Pre-Law Advice at the College of Charleston

Legal Careers | Commitment to Law School | Undergraduate Preparation | Application Process | Time Line
Will You Succeed? | Questionnaire | Bibliography | Film List | Acknowledgements

II. Commitment to Law School

You probably do not consider yourself to be an average student. You see yourself as better than average. Your desire to pursue a legal career is likely to be associated with the prestige of law as a profession. You are also likely to upwardly mobile. Those desires are natural. To be realistic, however, you must know that the study of law requires sacrifices of time, effort, and money; the study of law also requires hard work. Examine any first year law school bulletin
(or any accredited law school’s web page at http://www.lsac.org.
You will find that you will be taking five or six required courses--no electives. Each course will use a law casebook approximately 1500 pages in length. There are no quizzes; there are seldom any term papers; attendance is required. There may of may not be a mid-term exam. Your course grade is determined by your final exam, which is graded anonymously (you are likely to be assigned a student number--your only identity on written work in law school). The sacrifice you must make to do well in law school is to avoid all other commitments and concentrate solely on your courses. You will find that all your time is spent working to achieve passing grades in a highly competitive environment. Your commitment to sacrifice will include sacrificing all but a minimum standard of living while in law school, else you live like a pauper after you complete the law degree.

The commitment to maturity probably exceeds the commitment to sacrifice. Any graduate study requires diligence, patience, endurance, stamina, work, and above average intelligence. Acknowledging that those attributes are required is the first step toward acquiring the maturity level necessary to complete your legal studies. Law is a demanding profession. It is also highly competitive. The competition to get into law school is very stiff. After you are accepted, the competition becomes fierce. It is not a myth to say that law students are divided into two groups: the top ten percent, and the "bottom" ninety percent. The best way to cultivate the necessary skills and attributes to succeed is to start acquiring them now, before it its too late, at the undergraduate level. If you haven't worked at those traits until graduation day at the College of Charleston, do not go to law school--do something else.