#one of the oft-overlooked skills a lawyer needs is the rapid acquisition of understanding new fields--you're trained to never ask your witn

[hellenhighwater]

hi hellen! i'm a high schooler thinking of pursuing law - i know it's tough to get into, but i'd like to give it a shot. how did you know that it was right for you, and what would you consider to be the most important things to do to prepare to study it in advance? any additional advice would be great, thanks!

Well, the thing you often hear about "oh, you're so good at arguing, you should be a lawyer" is mostly bull. The actual main skills for a lawyer are research, writing, analysis/application, negotiation, debate (not arguing) and emotional regulation. If that sounds appealing, it may be a good fit!

I pretty much always tell people that you should do your bachelor's in something other than prelaw. In fact, it should be in whatever field you would want to have a career in if you weren't a lawyer. Law schools generally do not require specific undergrad majors, as I, with my double art degree can attest. Law school is geared to give you all the basic tools necessary for being a lawyer. I did not notice any meaningful advantage a prelaw major provided to my peers. If you have a particular law school in mind, look into their admissions criteria, but otherwise--get your bachelor's in your backup career.

Work on your reading and writing, and go to court. Courts are open to the public and these days most of them actually have facebook and twitter pages where they post dockets; many courts post-pandemic actually also livestream all proceedings, sometimes right on youtube. Look at what's going on in some of your local courts, and just go watch it happen. You are welcome to sit and watch court proceedings, just don't be disruptive and be prepared to go through a security check. Get a sense for what goes on!

#Also #one of the oft-overlooked skills a lawyer needs is the rapid acquisition of understanding new fields--you're trained to never ask your witn #and that means that when you have expert witnesses #you need to acquire enough of an understanding of their field to be able to plan your questions.