What are the undergraduate requirements to get into law? Do have to have a certain major? Take certain classes?
One more question, would I be too late to consider going to law school in the fall (2004) if I havent’ taken the LSAT yet?
The American Bar Association is in charge of accreditation of American law schools. Their admission requirements are set forth here.
Basically, you need a 4-year undergrad. degree from an accredited institution and a recent LSAT score.
No specific classes are required and there is a debate about whether taking “pre-law” classes will help in actual law school. I never took any and I did just fine.
As for going to school in the fall of 2004, you still have plenty of time. I took the LSAT in February of 1998 and started law school that August. If you do well enough on the LSAT, schools will recruit you. The better you do, the better the schools recruiting you.
Along with the LSAT, you must apply far a data service which will serve as a clearing house for your academic information. They will compile your transcripts and scores and send reports on you to the various law school to which you apply. Getting the correct information to them can be a time consuming process, especially if you went to several undergraduate institutions. Get started right away.
If you haven’t yet graduated from undergad, you can still apply to law school so long as you will have finished by the time you start law school.
Good luck.
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There may be individual law schools which prefer certain undergraduate majors over others, but my impression is that they generally only require a bonafide four year degree. Before entering law school in the late 1980s I had obtained an MBA. In my class there were education majors, accounting majors, engineering majors, social work majors, a pharmocology major, English majors, journalism majors, and doubtless, a good many others I have forgotten. I have heard that a number of successful politicians who are lawyers got an undergraduate degree in drama or public speaking.
There are undergraduate programs in “pre-law”, but I am unsure that they offer any real advantage, either in getting into law school or in coping with it once you are there. About the only thing I remember of classmates who said they had been pre-law majors, is that they were utterly clueless about accounting principles, something which mattered in tax law classes and some other subjects. A person with such a background might have another appraisal as to whether it helped him or her, of course.
Off hand, I’d recommend you contact the guidance offices at the law schools you are considering.
No special requirements, although a degree in, say, English, will generally carry more weight than a degree in Art. Still, you can have pretty much any bachelor’s degree and get into law school.
You don’t have to take any particular classes, but some classes will help develop skills that will be useful in law school, like writing, logic and debate classes. Selling your soul to the Devil also helps, haw haw haw.
Also, if you have a degree in engineering, you can make a buttload of money as a patent attorney.
Amen, aaslatten!
I recently spoke to a patent atty, who told me that to become a patent atty, you must have a degree (at least a Bachelor’s) in certain fields. What was remarkable to me was that mathematics was not one of the permissable degrees.
Well, pure mathematical equations are not patentable (they are considered to be closer to “discoveries” than “inventions”) so it makes sense that pure math majors are not accepted under “Category A.” However, there are two other categories that people can qualify under and become a patent practitioner.
My undergrad major was “Engineering Science,” an honors engineering program at Penn State. However, since Engineering Science wasn’t one of the listed majors in Category A, I needed to prove to the Patent & Trademark Office that I qualified under Category B, which is, something like 6-10 courses in various sciences (weighed heavily towards physics, if I recall). You can also qualify under Category C, which is if you take and pass a Fundamentals of Engineering test (the first step in becoming a Professional Engineer).
As to which undergrad major is better (assuming you are not going to be a patent attorney) I would say whatever gets you the highest GPA. I knew someone at Penn State who was a Geography major with a 3.8 GPA. Even though I scored a MUCH higher LSAT than him, he got accepted into many schools that I did not. The schools simply do not care that I was in honors engineering – his 3.8 GPA in Geography was considered far better than my 3.1 GPA in honors engineering. If I were to guess, I would say that the only reason I got into as good a school as I did (George Washington) was because of my LSAT, and my honors engineering just hurt me (because I didn’t do as well in it as I would have in an easier major).
The answer is it doesn’t matter so you should take something you’re interested in and can do well in.
When I went to law school, there were a whole range of undergraduate majors in my class. There were plenty of arts and humanities degrees, quite a number of both social and hard sciences, business, engineering, and bunch of other stuff. A friend of mine had his B.F.A. in guitar from a music school in Boston, and had spent 10 years before law school as a touring rock guitarist.
I don’t think one major had a particular advantage over another in either admissions or law school itself. I would say that an interesting or practical major, along with related work experience, may be helpful to differentiate yourself in the job hunt after law school.
If you’re concerned about the grades and test scores take a look at the book that gives the breakdown of accredited law schools. It may be available in your school’s library. I had done well on the LSAT but didn’t have wonderful grades and was able to correctly predict that the school I was most interested in would accept me; there was a graph showing the number of students accepted with a certain gpa/lsat combination and mine was in the acceptable range. The info was from a year or two before.
I took the October '97 LSAT for August '98 admission.
I would recommend purchasing a set of old exams from the LSAT people to study from and also doing logic problems from crossword puzzle/word game books. You know, the ones I have trouble with; Midge, Helen, Celeste, Brianna and Toots go to tea. Brianna won’t sit next to Helen, etc…they’re on the LSAT.
Once you put in your application, either sign up for an open house or call for a campus tour and make a point of visiting the schools you’re most interested in. Do it right after you send the application so they know you’re serious; that could get you in. Some schools are more interested in your grades and test scores, others take a holistic approach and want to know more about you.