough to obtain a position with that same law firm upon graduation from law school because you did such a good job for them, or better yet, have that law firm help finance your law school education. In certain instances, college graduates have even been able to obtain on-the-job training with a law firm without the added expense of paralegal courses.

Once you've decided when you plan to attend law school, you need to determine where you want to attend law school. There are a lot of excellent schools throughout the country, but competition for admittance is extremely intense. Therefore, you need to plan well in advance, in case you are not accepted into the law school of your first choice, second choice, or possibly even your third choice. It is also highly advisable to attend law school in the state where you are planning to practice law (if that state has one) unless you're planning to attend a national school, which may tend to emphasize federal law rather than state law.

Somewhat related to the where question is what type of law you plan to practice. You may be dumbfounded about an answer to this question and you may actually have to attend law school before you can arrive at a solution to this one. However, if you do have an area of law in mind it can save time and money because different law schools tend to have different specialties.

The final question you need to answer in determining whether law school is for you is how you plan to pay for your legal education. Do you have money in savings? Will your parents help you? Bear in mind that law school is expensive! It is not unusual for recent law graduates to have very high student loans and even the nationals that are at the low end of the spectrum cost a lot. If you want to get into the bigger universities, Yale, Stanford or Harvard, you better be assured of where your finances will come from.

A related issue that must be addressed is whether you have outstanding student loans from your undergraduate education. Of course you can defer those student loans while you are in law school, with the government paying the interest on some of them depending on the type of loan, but there is a maximum amount that can be borrowed. For the latest information, consult the financial aid office either where you are currently attending (if an undergraduate), or at the law school where you plan to attend.

In conclusion, you must define your individual reasons for wanting to attend law school. As is true with the scales of justice, you must weigh the positives and the negatives and. on the basis of your individual circumstances; determine whether the legal profession is right for you.