Undergraduate major of lawyers, earnings and type of law practiced

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those data are from 1990– before I even graduated from high school. Did the OP not realize how old this paper is? My current college junior (political science major hoping to go to law school) was born the year it was published. Do those who know the legal field (I do not) think the general gist of the paper is still valid? How have the educational setting and the legal field changed in the past 30 years?

The only two factors that count for law scho admission is GPA and LSAT score.

[Anonymous]

You do have to be able to read and write well, but assuming you can do that, something like general accounting knowledge is actually useful if you're doing business litigation (which not infrequently results in business dissolution), M&A, etc. While you often hire experts, you should have a general understanding of what you're looking at. I have not had a situation where political science background would have been useful --granted, I only took one poli sci class and didn't like it. Practicing law is dealing with practical problems that need solutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Undergrad major to lawyer earnings is at best correlation, not causation.

If you want to make big $ as a lawyer, go to a highly ranked law school and get very high grades. Top of your class. Especially the first semester of your first year. IMHO, this is the #1 factor.

With very high first year grades, you are more likely to get interviews with (and offers from) the top-tier corporate law firms that pay top of market. These firms have very high grade cut-offs. They only hire law students with the very top law school GPAs.

Getting the summer offer is the hard part. If you do a decent enough job over the summer (arent completely incompetent or excessively awkward or weird), you’ll be fine.

At the college level - Do what you need to do to get into the best law school you can while also preparing yourself to get excellent first year grades for once you get there.

Above all else, this means having a high college GPA and LSAT score. (The lower-ranked your college is, the higher your stats need to be to get in to a good law school.)

College major doesn’t matter much. Just be sure to: (1) earn a high GPA; and (2) take as many classes as you need to become super skilled at reading and analyzing large volumes of texts, and writing clearly and persuasively. (Without already having this skill-set on day one of law school, you’re unlikely to do well first year, which in turn will limit your employment options and earning potential after.)

All of the fluffy talk notwithstanding, it’s nothing but an old boy's network.

DP. Retired early following BigLaw practice. Poor background, no network. T14 to BigLaw, as straightforward as that, one of the more meritocratic fields. Followed by 25 yrs of hard work.

Maybe connections are important in certain smaller eastern cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a junior in college and wants to apply to law school (he’ll probably work for a couple of years to save money and gain maturity and professional skills).

He had a rough first year of college grade-wise (he wasn’t going crazy partying or the like, but he had a hard adjustment to managing his time effectively and the analytic skill expectations of college profs - I difress but he’s got adhd and isn’t medicated, he managed fine that way in HS but it’s proven harder for him in college), but he learned from his mistakes and has done well since and I’m very proud of him. But he’ll never be able to make up the hit to his gpa from that first year. Is a good law school a viable option for a kid whose overall gpa will likely be 3.6ish, but excluding first year would be more like a 3.8? Obviously he doesn’t know how he’ll do on the LSAT, but he scored a 36 on the ACT so hopefully he’ll do well on it. I feel badly for him that law school may not he in the cards mainly because of a rough adjustment to college, but I’ve told him that may be the case so he is prepared.

His LSATs can override his grades but logic and reading comprehension are key and SAT scores are not indicative of LSAT scores.

Another lawyer here. This was true when I applied to law school in 1997, but I hear now that high undergrad gpa is critical (major is still irrelevant), and there is less emphasis on lsat for admissions. (first pp, I know hearing that sucks bc a bump early in college shouldn’t have that outsized affect on one’s career, but at least in this case, it probably does)

Also, most people I know who scored very well on the lsat also scored well on the sat, fwiw.

[Anonymous]

At T14 law schools it looks like about a tenth of entrants have STEM backgrounds now. Lots of opportunities in patent law.

[Anonymous]

LSAT Score by Major (at least 1000 test-takers):

Political Science (12,967) 154
Psychology (3,850) 153
Criminal Justice (3,673) 146
English (3,402) 156
Economics (3,235) 160
History (3,192) 157
Philosophy (2,300) 158
Sociology (1,992) 151
Communications (1,930) 152
Finance (1,683) 155
Business Administration (1,559) 151
International Relations (1,223) 157
Legal Studies (1,031) 150
Accounting (1,005) 155

https://www.yu.edu/sites/default/files/inline-files/applicants-by-major-2018-19%20%283%29.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks OP. As you point out, this is not about causation and moreover, there's an open question as to which way the arrows point. The kind of person who majors in "justice" was probably always going to shoot for the local ACLU or housing authority, rather than Covington.

The kid with 2 parents on Wall Street who accelerated through linear algebra in his NYC top tier private was ALWAYS going to make money, whether in PE, corporate real estate, fintech or at white shoe firm. The econ major was just a means to a the end, and the end was always defined as "making bank, wherever it suits me."

Not if you go to a T8 and have $350k in debt. I clerked (paid very comparatively very little) and then worked for Covington which has been ranked no 1 in the US for pro bono 12 years. https://www.cov.com/en/pro-bono

For someone who claims he went to a T8 (a thing you all made up on Reddit), then got hired at Covington, your reading comprehension surprisingly weak. No one has suggested that big firms don't do pro bono work. That's not actually the topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that a lot of philosophy departments "sell" their major by pointing out how well philosophy majors do on the LSAT. Not sure to what extent it's because philosophy just attracts better students to begin with and to what extent the study of philosophy prepares one well for the LSAT.

