bretby wrote:Don't pick your major based on what would look best on law school applications. Please don't pick your major based on expected GPA. For the love of all things good in this world, don't major in business. Pick a major that is intellectually challenging with subject matter you find fascinating. You go to a good school; liberal arts degrees are (more or less) interchangeable on the job market.
This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say.
Legal Studies isn't offered at the majority of schools so it's an uncommon major (relatively speaking) to start with. The other thing is that it's generally not a rigorous major at the schools where it is offered. Sure, if it's at Northwestern, that's a hard school in general and you probably had to be pretty smart to get in in the first place so in that case it's not so important. But most of the LS majors I see are from your typical open-enrollment small public university and most of the students have 25-50% of their credits from community college to boot. The best students don't major in things like Legal Studies so the applications from those that do tend to be generally weaker, overall. (All this goes for Criminal Justice, too. If you want to kick in doors and be a cop, fine. But do NOT pick CJ if your plan is law school!) Generally speaking, basically anything in Liberal Arts should give you the kind of reading, writing, and analytical skills that would be needed in law school. Things like ECON can be helpful to understand the effects laws, regulations, etc. have on society...at least that's what I came up with just now when I thought about it for 30 seconds.
The majority of business majors aren't hard, either (I exempt FINC and ACCT from that, for the most part). B-school students today aren't asked to read anything of length, write anything of length, or even do much work by themselves from what it seems.
The Default Major: Skating Through B-School (From the NYT)
The distinction most UGs don't appreciate is between things that will help you get into law school and things that will prepare you to do WELL in law school and life.
Picking an easy major, getting a 4.0, and getting into law school is great, but not being at all prepared for the workload and doing poorly when you get there isn't a good plan. Conversely, triple-majoring in the hardest courses you can find so that you're uber prepared to rock law school, but because you have a 1.9 you don't actually get in anywhere isn't good, either. (Yes, I know...hard to imagine, but there have been periods in history where there were people that didn't get into law school anywhere.)
My goals for Freshmen/Sophomores is always to just "Do College". Join orgs/clubs, get jobs, attend lectures, go to parties, make friends, etc. Never again in your life will you be able to do all those things. Of course, you need to get the best grades you can get, too. But that's always the case, no matter if you're heading to law school or not. All those experiences will make you a better, more well-rounded, more interesting human being.
For someone like you who already "knows" they want to be a lawyer, I recommend "learning" about law/being a lawyer, not from taking "prelaw" courses, but by working in a law firm, volunteering with legal aid, clerking for a judge, interning with the state/fed legislature, etc. Too many incoming 1L's have no idea what the day-to-day practice of law is like.
Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law
