Pre-Law?

[Deth Muncher]

Hey all. Allow me to preface the coming thread with the following statement: my Google-fu is horrendous.

Currently, I'm working on my senior research paper for highschool, and we were assigned to write on a problem that we actually care about instead of some prepackaged nonsense that nobody cares about, and as such, writes BOOPy papers. Since I'm heading off to college in hopes of obtaining a law degree afterwards, I chose "The Problems Pertaining To Getting Into The Legal Profession." (My proposed title for the paper, if you were wondering, is "So You Want To Be A Bloodsucking Leech: The Issues With Getting Into The Legal Profession".)

Now, here's my issue. As was stated (and as any member of the RPG forums here on the site know), my searching skills are atrocious. I've gotten information from many of the major law-pertaining sites, such as the American Bar Association (did I mention I'm in America? I'm in America.), as well as the group that runs the LSATs and a few others. However, our teacher wants us to find books and periodicals to get information from as well, which is causing me considerable trouble (interacting with objects in the real world? AH! Scary!). I'm at the library at the moment, so I was wondering if anyone knew of any good books pertaining to getting into the legal profession. Or, y'know, related topics, like how to get into law school, how to pay for schooling, how to find a law firm/how to make a law firm, etc.

[snoopy13a]

Don't major in "pre-law". Almost any undergraduate major is acceptable for law school. You should major in a field that interests you and lends itself to a plan B. For example, you could major in history and if you don't want to go to law school, you could either try for a PhD program or get a masters in education and become a teacher. What law schools look at is:

1) Grades
2) LSAT scores
3) Letters of Recommendations
4) Application Essay(s)
5) Internships/other experience

The primary things they look at are grades and LSATs.

Law School is very expensive (around $40,000 a year for private schools). Most schools will give out scholarships but they won't cover the whole cost. Plus, you have to pay for room and board which can be really expensive in some areas (e.g. NYC).

A good source would be the Law School Admission Council webpage:

www.lsac.org.

They adminster the LSAT and applicants first send letters of recommendation and transcripts to them and they distribute copies to the schools that one applies to.

[RTGoodman]

For sources, the best thing to do would be to talk to your friendly local librarian and see what sorts on online databases and things like that you have access to as a student. I personally love JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/), but unless your school has an account, you probably can't access it.

My alma mater's library's website also has a list databases and catalogs that might be helpful to you. THIS ONE (http://media.lib.ecu.edu/erdbs/index.cfm?subject_id=%2Ferdbs%2Findex.cfm%3Fsubjec tid%3D12%26on%3Dcat&subcat_id=40&subjectid=12&button.x=25&button.y=12&on=cat) has a few that are Law-specific, and THIS PAGE (http://media.lib.ecu.edu/erdbs/title.cfm?letter=all) is a huge list of ALL the databases you might could try. (Most aren't what you're looking for, but scan through 'em and see what you like.)

Articles from major law journals and stuff like that are a gold-mine of information, both from what you can glean from the articles themselves AND because you can track down THEIR sources and use those, too.