It's the study of logic that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mean earnings:

Economics $187K
Political Science $151K
Criminal Justice $89K

Christ on a cracker. I didn't know it was common for lawyers to make under 100 G's.

thats BOTTOM tier law only. going to any ole law school is simply not hard. It isn't like med school where it is very hard to get in but as long as you do MD in the USA the bottom group still clears 150k, and average for the lower-paying primary care fields is usually 225k fulltime, with top subspecialties easily clearing 400k

No, it isn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My major was liberal arts, because I failed to take everything required to graduate with my major, which was theater.

Tax litigator here. DOJ HP. GS-15.

What’s your salary?

GS-15. With a pretty high step. You can figure that out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a junior in college and wants to apply to law school (he’ll probably work for a couple of years to save money and gain maturity and professional skills).

He had a rough first year of college grade-wise (he wasn’t going crazy partying or the like, but he had a hard adjustment to managing his time effectively and the analytic skill expectations of college profs - I difress but he’s got adhd and isn’t medicated, he managed fine that way in HS but it’s proven harder for him in college), but he learned from his mistakes and has done well since and I’m very proud of him. But he’ll never be able to make up the hit to his gpa from that first year. Is a good law school a viable option for a kid whose overall gpa will likely be 3.6ish, but excluding first year would be more like a 3.8? Obviously he doesn’t know how he’ll do on the LSAT, but he scored a 36 on the ACT so hopefully he’ll do well on it. I feel badly for him that law school may not he in the cards mainly because of a rough adjustment to college, but I’ve told him that may be the case so he is prepared.

His LSATs can override his grades but logic and reading comprehension are key and SAT scores are not indicative of LSAT scores.

Another lawyer here. This was true when I applied to law school in 1997, but I hear now that high undergrad gpa is critical (major is still irrelevant), and there is less emphasis on lsat for admissions. (first pp, I know hearing that sucks bc a bump early in college shouldn’t have that outsized affect on one’s career, but at least in this case, it probably does)

Also, most people I know who scored very well on the lsat also scored well on the sat, fwiw.

I went to law school in '99 with a 3.0 gpa with terrible fresh and soph grades with some F's sprinkled in there, and all A's junior and senior year (after I figured out I wanted to go to law school, lol). Had pretty high-ranking schools offering me scholarships because of my 99th percentile LSAT. Not sure that would happen today. I didn't do well on the SAT fwiw. Ended up teaching it later for Kaplan though, lol, along with LSAT.

[Anonymous]

Econ major, did M&A work. I learned a lot of accounting doing the M&A work and learned that I probably would have enjoyed being an accountant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those data are from 1990– before I even graduated from high school. Did the OP not realize how old this paper is? My current college junior (political science major hoping to go to law school) was born the year it was published. Do those who know the legal field (I do not) think the general gist of the paper is still valid? How have the educational setting and the legal field changed in the past 30 years?

The only two factors that count for law scho admission is GPA and LSAT score.

Yes we know that. Yet there's a difference in lawyers earnings by undergraduate major. It seems likely economics majors gravitate toward the more high-paying areas of law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is a junior in college and wants to apply to law school (he’ll probably work for a couple of years to save money and gain maturity and professional skills).

He had a rough first year of college grade-wise (he wasn’t going crazy partying or the like, but he had a hard adjustment to managing his time effectively and the analytic skill expectations of college profs - I difress but he’s got adhd and isn’t medicated, he managed fine that way in HS but it’s proven harder for him in college), but he learned from his mistakes and has done well since and I’m very proud of him. But he’ll never be able to make up the hit to his gpa from that first year. Is a good law school a viable option for a kid whose overall gpa will likely be 3.6ish, but excluding first year would be more like a 3.8? Obviously he doesn’t know how he’ll do on the LSAT, but he scored a 36 on the ACT so hopefully he’ll do well on it. I feel badly for him that law school may not he in the cards mainly because of a rough adjustment to college, but I’ve told him that may be the case so he is prepared.

His LSATs can override his grades but logic and reading comprehension are key and SAT scores are not indicative of LSAT scores.

Another lawyer here. This was true when I applied to law school in 1997, but I hear now that high undergrad gpa is critical (major is still irrelevant), and there is less emphasis on lsat for admissions. (first pp, I know hearing that sucks bc a bump early in college shouldn’t have that outsized affect on one’s career, but at least in this case, it probably does)

Also, most people I know who scored very well on the lsat also scored well on the sat, fwiw.

I went to law school in '99 with a 3.0 gpa with terrible fresh and soph grades with some F's sprinkled in there, and all A's junior and senior year (after I figured out I wanted to go to law school, lol). Had pretty high-ranking schools offering me scholarships because of my 99th percentile LSAT. Not sure that would happen today. I didn't do well on the SAT fwiw. Ended up teaching it later for Kaplan though, lol, along with LSAT.

I went to law school in 1992, graduated college (a top 20ish liberal arts college) with a 3.4 and 99th percentile lsat, and I didn’t even get into GW law school, and had no scholarship offers.

All turned out fine, I went to Dickinson for law school, did well but not top of the class, first job was with DoJ and have had a good career (moved to private practice a few years in). Not sure that could happen nowadays.