Double Majoring Degree Roadmap Questions and Such...

[sirjake]

You guys are so great I'd like to hug you all! I'm thinking it may be easy to just have concentrations rather then majors, most of the schools I'm interested in require only a bachelor's in any shape or form. We'll see... back to studying and more research! eeya:

A few points:

If you're heck-bent on law, don't bother with a double-major. I mean, if you have an interest in the areas AND they are economically beneficial should you decide not to go to law school AND you've got the extra time, sure, go for it. But I would heartily recommend not doing it solely to improve your law school admittance chances. It simply doesn't make enough of a difference.

STUDY FOR THE LSAT. I can hardly emphasize this enough. The freakin' LSAT is your meal-ticket to good schools and/or scholarships. Two weeks IS NOT ENOUGH. Two months probably isn't enough. I am not kidding. This is extremely, extremely important to your future in law school--much more important than getting a degree with two majors.

Keep your GPA up. This is definitely secondary to LSAT, but if your GPA sucks, you might be in trouble (splitters can still get in and do well, but it makes life harder).

As to the legal profession, I think some of this anti-lawyer stuff is overblown. I say this as someone who decided to go into law, got into some very good law schools, then decided not to go into law. My reasons were in part related to the current economic situation for lawyers (mentioned above by others) and in part due to my own personal situation and convictions. But the truth is, every profession will have people recommending that you "do anything else." If you want to be a lawyer and are going into it with your eyes open (i.e., not expecting to make partner and be filthy-rich after a year), you *can* be successful. I think much of this vitriol and negativity about the profession is due to people entering law school thinking that it's a silver bullet that will solve all of their problems (economic and otherwise). They exit law school bitter and resentful (and heavily in debt) because they didn't research and count the costs. Be smart and you can make it. Be an idiot, and you'll end up bitter and in debt with a lousy job (or no job at all).