International student study JD

[josecheng]

Hi
I'm an university student in Taiwan and my major is International Business.

I really want to become a lawyer, and I hold a green card.

However, because my parents work in Taiwan and I don't have enough money to study in the US for bachelor degree, I decide to stay in Taiwan until I graduate from university.

I really want to know, will it be difficult for me to finish JD study if I don't get a US bachelor degree? Do there many international students like me with foreign bachelor degrees successfully earn their JD degree, become lawyers, and find a job in the US? I mean, my native language is Chinese. Though I speak a fluent English, I'm not sure my English is good enough to become a lawyer.

BTW, my LSAT Practice (No Prep)is 165.

Thanks for your answer.

[williamsun]

Hello! I'm from China mainland and I'm also striving to become an American lawyer. Hope my response can be of help for you!

A US bachelor degree is not a prerequisite to apply for a JD. You can check out viewtopic.php?f=27&t=241498
to see how many foreign-educated undergraduates enter those law schools each year. However, our GPA and stuff have to go through LSAC evaluation and LSAC generally don't recognize foreign GPAs. Instead, they grade us by S, AA, A... kind of stuff. More detailed info can be found at www.lsac.org. If you want to go to T-14 law schools, AA is sufficient while S does not make a lot of difference.

Annually, there are dozens of Chinese mainlander students who graduated from mainland universities and apply for top US law schools and get enrolled. I would say they don't perform worse than any other kind of students, and they do just fine in job market. If you can read simplified Chinese, you may want to go to http://bbs.gter.net/forum-997-1.html. This is a Chinese forum for North American law school applications and I wish you find useful info there.

Wish you good luck!

[cheng_fang]

hi
I think that actually a lot of foreign students are practicing law in US after pursuing their JD degree. At least, i know some students from my university( one in Beijing) now in law schools like YLS, CLS and they have all find their jobs in biglaw.
For international students, I do not think that GPA is as important as those who do their undergrad in US. Some even say that LSAT score counts more than 80percent in the admission process( only generally).
Wish you all the best