<p>As I have previously read, the United States is one of the few countries that do not offer law as an undergraduate area of study. Why is that? Does anyone know why law is reserved for law school as opposed to having it as an undergrad major? Just curious. Thanks.</p>
<p>yeah…law is one of the most popular undergrad courses in my country :)</p>
<p>They probably want you to have a more well-rounded education here.</p>
<p>I agree, that is probably one of the reasons why… especially since law schools would like their students to fulfill a broad scope of interests, abilities, and backgrounds. </p>
<p>Still, why not offer it as an undergrad? Universities everywhere cannot stress enough that while they want their students to have a focus of study, they also want them to be well-rounded, thus making and even expanding breadth or general education requirements in order to graduate.</p>
<p>But thanks greenbean… anyone else? </p>
<p>(Personally, I like the idea of law school as opposed to actually majoring in law. I like being able to explore other educational interests during my college career and then going for a professional degree… perhaps I just answered my own question? hehehe).</p>
<p>The purpose of a “liberal arts” education is to teach people to think freely about different subjects. The term “liberal arts” comes from the root word for “freedom”, and the reason they’re called “liberal” arts is because in ancient greece, only free men (as opposed to slaves) could engage in the study of these subjects. (Presumably, they didn’t want slaves “learning to think” for themselves too much. </p>
<p>Law, on the other hand, is considered a professional degree, almost like a trade degree. So maybe they feel it’s important for students to “learn how to think freely” before they start “learning to think like a lawyer”. (Although I would argue that law teaches you to think more clearly and carefully than pretty much any other degree.)</p>
<p>It’s also important to remember that lawyers play a different, and larger role in our society than in many others. </p>
<p>And I’m not sure how many 18 year-olds really have the maturity to study law the way it’s taught here. </p>
<p>Finally, there’s probably an economic/financial component to it.</p>
<p>You actually can major in Legal Studies as an undergrad; Berkeley graduates more Legal Studies majors than history majors.</p>
<p>Law schools are not known for encouraging that course of study for undergrads; if you’re going to law school anyway, most people would consider it more educationally broadening to study something else as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I’ll weigh in (of course)… my background for those of you who don’t know: I did engineering and liberal arts, double major, undergrad. I’m now at law school.</p>
<p>Engineering is one of the only, if the only, professional degree that the US does for undergrad. Medicine, law, and business are reserved for grad school. Engineering undergrad is quite difficult, but I don’t think that schools compromise the quality of the curriculum in order to teach it to 20-year-olds. When an engineer graduates at the age of 22, she’s certainly mature enough to go into that profession. </p>
<p>Law is different. There is no way that I could have studied it in this depth at the age of 18, nor gotten as much out of it. A lot of legal questions are driven by policy, which, IMHO, is best understood by people who have some life exeperience beyond high school. Lawyers are also in a position of tremendous responsibility, which I believe is best reserved for those who are more mature. </p>
<p>The legal curriculum is not suitable for undergraduate study. There is an extraordinary amount of reading and synthesis required (it’s more than just reading cases; you have to put them together to see how the law develops), which the younger brain and younger study habits are not prepared for. I just got better at synthesizing and crunching material as I went through college; you need to start law school with those abilities, not develop them as you go.</p>
<p>Since no one else addressed this, I will: we are a common law country. While England, I believe, also does law undergrad, most countries are civil law countries. Not having studied civil law, I can’t say whether or not it’s easier - any thoughts on if this makes a difference?</p>
<p>Finally, while many people do go into law (quite successfully) without any sort of background, some types of law (patent, corporate) require a background in another area. Other types of law, like immigration or international, are best done with a foreign language - which, if the same law curriculum were done undergrad, you just would not have time to learn. (Then again, some people would argue that law school should be two years only.) Law would really take up three to four years almost exclusively undergrad (I imagine that they would have to ease up on the curriculum to make it suitable for 18-year-olds, hence the reason it would eat up almost all of your time in college). I think that it’s also important to go into law school having developed writing skills, and that would not really work if the JD were an undergrad degree.</p>
<p>actually i think you’re mistaken</p>
<p>i’m transfering (hopefully) soon, and my major is ‘law and society’</p>
<p>ucsb, ucsd = some of the schools that offer it.</p>
<p>UCSB has said that the program is an “excellent preparation” for students who plan on going to law school.</p>
<p>Baller: Law schools themselves will disagree - I’ve seen many of them specifically discourage “pre-legal” majors. I’ve also seen studies which show that, with such a major, you won’t do as well in law school as other students.</p>
<p>baller4lyfe… you are correct, UCs do offer law-related majors, but they do not get you a law degree. You get a bachelors. My question was more pertaining to JDs, etc.</p>
<p>I would also have to agree with athena that while UCs claim these are excellent preparation, many law schools do in fact discourage law-related majors, which are also stated by the UCs themselves (See: UCI/UCSD Preparation for law school/Pre-law websites), unless of course you are only minoring it in along with a different major which I suppose would give you both some kind of law background along with a liberal arts education. </p>
<p>Btw, thanks athena! I knew I could count on you lol.</p>
<p>UCI has a law forum where you have to take a buncha law classes and do research or an internship and then you get ceritified. It’s not a degree though, as you still major in whatever your major is. It’s just a separate little side thing to get into the law as an undergrad.</p>
<p>hopeful, i see</p>
<p>i’m not majoring in law and society just for law school preparation…i’m doing it 'cause i totally love learning about the law (even if law school didn’t exist i’d still do it).</p>
<p>really they discrourage pre-law study? why?</p>
<p>that’s weird…SB told me it’s excellent prep for it…</p>
<p>plus, it’s my passion to learn law…that’s why i wanna get a BA in it…so they’d still frown upon me even if i do it as my undergrad? =( lol, i hope not…</p>
<p>“really they discrourage pre-law study? why?”</p>
<p>I think it’s because they want students to be more well-rounded, as noted above. </p>
<p>However, I wouldn’t worry – if you get good grades, and a good LSAT, I doubt they’ll actually hold it against you – it just won’t be any better than any other liberal arts major for admissions purposes.</p>
<p>Hey, Aries. Good post.</p>
<p>I was thinking primarily of the common/civil law distinction in my post, when I pointed out that lawyers play a different role in our society than in most others. It is my understanding that in a civil law society, lawyers play a smaller role, perhaps because the rules are more clear-cut, and require less interpretation and debate. This may in turn require less actual legal training. </p>
<p>(However, for all I know, lawyers in other common-law countries may have a different educational approach – and lawyers, I believe, still play a larger role here than in other common-law systems.)</p>
<p>Cardozo,</p>
<p>Thank you. 
I thought you meant that lawyers here are involved in more aspects of our lives than in other countries - we do have an absurd number of lawyers per capita. Did not realize you were getting to the civil/common law distinction as well. From what little I know, a judge in a civil law country is the one who will really need to know the most - he has a much more active role than our judges.</p>
<p>Many, many, many years ago, both law and medicine were college-level subjects, but were later transferred to graduate level. Some countries still offer them as alternatives to university educations. As to which is the better system, opinions vary.</p>
<p>“really they discrourage pre-law study? why?”</p>
<p>In addition to Cardozo’s answer (good one, btw), it’s also because law schools teach law in a completely different way, so they’d rather you have a clean slate. </p>
<p>But hey, if it’s what you enjoy, then go for it! Like Cardozo said, if you get a high GPA and high LSAT scores, then I don’t see how it would count against you ;)</p>
<p>dadofsam… thank you for sharing that. I knew about law as an undergrad study (my own father has told me stories), but I did not know that even medicine was taught at college level… interesting.</p>