killer22

UCSB offers a law and society course.

I am surprised that no one has suggested Communications!
All lawyers do is speak and analyze. I'm majoring in communications with an intent to go to law school.

xleper17

Since my father is a lawyer who runs his own lawfirm and has ~50 lawyers under him, I decided to ask him this question while we were on vacation and he was scanning his blackberry.

He told me that any major for law school is fine. You can be a music major, a science major, a... musical science major (lol, i don't know). He said that law schools can't be biased about your major, though they often seem like they are. He said stellar LSAT scores (+178 will get you into Yale Law) and community service/volunteering (volunteering at a legal aide clinic).

When he hires people, he doesn't even look at their major for undergrad. He'll read the name of their undergraduate program and if intrigued, he'll ask what their major was (mainly for conversation and rapport) and then he'll look at graduate school. If the gap between the undergrad school and the grad school is great (such as CSUN to Yale), he takes note of this as well.

But he stressed to me that it's about the person and the personality. Not all lawyers speak and do analysis. They read, a lot, and they have to spend countless number of hours writing depositions or "memos" that happen to be 25 pages long.

My dad is a corporate lawyer (HP, Coca-Cola, Gateway, LG, stuff like that) but does pro-bono law when he has time (NAPABA, i think it's spelled like that). He also added that the prestige of the grad school doesn't mean that the guy/girl will be a great lawyer. He only has 4 Ivy league graduates and most of the others are from USC, UCLA and UCB (all very good in their own way). But he won't meet with an applicant if they came from Pepperdine Law School or below, he told me that their writing is consistently under-par and they come to him with a sob story to appeal to his emotions.

I hope this gives you guys some insight on the future of being a lawyer. Given that this is just a slice.

AllyGO

best major for law?
i would go with political science.
in political science you really learn how the political system works and how intricately involved it is exaactly like law.
philosophy is also good but i thinkk polisci will give you a better understand of how things actually work wheras philosophy is theoretical.
purely for critical thinking skiklls philosophy is the best it will help you do well on LSAT but i still say polisci gives you better practical knowledge.

Guyy

thanks for you input xleper.

as said before, there is really no "best" major, it all depends on what you want to do. if i were hiring i would not hire a someone who has no technical background for computer and electronics IP, thus an engineering degree would be necessary.

my uncle is a patent attorney for fairly large firm and has recently had a supreme court case and he said they dont really care about undergrad- its all about the law school and lsat.

"He also added that the prestige of the grad school doesn't mean that the guy/girl will be a great lawyer. He only has 4 Ivy league graduates and most of the others are from USC, UCLA and UCB (all very good in their own way). But he won't meet with an applicant if they came from Pepperdine Law School or below, he told me that their writing is consistently under-par and they come to him with a sob story to appeal to his emotions."

in my uncle's team there are 9 people and worst of them being an UCLA law school grad. and he really looks at peoples work habits. he doesnt really like 2 people in his team( northwestern and chicago) because their lack of aggressiveness and proactive-ness. if think he would meet with a pepperdine law school grad, if they can prove that they are better than a harvard or yale law grad.

xleper- i think there is a possibility that your dad and my uncle know each other. we were on the side that recently went to court against LG (LG vs Quanta). awesome experience, but sub 30 degrees weather was not fun.

xleper17

lol, my dad's most recent case was for the new President of South Korea (some guy stole $30 mil from him). I'll inquire about the case when my dad comes back from golf (lol! lawyer!).

My dad also told me last night that 90% of people that inquire about a position (they're always hiring, apparently) do not get through the screening process and the firm sends them rejection letters, like a university!!! hahaha. crushing blow.

My dad had to fire a UCB law grad because her writing wasn't good enough. =/ a little unnerving...

metalhedd165

Writing wasn't good enough? Hm, that kind of makes me lean toward English major. I've been told I'm a very good writer, but I haven't written anything pertaining to law. I only write good essays and sometimes stories. Do you think that could be projected as being a decent writer in the legal aspect?

luvtoolearn

If you transfer to UCB, once you get over here you can always double major in legal studies University of California, Berkeley - Legal Studies Department , I'm a Sociology major and want to go to law school so last semester I took a couple of legal studies classes. I liked them so much that I decided to major in legal studies. Although they said they don't give priority to legal studies major, they said its an excellent way to get a feel for the type of analytical skills needed for law school.

xleper17

metalhead -- I think my dad meant more along the lines of grammar and being able to deliver the point clearly. As a philosophy major, I must say that writing a paper for a phil class is COMPLETELY different from writing a paper for an english class.

The reason is that philosophy does not like ambiguous words (such as, 'i feel', 'i believe'). There are not many adj (those are frowned upon by my professors) and even the word "sometimes" is forbidden in some of my classes. No big descriptions and no beautiful conclusions. Dry. Boring. But loud and clear.

From the legal memos I read, I believe that practice in writing in the majors such as phil, poli sci and such as better prep for law.