As you’ve been preparing for law school you may have had certain nagging questions in the back of your mind.  Is all this effort really worth it? Am I even on the right track?  How do I know if law school is right for me?

Most law school applicants, if they’re entirely honest with themselves, have doubts like these. That’s not surprising, since law school seems to be a catch-all for a lot of really bright people who have no idea what they want to do with their lives.  As we’ve worked with students over the last decade, we’ve been amazed at how little thought has often gone into such a life changing decision.  Before you drop thousands of dollars and put yourself through the wringer of law school, you should take a very serious personal inventory.  Is law what you really want to do with your life?  If so, can you explain why?

Most reasons candidates give for going to law school are shallow and based on false premises.  They would make poor arguments for choosing a brand of car to buy, let alone choosing a life-long career.

Let’s look at four of the most common reasons people give for applying to law school and analyze each reason through the eyes of a typical law school admissions committee.

#1- “I think law would be a fun and interesting challenge.”

Response:  The rigors of law school and a legal career may be a lot of things, but few lawyers would describe them as “fun.”  Such a shallow reason as this one makes me wonder how much the candidate really knows about the law.  Has he worked in a law firm or court  setting?  Talked to actual attorneys?  Sat in on a few real law school classes to see what he was getting herself into?  Or has he just formed romantic images based on Hollywood movies and old reruns of Perry Mason?

#2- “I want to make a real difference in the world”.

Response:  Great, but how does that point you to law school?  Trash collectors make a real difference, too. Why don’t you want to make a difference as a business owner, a teacher, a therapist or any of the thousands of other influential careers?  The reason (on its own) is not a persuasive argument for going to law school.

#3- “My parents/teachers/friends always told me I should be an attorney because I love to argue”

Response: This reason makes me nervous about the candidate.  First, is law school something she has chosen for herself, for her own reasons?  Or is she really relying on someone else’s opinion? And second, does this candidate really believe that the major attribute (or even an important attribute) of a good attorney is a knack for arguing? It’s not! Sure, there are successful attorneys who excel at argumentation and debate, but there are just as successful attorneys who excel at avoiding arguments, reconciling parties and finding creative compromises.  There are scores of attributes that could be more useful to a law student than being argumentative: fair-mindedness, civility, critical thinking, determination and integrity, to name just a few.  In give-and-take of a law school class, an especially argumentative student can be more of a liability than an asset.  So the simple fact that a candidate “loves to argue” is a very poor reason for admitting him or her to law school. **(Whenever I hear one of these “My mom always said I was a great arguer” stories I have to wonder, was that just her polite way of saying “Why must you contest every point, you arrogant twit?”)

#4- “I’ve known I wanted to be a lawyer since I was six!”

Response: Their “Age of Enlightenment” varies, but a surprisingly high percentage of applicants cite this as a major reason they want to go into the law, but hopefully a lot of subsequent experiences have given some substance to the goal you may have set in elementary or high school.  I’d hate to think that you made such an important decision based on what you knew at age six and haven’t seriously revisited the question since!

It’s not too soon to start writing about your motives and figuring out exactly why law school makes sense in your life-plan.  The better you can articulate in clear, compelling prose why law school is right for you, the better your chance of convincing admissions committees that their school is right for you.

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