Early Steps
Getting In
Improving Your Writing
Advising for Pre-Law Students
Pre-Law Resources
EARLY STEPS: ADVICE FOR FRESHMEN, SOPHOMORES, AND JUNIORS
If you are considering a career in law, then during your undergraduate years, you should develop your intellectual abilities as much as possible, while also exploring whether your initial interest in the law is sufficient to carry you on through law school and a law or law-related career. You owe it to yourself to be alert to significant changes in your attitudes, interests, and understandings as you learn more about other possibilities and about yourself. Changes in the "market picture" in regard to law might also indicate that law is not the only option you should seriously consider. In general, an excellent rule of thumb during your college years is to maximize your options and avoid too narrow a view of your future.
As a "pre-law" student, you are fortunate in that you can prepare assiduously for law school and lose nothing should you change your mind later on. The best preparation for law school is simply to get the best liberal arts education you can. Then, if your career plans change, you will still have a broad-based, valuable intellectual foundation from which to develop other career possibilities. There is no specific major that you must choose, no specific set of courses that you must include, in order to be well prepared for law school. This leaves you a great deal of freedom.
What you must do to prepare for law school, and what you should be doing in any case during your college years, is to train your brain. More specifically, you must develop the ability to write cogently and coherently, to analyze carefully and accurately, to reason logically, and to speak effectively and articulately. These are the skills which will take you farthest in law school and in the practice of law, and these are the skills which law schools will be looking for when you knock at their doors. It doesn't matter so much whether you develop these skills in analyzing political institutions (as a political science major), metaphysical arguments (as a philosophy major), underlying syntactic structures (as a linguistics major), or molecular structures (as a chemistry major); what matters is that you learn to use your mind effectively in a range of intellectual domains. Look for a major that demands a considerable amount of challenging reading and writing and that gives you some opportunities for small classes and seminars in which you can develop your speaking ability and in which faculty may get to know you better than they can in large lecture classes.
You should also be learning more about what law school and legal practice are really like. Law schools have a lot in common, but their location, size, price (state v. private), and overall competitiveness are important differences. There is a tremendous range of working environments within the legal profession for those who have completed law school —as well as many possibilities for taking your law degree and working outside of the legal profession itself. Your goal should be to make informed choices about (a) whether to go to law school, (b) where to go to law school, and (c) how to go to law school.
Many useful resources are available for learning about law school and about the legal profession; see the resource page for pre-law students. The website of the Law School Admissions Council is an excellent source of information. Northwestern’s Legal Studies Program provides opportunities for undergraduates to learn about legal issues, legal institutions, legal actors, and legal processes. It offers both a minor and an adjunct major, as well as individual courses that may be of interest to you as you consider a law career.
You should also plan to visit real live law school classes and to talk to real live practicing lawyers, to get a feel for the actual circumstances in which people learn and do the law. Law school is not by any means just three more years of what you will have had at Northwestern; it's a qualitatively different educational experience, and one you should be certain that you want to undertake. Luckily for us, the Northwestern Law School welcomes undergraduates from the Evanston Campus and will try to arrange for a student guide to show you around when you visit the Law School in downtown Chicago; just call the Law School Admissions Office at 312-503-8465 to schedule a visit.
Also luckily for us, the Northwestern Alumni Association Externship Program (NEXT) arranges opportunities to "shadow" NU alumni at their workplace for one to three days. This is an excellent opportunity to learn first-hand about a particular profession, including the law. In addition, Northwestern CareerNet, a career networking service at the Alumni Center, has a large data base providing names of alumni across the country--including many lawyers--who are willing to speak to interested Northwestern undergraduates about their careers. Since you may never again get the chance to speak to a lawyer without paying an astounding fee-per-minute, these are very valuable opportunities for Northwestern students.
One other thing you should be doing before you begin to fill out those law school applications is making sure that at least two professors know your academic ability well enough to write a detailed and effective recommendation for you as part of your application. Many students reach senior year without having one, much less two, professors who know their work individually. The most obvious way to get professors to know your work specifically is to be an outstanding student . You might also take a series of courses with one professor or choose a small seminar in which you can show off your writing, critical thinking, and analytic skills to best advantage. Interactions with faculty during office hours, in residential colleges, and in other settings outside the classroom can provide additional opportunities for them to learn more about you. The idea is not to flatter a professor by insincere attention and contrived questions; the idea is to demonstrate your academic talents and intellectual curiosity. How you manage that is up to you, but the professor must be able to say more than what appears in simple numbers on a grade sheet in order for a recommendation to carry any weight with a law school.
To sum up, your major tasks as an undergraduate considering law school are these:
- Learn to write, analyze, reason, and speak effectively.
- Learn about law school and law careers.
- Plan ahead for faculty recommendations.
GETTING IN: PERSUADING LAW SCHOOLS THAT THEY WANT YOU
Everyone will tell you that the two most important factors in gaining admission to law schools are your GPA and your score on the LSAT. This is true. Be aware, however, that the GPA will be considered in light of the school in which you earned it and the courses in which you earned it; don't try to manipulate your GPA by overusing the P/N option or by taking less demanding courses. Law schools have contacts at universities, certainly at Northwestern, so they can figure out which transcripts really represent outstanding academic achievement. Besides, if you're more of an academic lightweight than your GPA indicates, you're setting your own self up for a fall—either on the LSAT (because you won't have mastered the fundamental intellectual skills it is supposed to measure) or in law school (because you can't bluff through the kind of law school you will want to go to). In other words, you have to strike a reasoned balance between the natural desire to get the highest GPA possible and the equally compelling need to have that GPA represent real intellectual growth. It's too expensive to become obsessed only by the former; be sure your bachelor's degree represents the latter by the time you're through.
