<p>Im a freshman at UCLA and without much extra effort, I would be able to graduate in 3 years with a political science degree. As I need a high amount of financial aid, and my $$$ situation is shaky at best (can’t go into details for privacy), this would be a great advantage as I will probably need to take out significant loans for law school. However, I have to concerns about me graduating early</p>
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<li><p>Do law schools look down upon it?</p></li>
<li><p>I have not done any internships yet in college. I plan on getting one this summer, but if I graduate in 3 years that will be equal to getting my first internship the summer after sophomore year. Do I need more work experience? Since the law market isn’t great, Im only going to attend law school if I get into a T-4 so I really want to make sure I have all the boxes checked. My GPA is fine and Ive just started looking into the LSAT, but Im worried about work experience/ECs</p></li>
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<p>Also, and this is a little more complex, but one of my dreams is to move to East Asia (my reasons are too complex to explain) when Im about 30 (which is about 5 years after law school)? I know Hong Kong has many American lawyers, but would an American law degree be worth anything anywhere besides Hong Kong? The countries I like are Japan (if I can afford it, eh), South Korea (if Kim Jong il takes his meds and stops throwing fits LOL), Singapore, Taiwan, and China (PRC). </p>
<p>Would getting a law degree with the hope of living abroad be a stupid idea? </p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>Some people get overhyped with work experience. Just focus on your GPA and LSAT. If you can do a 3.9+ and 170+, you will get into a T14…and have a shot at the T5. </p>
<p>Now with regards to living abroad. This is not a stupid idea at all. If you go to law school, when you’re searching for employment, focus on firms that do heavy business in East Asia. You could always do an LLM like NYU@NUS (you get an LLM from NYU and NUS in a year) or a strait East Asian LLM if you wanted to target directly to East Asian firms. Another idea would be to go through profiles of American lawyers working throughout East Asia to get an idea of how they ended up there. I would really focus on Hong Kong and Singapore though–and let Taiwan, Japan, and SK slide out of the picture.</p>
<p>Good advice from adam0302, especially regarding Hong Kong and Singapore offices. More and more American firms now have presence in Beijing as well.</p>
<p>For what it is worth, I graduated from college in 3 years at age 20 and went straight to law school, albeit back in the Dark Ages for your purposes. I think maturity is the key rather than some arbitrary chronological age and both your numbers and application can reflect that. In addition, law school admissions personnel aren’t idiots. They know that lobbing off a year of undergrad can mean a lot of money that can now go to graduate education. Just in case, you can always spell it out for them somewhere in your app. Good luck!</p>
<p>Graduating early might hurt you. Law schools are putting more emphasis on maturity and work experience, so it may keep you out if you’re borderline at a school.</p>
<p>Are you from any of those Asian countries? Or a native speaker of Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese or Korean? If not, I wouldn’t count on being able to transfer to an Asian office of an international firm. I don’t know what kind of LLM adam0302 is talking about, but I really doubt it would help at all. From what I’ve seen, the people who are able to transfer are generally either from the country they’re transferring to (and often have an LLB from a college there), or are very senior.</p>
<p>Clearly you don’t understand that courses at NUS and the major law schools in HK are all taught in english. In fact the TOEFL is required for non-english speakers. Most white collar jobs, especially in Singapore only use english. A ton of ex-pats (both American and British) in Singapore doing IB, law and consulting to avoid loosing half their income to taxes.</p>
<p>Firms are still looking for native speakers for just about all of their Asia offices. It’s an uphill battle for someone who speaks only English.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Which is why I suggested the OP scrap his plans for SK, Japan, and Taiwan. English is practically the main language in Singapore, so unclear what “native” language you’re speaking of for Singapore. Within a corporate environment, I’m positive nobody will be speaking malay and tamil—maybe Mandarin in an all Chinese environment. </p>
<p>Your opinion of what firms are looking for in Singapore offices certainly aren’t true when going through the lawyer profiles. Jones Day’s Singapore team is pretty much 95% non-native.</p>
<p>Just checked my former firm’s Hong Kong and Beijing offices. It’s about half and half in the Hong Kong office, although most of the younger associates are fluent in Mandarin. In the Beijing office, all are fluent in Mandarin.</p>