I am Jacko, a rising second-year law student at NYU Law, where I focus on international law. I received my undergraduate business and finance degree from New York University Shanghai, and a masters in global affairs from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The most important question before embarking on the law school journey is figuring out if you actually want to go.
Law school in the United States is three years and can be as much as $100,000 per year – it’s not a choice one should make without deep reflection.
The best way to determine whether you want to pursue a law degree is to take advantage of the resources and offerings of your undergraduate institution. While in undergrad, I took law-oriented course and attended seminars on the subject, which helped me realize I was interested in pursuing a career in the field.
I also built relationships with professors who taught law-related courses at my university and sought their perspective on pursuing a law degree. I recommend undergraduate students who are curious about a subject like law to take advantage of such opportunities to help them figure out whether it’s the right choice for them. It bears repeating that going to law school without an interest in the subject could be a time-consuming and expensive mistake.
For those who have already completed their undergrad, there are many resources online that can help you determine whether a law degree is the right choice for you, although there is no true substitute for the hands-on experience with the subject that taking an undergraduate course and speaking with the professor can supply.
Irrespective of how certain you are that you’d like to obtain a law degree, I would strongly recommend you spend a few years working before beginning law school. This work experience will help sharpen your academic focus, distinguish your application, and give you a running start once you enter the workforce as a lawyer.
For those who aren’t certain that they want to pursue a law degree, a few years of work experience can also help answer this key question. While the work you do doesn’t necessarily need to feed into your academic interest or even be connected to law, it’s nevertheless important to try to select a job that will help you explore a field of interest; the more complementary this role is to law school, the more it will strengthen your application and help you refine your interests. For instance, I knew I was interested in international law, so after receiving my masters degree I worked for one year in international trade and for two years as a consultant in international development. I discussed these experiences at length in my application and what I learned in these roles has helped refine my academic priorities for law school.
When it comes to writing the application, two things are worth mentioning.
First, law school admissions offices have a laser-like focus on GPAs and LSAT scores – getting those as high as possible will be critical for getting accepted at your top schools.
Second, when it comes to writing the application, narrative is everything. As discussed, it’s important to draw a throughline between your background and your decision to pursue a law degree. Law school admissions offices will want to understand what has led you to law school, where you’d like to be in the long term, and how law school is the best step for you to get from where you are to where you want to be.
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