Some students who apply to law school don’t even know if they want to be a lawyer. They decide to dispense $75 of their parents’ money to an American Bar Association-approved diploma mill in the form of an application, because they don’t know what to do with a liberal arts degree.
Or, perhaps, the real world is too intimidating at this present moment since their only familiarity with a workplace was a “corporate hoes and CEO’s” fraternity party.
It makes sense. The job market has become increasingly competitive, and high paying jobs that satisfy materialistic millennials are simply not available to any average Joe with a bachelor’s degree.
Subsequently, college students that are afraid of math register for the LSAT with the hope that becoming a newly minted Doctor of Jurisprudence will give their mother something to talk about at her Tuesday book club.
Before it’s all said and done, students are drowning in six figures of debt before they’re legally allowed to rent a car. And for what? A chance to call oneself an “esquire?”
If a person goes to law school for any reason other than a desire to learn about the law, those three years may have well been spent in the Peace Corps improving the lives of those less fortunate.
Think about how many houses could have been built in Ethiopia, the mouths that could have been fed in Haiti and all the water that could have been cleaned in Senegal if unsure undergraduates decided not to waste away in a torts casebook, praying that they wouldn’t get cold-called.
Now that Harvard Law is accepting GRE scores, more students who took the standardized exam will simply throw “why not?” applications to law schools across the nation, figuring that they have nothing to lose.
It’s like going to a bakery for a cake, but seeing that there is a “buy one cookie get another cookie free” deal. People will purchase an item that they initially would not have, simply because they can.
Like how most people do not need the extra cookie, GRE applicants initially interested in a Ph.D. or Master’s program should not apply to law school, if they have already narrowed their career interests. Going to law school is not a “why not?” decision.
If a person has never worked for a law firm, in a court or in some other legal setting, there is no reason why they should be absolutely bound to the aspiration of becoming a lawyer.
If undergraduate students knew the amount of reading, writing and generally dry work that goes into being a practicing attorney, enrollment in law school programs would drop significantly.
There are many misconceptions about being a lawyer and “Law & Order” exacerbates almost all of them. One should attempt to get an internship or apprenticeship prior to committing to an arduous and expensive legal education.
The world needs lawyers. The world needs motivated people to pursue law degrees. Yet the decision to pursue this costly, time-consuming career choice should not be made without meticulous consideration.
The legal market will become progressively more saturated with disconsolate professionals if college upperclassmen do not carefully assess their career interests. Leave the litigating, case-studying and memo-writing to the people who pursue a law degree because they want to become an attorney.