tldr; should I be an engineer vs laywer

>>17901754
>ive always been a good debater and have desperately needed an outlet for my young competitive desires
If this is the reason you want to study law, you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Everyone who goes into law school 'because I'm good at arguing' does not do well. This is coming from a law student.

>>17901761
As opposed to what, focusing on earning a shit ton of money ? I hear that all the time "... not the right reason to go to law school" as if there is some grandious nobel call that attracts everyone else.

Ive always been good with learning concepts and finding novel ways to connect them, I only say I liked debating to show that i'm not afraid of the competitive element

Full disclosure, I'm not an attorney yet, I'm only a 2L law student. That said, I did some work in a private criminal defense firm for two years in undergrad and worked in the public defender's office for my 1L summer so I can give you some things to consider from my perspective. This all assumes you are based in the U.S. Anywhere else will likely be different. First you need to consider the debt. Unless you completely slay the LSAT or you do OK on it and go to a shit school, prepare for at least $100,000 of debt coming out of law school. That amount is JUST for law school, it does not include debt incurred in undergrad. The significance of that may not full hit you yet, but once you are under, the pressure is on. If you intend to work as a defense attorney, you pretty much HAVE to start at a public defender's office for experience unless your parent's own a firm, or your best buddy's can hook you up. If you start in a public defender's office, the pay will be comparatively shit. Think maybe $55,000 max in a big city. You have to work for the government for 10 years to discharge that. If you leave for a private defense firm after a few years, you can maybe expect a jump to $70k. Ultimately, unless you are a cartel lawyer, you can expect to max around 200k a year if you are pretty good. It is also worth considering that another 3 years of being a relatively poor law student on top of 4 years of undergrad totally blows. That said, I had an amazing time while I was working. Law school is 80% useless after you pass the bar. Its gonna be a rough 3 years. But working in the field, there is new shit to deal with every day, you can tell asshole clients to fuck off until they cool down, and maybe this is just me, but playing with someone's life is a pretty fun time, as long as you are completely on your best game. If you fuck up, that is likely to haunt you forever if you aren't a psychopath.

>>17901781
The first poster is right. Just going because you are "good at arguing" is what gets you fucked up. If you go anywhere decent, most everyone else in your class is just as good if not better than you at arguing. What you want is a passion for working in a particular area of law. If you don't enjoy what you do, you are gonna feel like shit real quick. Even if you make a ton of money. Which very few lawyers actually make outside the T14. Even within that.

>>17901781
Given how you reacted to what I said, especially when you say you've heard it multiple times already, I can tell you that you're definitely not cut out for law. It's not what you wanted to hear, and I'm not going to apologise for that because why should I, but it's the truth.

>>17901787
Not to say you are wrong that there isn't any noble call that attracts everyone. Most students go for the money. Just know that statistically, thats fucking retarded.

>>17901784
>maybe this is just me, but playing with someone's life is a pretty fun time, as long as you are completely on your best game. If you fuck up, that is likely to haunt you forever if you aren't a psychopath.
Except, you know, there are ethical standards that lawyers have to adhere to and you could lose your job if you fuck around like that.

>>17901791
Clearly you don't want our advice, so do what you want. Just don't be surprised when 'I'm good at arguing' gets you absolutely nowhere

>>17901796
To be fair, I did say you have to be completely on your game. If you don't do your job, then yeah, you fucked up big time. I suppose phrasing it as "playing with someone's life" doesn't necessarily convey the requite amount of seriousness, but it is 4chan at almost 3 AM my time so I'm not exactly searching for precision here.

>>17901800
That was not OP.

>>17901803
>it is 4chan at almost 3 AM my time so I'm not exactly searching for precision here.
You really shouldn't be giving advice if that's your excuse for getting something severely wrong. You've just brought into question everything you've said

>>17901813
If you want to be an asshole you can, but by all means, if there is anything else that I said that needs correcting, feel free to correct it so that OP can be properly informed.

>>17901800
That wasn't me but still acting as if one phrase I used will render me an incompenent student is so narrow minded. Your "advice" is just discouragment fueled on a generalized image of who i am, why not ask more questions to get at the heart of my motives? Is it not intrinsic in wanting to be a defense attorney that I also want to help people? No suprise I couldnt take your reponse seriously, you just explained your experience as if its somehow obviously related to me

>>17901820
I'm pretty sure there are only three people in this thread so far. Myself, yourself, and this other anon. I'm the poster from 17901781, 17901787, 17901791, 17901803, 17901808, and 17901819. This other anon is coming off as a bit of a militant asshole. The factual essence of what he/she is saying is overall correct, but his/her assumptions and tonality are just fuckin stupid. If you have any questions about law school/a legal career that I could help you with, I'm willing to give them a fair shot.

