Graduate Studies in Law

This is a serious decision, since embarking on a legal education requires great thought, as well as a sizeable investment of time, money, and energy. This web page is only an introductory guide in exploring the law school possibility. Other vital resources include web sites (www.lsac.org), law advisors (both within different departments or the official UO prelaw advisor - Jack Bennett 6-1080), or even the admissions office at the UO Law School.

Why would you want to become a lawyer? There are many reasons. You may want to learn the skills a lawyer uses and apply them either in legal practice or in some other job. You may be drawn to legal work in itself and to a challenging position in the discipline. You may be motivated by a desire to see justice done or to change the system, and you feel that the lawyer’s tools can help accomplish those goals. You may want to make money. For decades, becoming a lawyer has been a way that tens of thousands of people have used their wits and their education to be upwardly mobile and to improve their financial situation.

But, this is no simple task. Even applying to law school is itself a good deal of work, not all of it is fun, and definitely not free. You must take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). You must assess your credentials, you must find the right law schools, learn about the application process, and decide where to apply.

General Information

Lawyers, who are also generally known as attorneys, represent clients in legal proceedings. In addition to acting as advocates for individuals and companies in criminal and civil trials, lawyers serve as ongoing legal advisers to corporations and organizations. Depending on the type of law they practice, lawyers will spend their time on paperwork, researching, preparing for or participating in trials, and advising clients. They spend hours in law libraries and with online databases researching legal precedents. They prepare contracts, briefs, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs or writing text from scratch. They plan and conduct depositions (interviews with witnesses), which in complicated cases can generate thousands of pages of testimony—all of which have to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information. They present their evidence—the information they've gathered about a case and about the laws relevant to a case—in a court of law, arguing before a judge and/or jury. Alternatively, they may present their research findings to clients, advising them on business or other issues.

Hours and workloads vary tremendously among attorneys. Associates at private practices bill their clients by the hour, recording every minute spent on a particular case in order to fill their firms' required annual quotas. Advancement at big firms happens glacially—most associates expect to become partners after seven to nine years of hard work—and a rigid hierarchy is maintained according to seniority. In contrast, public interest, government, and nonprofit lawyers hold salaried positions and typically move more freely within the office power structure. The firms or organizations that employ them often subsist on meager budgets and furnish their offices with hand-me-down desks and chairs, but relations within the office tend to be less hierarchical.

Virtually all law (J.D.) programs are three years in length. Some may offer the opportunity to simultaneously complete a MBA degree for additional years of schooling. But Law school is not for everyone. Earning a legal education will take at least three years. It will demand intense amounts of energy and attention. Whether you go full time or part time, law school is likely to impose a heavier load than you have undertaken previously in your school or work experience. This is particularly true during the first year, when you must develop the ability to assimilate vast amounts of detailed information and analysis, learn a new system and professional language, and begin to think about problems and problem solving in a new and unfamiliar way. This training—“thinking like a lawyer”—takes time and can be quite difficult.

While there is no required (or even recommended) undergraduate major for law school, economics has proved to be one that has prepared students well for such endeavors. In fact, a recent study found that economics majors averaged higher LSAT scores than any other major on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). We also offer a Professional Concentration in Law at the UO economics department that requires the student to complete the following course requirements:

a. Issues in Public Economics (EC 340) or Public Economics (EC 440) b. Labor Market Issues (EC 350) or Labor Economics (EC 450) c. Issues in Industrial Organization (EC 360) or Multinational Corporations (EC 484) or Industrial Organization (EC 460) or Industrial Organization and Public Policy (EC 461) d. International Economics (EC 380) or International Trade (EC 481) e. Complete a minor or equivalent in political science.

Prerequisites for Law Programs

1. Good grades
As with all graduate programs, law programs are looking for students that were obviously successful at the undergraduate level. Better programs are unlikely to accept candidates with GPAs lower than 3.0. They will also look at the quality of classes that you took in judging your transcript.

2. High LSAT scores
The standard entrance test for law programs is the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), which is administered by the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) . The LSAT is a half-day standardized test required for admission to all 200 law schools that are members of LSAC. It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing applicants. It is scored on a scale from 120 to 180.

3. Letters of recommendations from college professors
These letters should come from professors who know you relatively well, and at least one should be from a professor in your major.

4. Personal statement
This gives you an opportunity to “state your case,” as well as to demonstrate your writing ability. In your statement you will describe in your own words who you are, how disciplined or motivated you are, and how law school will help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

Application Process and Timeline

Application process and timeline is like many graduate programs. Early admission deadlines are typically in December, but unlike at the undergraduate level, an early admit is not bound to enroll in that program. Final deadlines may be anywhere from February through April. The LSAT should be taken either in June after your junior year or in the September/October test dates of your senior year. One advantage of signing up for the summer test is that you will have your results back in time to determine an appropriate range of schools to which to apply.

For letters of recommendation, make sure you contact professors at least a few weeks before a letter is due to the graduate program. You should be asking professors who know you the best (presumably ones whose class you have taken and done well in). When asking for a letter of recommendation, make sure to bring that person a copy of your transcript, GRE scores, resume, a list of schools you are applying to, required recommendation forms from the schools, and envelopes that are already addressed and with correct postage. Most recommendation forms have an area that you need to decide whether to sign to waive your right of access to the letter, so that it remains confidential. Whether you sign it is your decision, but the vast majority waive their access to the letter, since the school may deem the letter less credible if it is not confidential.

Importantly, the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) provides a clearinghouse for your application, including your letter of references, so that only one copy of your letters needs to go to LSAC, rather than providing copies to each law school individually. The following is rough guideline for the sequence of tasks one must follow to apply to law schools (from www.lsac.org):

1. Prepare for the LSAT (Law School Admittance Test).
2. Research law schools and compose a schedule of application deadlines.
3. Register for the LSAT and LSDAS (Law School Data Assembly Service).
4. Receive an LSAT Admission Ticket and an LSDAS Subscription Confirmation.
5. Request that an official transcript be sent to the LSAC from the registrar's office from each school you've attended.
6. Request that letters of recommendation be sent to the LSAC or the law school directly as appropriate.
7. Take the LSAT.
8. Receive your LSAT score.
9. Receive a Master Law School Report once all undergraduate transcripts have been summarized.
10. Apply to law schools. Schools will then request your report from the LSAC.
11. Receive an Activity Update that indicates reports have been sent to law school.

Picking the Right Law Program

There are a myriad of rankings out there which are not necessarily consistent. Investigate what criteria the rankings use and choose a ranking mechanism that uses criteria that are important to you. Many law programs offer particular specialties which may match your interests well and can be a deciding factor. Also, you should realize that except for the top 10-20 law programs in the nation, law programs are regional in that their graduates mainly get jobs in the same geographic region as the law program, particularly because bar exams are administered at the state level and often do not transfer to other states. Thus, you may want to pick a program in a geographic area which you want to ultimately live in! Here are some websites with law program rankings:

U.S. News Rankings

Other Useful Links

Law School Admittance Council
Links to Specific Law Programs