Law school or grad school? Forum

[Perchik]

Well, I'm set on law school, and I could offer several reasons why I'd choose law school over grad school (it's a decision I had to make, too). Personally, there was always one path I was leaning towards more, and another path I had a lot of reservations towards. You guess it. After a lot of time weighing my decision, I went with one.

I know this might sound cheesy, but go with what you really want. As opposed to what may potentially give you later satisfaction as a better boost in getting a job like you mentioned. I have a handful of friends in law school/grad school, and of that handful, there's 4 of them that tried the whole law school thing, hated it, and went on to grad school, in varying degrees: one I know of went all the way, worked private sector, hated it, applied to ph.d. programs; two I know did one year, dropped out, then applied for his masters, etc. The one common thing among these friends is that from the beginning they preferred to do grad. school, and all had doubts about law school in the first place. somewhere along the line, they felt law school was a better investment (financially), although ultimately, they threw their hands up and went back to what they really wanted to do.

Also, there are 1-2 year MA programs in the fields you mentioned.

Thanks!

[seancris]

Eventually later in life would like to teach at a university level

Not going to happen with a JD, for two reasons: (1) almost all law school professors have JDs from HYSCC - especially Y; (2) if you have more than about three years of experience practicing the law, law schools are much less likely to hire you.

Ugh. RC fail.

Plenty of people teach at the University level with JDs. At the University level they would probably want you pursuing a PhD, though. You could definitely teach at the junior or community college level with just a JD, and the jobs aren't too hard to get.

You could have a TTTT JD and land a community college gig with relative ease. At my top-50 UG, people are teaching con law with JDs from South Carolina and Penn State.