For a long time I been thinking about my career and so far being lawyer sounds right for me. As right now am going to be junior soon and so far the subjects that I am excellent at are english, history, and mostly any other course so far except math. So what am asking is do anyone on this forum can give me tips or some experience they had with law.

My experience with the law has been on the wrong side of it.

Not without divulging illegal activities. I will say this, public defenders hate their jobs. So don't do that.

Tip: Choose carefully which Daedric Prince you consider offering your soul to.

I don't understand...but that leaves me a bit worried.

join alot of clubs... even if you dont want to be a lawyer, Colleges look at that for some reason... [censored] i should have joined alot of clubs instead of ditching all the time. Anyways The thing about Lawyers is you dont have to do what you believe is "right", you just have to make it seem like you client is right. You need to be able to sell yourself to be a successful lawyer and fight for stuff you dont believe in

this is just for fun and i dont know if its true, but a friends dad i had who was a lawyer told me how to tell if you would be a good lawyer,

He said bump into a random person on purpose "the person has to throw a fit" If you are able to convice that person YOU bumped into that he bumped into you then you'd be a good lawyer

Law student here (not really interested in becoming a lawyer, but I guess you never know). As a student I haven't practiced law, obviously, but I have picked up some advice along the way which you might find helpful. Stay away from criminal law, you'll end up hating your job unless you're particularly... morally flexible. You'll find that many types of law are like this, since our adversarial legal system is inherently biased towards the wealthy, but it stands up particularly in criminal law. Law is actually really fascinating, much more so than I expected going into it, but I would advise taking it with another degree if possible so that you can retain some interest in it over a long period of time.

If you have any questions or anything like that I can do my best to answer.

Well let say I am moral flexible and I am good at arugments because I point out every single detail on a person and I will use all that person history to win the arugment at any cost will that make me a good lawyer?

This is true. Public defenders have it bad. They get no publicity, their pay svcks compared to the private sector, and their overworked.

@OP, I'm going to assume your in high school and American, so it's important to know that American law schools are postgraduate programs and that your undergraduate degree doesn't matter. Political science, philosophy, the sciences, anything will be taken. Philosophy is a good choice though, since it gives you plenty of experience with writing. (and lawyers do A LOT of writing) Obviously, this doesn't matter if you don't plan on going to American law schools.

Oh, and get some mock trial experience. The court room is not a debate floor, it's governed by a complex panoply of rules and procedures that must be mastered in order to obtain the best result.

No, that makes you an [censored]*.

When you try to win an argument by attacking the other person's character (or history), you're making an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ([censored] yeah, pretentious latin) - you're not addressing their argument at all. People still do it, of course, but that doesn't make it a good tactic.

What will make you a good lawyer is being quick-thinking, charismatic/persuasive, good at structuring ideas, skilled at picking out details - basically being able to present a convincing argument. Being morally-flexible won't make you a better lawyer, but you will find it easier to live with yourself if you end up in a lucrative career being financed by people who probably don't deserve your services.

EDIT: Oh yeah, above poster makes a good point. Being a capable writer is absolutely essential.


*Sarcasm, treat with caution. May contain nuts.

I will only use there history to show example of the person past to put them in jail or free them

For anyone considering any job, no matter what it is: Choose something you like to do, something close to your heart, something that doesn't make you think "yessss, friday is approaching!!!"

That's the number 1 reason why you SHOULDN'T go to law school.

http://www.itsuptoyou.net/why-you-shouldnt-go-to-law-school/

There's a good range of options for areas that you could go into.

Just bear in mind that if you go into criminal defence law it's very unlikely you're going to be living the Hollywood dream and more likely you're going to be dealing with the dregs of society - you might dream of an OJ case but you're more likely to get DUI and Assault case. That'll wear you down just as much as a prosecutorial role.

Consumer law, property, agriculture, intellectual property, divorce, corporate... all valid areas of law. They might not be glitzy as we tend to see criminal defence but they'll be stable and perhaps less draining... well aside from divorce law.

Do something because you believe in it and want to make a difference. If you want to argue with people - stay on forums. Playing silly buggers with a judge will get you soundly spanked.

The thing is there are so many different kinds of lawyers. What you need to focus on depends on what you want to do.

Basically you have to read read read and stuff whole phonebooks of information into your head for easy access. And you have to understand systems and procedures.

The other useful skill is thinking outside the box as they say. You have to be able to see arcane interpretations and tricky ways through the maze. And you have to be able to anticipate what the other side is going to do.

There are two problems with being a lawyer. One is that if you are lazy about reading and anolyzing things, you will be a bad lawyer. Being a bad lawyer really svcks because you have a lot of responsibility on your shoulders.

The other problem is that there has been an absolute glut of people doing law degrees and expecting it to get them a good job. What this means is that it is not rational to go heavily into debt for a law degree. The tuition is generally overvalued. So this is a good time to start thinking outside the box!