Current/recent law students: are you happy or unhappy that you went and why? Forum

[zot1]

That's the cheapest two way flight ticket to boston I've ever heard of.

[lunixer]

.

[zot1]

Smart. That is a huge investment. Might as well go, make top 50%, get SA and offer. You're all in already.

How come you've spend all this money on prep without looking into what your career options look like?

[smaug]

i've changed my mind

op if you're real, go to law school

fuck the haters

become that senator/policy maker/influential professor

you can do it!

[lunixer]

.

[zot1]

Smart. That is a huge investment. Might as well go, make top 50%, get SA and offer. You're all in already.

How come you've spend all this money on prep without looking into what your career options look like?

What does SA stand for?

Ok, I'm done here.

[landshoes]

If you really want the H name there are other grad schools that take one year and that could get you into education or policy. Law school is just a long, expensive 3 years to get into a job that will be largely similar to the job you have now. There are interesting and worthwhile parts of law school, but many of them exist (but better and more cheaply) in other graduate programs.

What are some other graduate programs that I should look into if I am interested in the law but not necessarily in practicing law? I just graduated from undergrad and am taking some time off for work experience, etc. and like OP I don't have a burning desire to be a lawyer.

Not sure about being interested in the law specifically, although a number of fields touch on it. I meant that law schools does provide things like being intellectually challenged, spending a lot of time with other smart people, getting to talk to professors who are at the top of their field, going to presentations and speeches by interesting people, etc. If you're the type who values those things, there are probably grad programs that are better fits for you.

I mean, the nice thing about the law is that you get to do the intellectual stuff (to some extent) and then you get to be a lawyer at the end of it (i.e. you get a job.) If you don't even want to be a lawyer, then there are other schools where you won't have to deal with all the hassles that come with the legal profession.

[landshoes]

In other words, if you have a genuine intellectual interest in the law AND want to be a practicing lawyer then I think law school is probably a better deal than another grad program. But if you don't want to practice the law, it's not. Hope that's clear.

Fields like philosophy, history, economics, political science, sociology, all touch on the law in interesting ways.

[jbagelboy]

I see what you mean.

I think it's common to have a "grass is greener on the other side mentality." However, I think a lot of people are telling OP not to go to law school because he doesn't actually want to be a lawyer. The law is bad as it is for a lot of lawyers. It'll suck a lot more if you don't even want to be one but have to because the debt will keep you tied to a legal job.

Yeah, I would agree with that too. If the OP is going to law school or H because of perceived mystique or prestige, I think he will be disappointed. Within law, H is prestigious, but that prestige is only useful in so far as it gets you the interview or act as a buffer against otherwise mediocre grades. At the top end of Biglaw (should that be his goal), being from H won't make you stand out in anyway. So I think the OP should temper his expectation with respect to law and H... is what I tried to convey. (Edit: but I still think H is a great bet IF you want to do law)

we all agree obviously that insofar as going to law school is concerned, OP has the opportunity to go to a top school where he'll have the best opportunities law school can offer, so this isn't really a question of choosing between law programs. The responses OP has received are from people in exactly such an envious position, or such a position played out over several years; no one's suggested people coming from good law schools don't have good options within law.

Regardless, it seems that OP has left the building.