Law schools want to learn the following from your application and your record: that you have a good mind and that it's been well trained; that you have what it takes to succeed both in law school and in the legal profession; and that you would bring something unique to your law school class--since such a large part of law school learning results from peer group interaction. You can demonstrate your value along each of these three dimensions both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Quantitatively, you demonstrate your value by means of the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) score and your GPA.. Qualitatively, you have two means by which you can supplement the quantitative measures (although you cannot replace them or diminish their significance); these are the personal essay and the faculty recommendations.
Both the personal essay and the faculty recommendations should be used to persuade law school admissions people that you are well qualified to succeed in law school, and that you would bring something unique to the mix of students in your entering class. To argue that you have what it takes to succeed, you must use these two verbal means (the essay and the letters) to bring to the readers' attention what might not jump out at them from your transcript and your other application pages. For example, you may have special expertise in an area in which you have worked or volunteered; you can elaborate on how that experience has fueled your excitement about studying law. Or, you may be a sociology major but with a minor in, say, philosophy. Explain how your choice of particular philosophy courses was a deliberate move on your part to ____________ (then fill in the blank by explaining the value of that academic work to your preparation for law school).
In addition to using the essay to speak to your inherent brilliance as a lawyer-to-be, you should also use it to bring out what makes you unique as a potential law student. Law schools value diversity within their student population. It's important for the student body to be a geographical, racial, academic, and social mixture, so you should show what you would contribute to the diversity of the student body. It could be an unusual family background, a special interest (e.g., French horn, mountain climbing, drama, volunteer work), unusual job experiences (e.g., archaeological expedition, factory work, foreign experiences, even working in a law firm!), or distinctive career objectives; whatever it is, the place to bring it out is in the personal essay--and in the faculty letters of recommendation, provided that you have given them the crucial information. Do not forget that the personal essay also is a chance to show off your writing ability--so get some good writing advice and try out several drafts, unless you are certain that you're a superb writer.
The personal essay is where you can weave together all the strongest strands of your life to demonstrate what a wonderful addition you will be to their entering law school class (keeping in mind the intellectual and personal qualities that are most relevant in this particular context). Similarly, when your professors write recommendations, you can provide them with the information they will need to make the strongest case for you. Don't let your professor be limited to just the information on the grade sheet; you should provide a resume or the equivalent, and any information you think is relevant to the law school application that the professor might conceivably (and legitimately) work into the recommendation letter. Political science professors probably know the kinds of things that law schools are looking for, but some other professors may have less experience in writing law school recommendations; feel free to (respectfully) provide suggestions on the kinds of qualities or abilities that would be most relevant in this context, and then be sure the professor has as much background information as you can reasonably supply to speak to those issues.)
Even though the qualitative components of your application will not replace the quantitative ones, the former do provide you with two more chances to strengthen your application and make the strongest case possible for your admission to the school(s) of your choice. All but the most sanguine of law school applicants should put a lot of effort into preparing the personal essay, and a lot of thought ahead of time into making sure they have two faculty members who know their work and view it very positively. Pre-law advisers in the WCAS Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising and at Career Services will be glad to speak to you in more detail about preparing your personal essay, and about choosing which professors to ask for recommendations.
In regard to the all-important skill of writing, if your major does not oblige you to do a lot of serious writing (or does not give you lots of useful feedback) and you want to improve your writing ability (remember: the LSAT includes a writing sample), consider taking English 205, Intermediate Composition.
Many professors do not provide enough feedback on student papers to help students really improve their writing; this course does just that. It is one of the best ways students can invest their time in preparation for all their remaining courses in which they have to write, to say nothing of law school itself. In addition, Writing Program faculty are available to talk with students individually about how to improve their writing, whether this ultimately involves taking English 205, using the Writing Place, or other strategies. Writing courses, Writing Program faculty, and the Writing Place are available to students at all levels of writing ability, from the most despairing to relatively accomplished writers.
The Weinberg College Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising has a faculty member assigned to do pre-law advising during his or her time each week as a College Adviser. Call 847-491-8916 to make an appointment. This adviser is available at any stage of the pre-law process to discuss your questions with you, whether you're ambivalent about law school, have just discovered its attractions, or have already applied and now must sort out realistic options--whatever. Both current students and alumni can make use of the adviser’s experience and expertise and of his or her contacts with the faculty, which can be very helpful as well. (Note: All Northwestern students and alumni can make use of these services; they are not just for WCAS students.)
Staff at University Career Services (UCS), 620 Lincoln St. (847-491-3700), also work with pre-law students and help with details of the law school application process. They have a large collection of materials relevant to pre-law students, including books, and articles on law school and legal careers. Advice on "Applying to Graduate or Professional School" is available on the Career Services website
Advisers in both WCAS and UCS have current statistics about recent Northwestern graduates and their fortunes in applying to law schools (i.e., their GPAs and LSATs combined with where they applied and who accepted them); these can be extremely helpful in estimating your chances at a specific school. Pre-law students would be wise to consult the advisers in both WCAS and Career Services; each may have specialized knowledge, particular experience, or useful perspectives that the other one doesn't.
MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE WEINBERG COLLEGE PRE-LAW ADVISER:
Contact the Office of Academic Advising, 1908 Sheridan Road, 847-491-8916
Prepared in the
WCAS Office of Academic Advising
1908 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208-4030
(847) 491-8916
Based on an earlier text by Professor Judith N. Levi
JR & JL, August 2008
