Getting started
http://www.abanet.org/legaled/prelaw/prep.html
The American Bar Association (ABA) doesn’t recommend an undergraduate major or group of courses and notes that law students come from “almost every academic discipline.” Further, you should choose a major “that interests and challenges you.” Music majors and engineers may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of law students but these students offer specialized knowledge that law firms often look for. Whatever your major is, do extremely well in your major’s courses, develop and practice your writing skills whenever possible, and make public speaking a fun opportunity to have others discover how interesting you are.
When you attend college you will be assigned an academic advisor. This person will be an invaluable resource to answer any academic questions or concerns you have. Similarly, your college will likely have a pre-law advisor. This person will supplement any academic questions you may have relating to considering law school. You should be forthright with both of these go-to people because their expertise is on helping students like you succeed. I recommend you check in with your academic advisor at least twice each semester. Drop an email asking if you could meet for 15 minutes and ask questions about courses and prerequisites.
Skills that law schools look for in candidates are: “analytic and problem-solving skills , critical reading abilities, writing skills, oral communication and listening abilities, general research skills, task organization and management skills, and the values of serving faithfully the interests of others.” That’s a long list and most students are only strong at one or two of those items. Joining your college’s pre-law organization should buttress your skills in the remaining areas. What do each of those categories mean?
Analytic / Problem Solving Skills
Critical thinking is paramount as a college student, law student, and professional. Well structured writing, arguing (yes) both sides of an argument, the ability to separate parts of an argument and the ability to curate multiple sources of information are sometimes challenging but fun once you become efficient with it. Your freshman and writing intensive courses will make you a stronger writer. This happens naturally over time.
Critical Reading Abilities
Lawyers read complex textual material in great quantities and are expected to comprehend the material in an evening or a week. Fifty pages of reading may not seem a lot, but in a criminal law textbook with a handful of footnotes (yes you have to read the footnotes) with legal analyses in between cases is tiring for first year law students called 1Ls. Pre-law advisors and Parafinch suggest you take a criminal law or civil law course if possible. These courses demand different reading comprehension skills than political science or philosophy. If you do well and enjoy one of these courses, that is a good sign law school may be for you.
Writing Skills
A lawyers writing prowess is his or her “most important tool.” If you find that your papers are often returned with corrections and annotations from your teacher or friend, you have lots of time to refine your writing skills before graduation. One thing that Parafinch recommends to students is to revise early and often. Easier said than done, however, establishing good habits early in the game will separate you from an average college student. Additionally, the more revisions you have will provide you more opportunities to have office hours or improve your final product. Additionally, professors give grading preference to students to revise early and often.
Oral Communication and Listening Abilities
Many students are quick to think that joining a mock trial (MT) team is a good first step to discovering what law school is like. With respect, MT teams are time consuming and require extremely well organized leadership. If your school doesn’t have a MT team or it’s not productive, Parafinch suggests focusing on classes and your pre-law organizations.
Learning to be an active listener (taking notes while someone is speaking, making eye contact, and waiting your turn) is paramount and something that college will acclimate you to. The ability to understand the most important pieces of information from friends, acquaintances, professors, deans, employers and others equally will help you be confident with interacting with colleagues and clients as you get older.
Public speaking skills are something that make everyone a bit nervous. Take advantage of opportunities to participate in class discussions, student organization executive board positions, pre-law discussions or socials and volunteer opportunities. In this tough economic climate, the difference between a wallflower and an affable candidate is a job offer. Get comfortable with speaking to all types of people in semi-public and public settings.
General Research Skills
Law students, I believe, spend a third of their time reading, another third writing, and the last third researching. When you have writing assignments for courses go beyond searching in Google. Professors know how much time you spent researching based on your works cited. If you cite several news articles and two books, that may suffice, but it’s just a start. Take advantage of the scholarly databases your college provides. Be warned, you will have to jump through many hoops and logins due to copyright holders vigorously defending their content. (I’ve never heard of someone sending scholarly articles over a peer2peer network like with music).
Your college pays handsomely to get access to a plethora of databases, so opt into them. Moreover, when you’re at a law firm, your searches are billed based on the number of searches you submit or on how many hours you spend researching. If you can be the Tom Brady of researching, you will have a major advantage over others.
Research also means being familiar with the stacks. Lawyers will often need to find print articles from books at various legal or medical libraries. If you can locate these yourself or articulate to the law firm messenger where to find them, people will admire your ability to locate articles online and in print quickly.
Task Organization and Management Skills
Law students have to organize lots of information in short periods of time and apply it to a particular fact pattern or case. “Many law school courses, for example, are graded primarily on the basis of one examination at the end of the course, and many projects in the practice of law require the compilation of large amounts of information from a wide variety of sources.” If you’re well organized or set a goal of being more organized in the next year, you should be proud of this. Some law students aren’t well organized which leads them to stressing out in time crunches.
The Values of Serving Others and Promoting Justice
Don’t go to law school because your parents say you should or because you think it’s the goose that will give you a golden egg. Additionally, if you don’t have experience with social justice volunteering projects or joining pre-law organizations, it may negatively impact your admissions package to law schools. They tend to favor students who are well rounded and demonstrate a sustained interest in helping others or the community. The best part is that these organizations don’t have to be related to law! Join an environmental sustainability club at your college, volunteer or participate in a 5K run/walk, or stop by your college’s community service office to see what’s available.
General Knowledge
General knowledge is something noteworthy too. See the ABA’s list of knowledge of topics that are beneficial to know.
This ABA article is a well written and succinct article Parafinch encourages all students considering a career in law to review before or during college.
