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What is the best major to pursue for a future in law school?

I have an interest in studying law #lawyer

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Eliza’s Answer

What Carol Hunter said! For instance, do you want to go into entertainment law? Then go to college in an entertainment city (LA for movies, TV or music; NYC for theater, TV or music; Nashville for music...) and study something like acting or playwriting or media studies, with a minor in business or marketing or some other thing you're interested in. Then go to law school in that same city. The combination of being trained in an entertainment field and building undergrad and law school connections in an entertainment city will make you look awesome to local firms that practice entertainment law.

Or if you think you might like medical malpractice law, do an RN or pre-med undergrad degree and then go to law school. I actually have known several nurses who became lawyers.

I could go on and on with examples like this.

The only exception to this rule is if you want to be the kind of lawyer who drafts patents (i.e. writes the actual patent documents that get filed with patent applications) or who works for the federal government evaluating patent applications (which, BTW, is a great job--more on that in a minute). If you want to be that kind of patent lawyer, you HAVE TO have an undergrad minor in a science or engineering field. (You do NOT have to have that background in order to be a patent litigator, but you do need it to file or evaluate patents.) And now back to working for the feds: a patent lawyer I used to work with quit a life-sucking big firm job to go work for the Patent Office. He spent I think a year working in DC, earning a lot of money... and then... they let him work from home, which meant he could move two states away to be close to his family and still pull in the big bucks and get federal benefits, which are amazing.

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Carolyn’s Answer

For an under graduate degree I would suggest that you either major in English or Math. In law you do a lot of writing, that is why I suggest that you consider English. Then there are the analytical skills that you learn in math, which come in handy if you decide on a legal career that requires you to seek out information for your clients (in most cases whatever you choose will require some type of analytical skills. Also computer skills are handy to have, as I find that I do all of my drafting and computer work myself rather than having an administrative assistant that does it for me (that is a luxury you usually have if you work for a law firm).


In reality it doesn't matter what your undergraduate degree is in, but I chose to do one that would enhance the skills I needed to be an attorney. Good luck on your future plans!
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Carol’s Answer

One of the interesting aspects of Law is that there is such a diverse range of expertise and focus areas. For instance, there is litigation, criminal, business, entertainment law, etc. So my advice is to select the undergrad degree that interests you the most and take any base law courses. That should serve you well as you enter your career and seek out areas to practice law where you have a passion and interest in the field.
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