Lawyers: How can I as a sophmore in college prepare myself for law school and whatever comes after that?

Take as many critical reasoning and logic classes as possible. These will come in handy for the LSAT.

Okay, I didn’t go to law school, but I did sit in on a law school course while doing undergrad, and know a bunch of lawyers.

You want to have the best GPA possible – many people accomplish this by majoring in something inherently easy. History, political science are both directly relevant; economics may also be a good one.You want to have great references. You may want to get involved with campus politics through the student government. You’ll want to do well on the LSAT. You want to go to the best school that you can afford, and do well. That’s all I can think of at the moment.

I went to business school, but I do wish to share with you my secret: someone really important to me once told me ‘you will never get your time back, so just don’t waste it’.

Study hard. Is that easy.

You need the right mindset. Go to a school ground and start spitting on children. Run away right before the police come.

Visit a relative in a nursing home. Wheel them onto the front lawn and leave them there.

Run back inside and recite:

“If you or a loved one has been left outside..”

Start howling like a wolf.

Go to church and take money out of the tithe platter.

If this sounds like fun, then you’re right on track.

Read something you enjoy. Study subjects you enjoy. For decades, law schools valued political science and criminal justice majors over other students, but the trend these days is shifting towards liberal arts degrees. Some of my friends at school are Neuroscience majors, some are Mechanical Engineering , Communications, History and English majors.

The modern attitude in law school admissions (at least where I’m sitting) values an educationally diverse student body over the cookie-cutter Political Science majors. Besides, on the first day of law school, the Political Science majors are just as useless as the Biology majors. Nothing you study in undergrad will provide any meaningful advantage in law school (except arguably Philosophy, but I’m far from impartial on that matter).

Talk to law students and lawyers about what schools they went to, and try to decide where you’d like to go, and what you want to focus on studying while you’re there.

I wish someone would have told me that law school isn’t about knowing all the cases, or even knowing lots of cases. It’s about overdeveloping your ability to analyze everything, and articulate yourself clearly. It’s not a trivia contest, it’s an arguing contest.

As someone that’s gone through the complete process (law school >>> sat for the Bar), first, I would say the most important thing to consider is that you make sure that you want to go to law school. I’ve known several people that force themselves through the crucible that is First Year only to quit. If you don’t think you’ll have the chops to do it, then don’t do it, otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time and money. Make sure it’s something you want.

What you want to do is maximize the big three: 1) LSAT score, 2) GPA, and 3) your personal statement (a distant third). On the other end, build those relationships with your professors. Do research w/your professors. Ask them early for those letters of recommendation. Outside of that, you should constantly be doing things. Study abroad, join student organizations, take test prep courses (for the LSAT), do research, get a summer job, go traveling/backpacking. Like everyone else said, it doesn’t really matter what you major in.

Once you’re actually in law school? There isn’t much that you can do now to prepare. I don’t think anything in undergrad will really prepare you for law school. Once you start law school, be prepared to get your ass kicked: there will be tons of work and some professors will want to haze the First Year students. I would say the best thing for you to do is to start developing the ability to see things in shades of gray. Start being able to see things from the other side.