>>17901833
What factual evidence, basically that i need to go in with a better understanding of law than "arguing lol"

>>17901837
Yeah. His assumption that you are doing so, completely on that basis isn't necessarily true, but his/her point that going to law school on that basis tends not to result in success is, in my experience, true. How far are you in the education system at this point? Because that would help me give you useful advice.

>>17901847
Im half way through my third year towards a BA in philosophy

>>17901856
A 3.8ish gpa if that matters

I go to a crappy state school so its been really easy

>>17901856
Being that far in could make it challenging. Being that close to a degree can make it tempting to jump right to law school as a bridge to a useful degree. Honestly, law is a shitty, competitive profession. That is why everyone says you have to have a passion for practicing it in order to last. As you said before, it is a gamble. It isn't the safe career path that it might have been before the recession. My advice to you would be to find a way to intern with a reputable criminal defense firm. Really find out what they do day to day and how they interact with clients. That way you can see if you would really be willing to go six figures in debt to do something that pays shit all after you graduate, if you even manage to land a job. You might also want to try taking engineering classes if your school will let you. If you find that you enjoy them and are successful, then the time was well spent. If you like engineering and have to spend an extra two years to get that degree, it is still cheaper and more risk averse than spending 4 years finishing undergrad and law school for a law degree. Plus, many of my competent engineering friends landed respectable jobs before even graduating. Just food for thought.

>>17901887
I'd also like to add that even if you did the engineering degree, worked in the field for awhile and decided you really wished you had done law, then as long as you are in a position where you can financially handle it, you can always go to law school later. Plus it would give you a LOT more time to practice the LSAT and absolutely kill it.

>>17901897
What is the essay portion of the LSAT? Do you feel like they gave you adequate time to work through the multiple choice questions?

>>17901914
The essay portion of the LSAT is pretty much to make sure you aren't an idiot. It doesn't really matter as far as score calculations and most schools don't really care. The ones that do check pretty much only do it to make sure that your writing mechanics and grammar on the essay matches the mechanics and grammar on your law school application. As far as adequate time, that is pretty relative. Once you do a lot of practice tests, it still feels like a time crunch, but it is ultimately enough time. The test is designed to be hard as fuck so unless you really practice hard, the time will not feel adequate unless you are one of the very rare few who can just crush it right out of the gate.

>>17901931
So if my weak point was in grammar, it would be beneficial to get that squared away now..

What was it like for you applying to law schools? thanks for your time btw

>>17901968
If you want to be a lawyer, a large amount of your work product is going to be written materials. Many criminal defense attorneys write their own appeals and those can easily be hundreds of pages long. During your first year in law school, you should have to write an appeal over the course of a semester that will equal at least 18 pages of double spaced original writing. So writing mechanics and grammar would absolutely be a good thing to improve on. That said, nothing really matters for law school admissions like LSAT scores and GPA's. Since you have the GPA squared away now, the LSAT should absolutely be your focus unless you really suck at writing and grammar.

My experience applying to law schools way pretty straight forward. Once you have your LSAT scores and you know how your GPA is gonna turn out, use lsatpredictor. That should give you a very good idea of what range of law schools will be realistic for you. After you have that, the hardest part is writing the personal statement for law school admissions. Within the top 50 law schools, you should tailor your essay to the school you are applying too in order to achieve the best results, unless you fucking slay the LSAT in which case it would only really matter within the T14 schools.

>>17901988
Additionally, you will need to save a large amount for the LSAT exam itself and for law school applications. When I took the LSAT, I believe it was $160 for the test. So you want to be sure you are doing your best on your practice tests before you pay that. Then it can be anywhere between free to $100 per law school application depending on where you apply. If you are financially disadvantaged, really killed the LSAT, or are VERY interested in a school, it is worth emailing someone in the admissions office to see if they can offer you an application voucher. Also I cannot emphasize enough, you will need to disclose everything the law school application asks for. If they need something in your criminal history, even if it has been expunged, you should definitely disclose it. Even if you think it is hidden forever. Once you finish law school and join the bar, they will investigate you thoroughly and if something they find is inconsistent with your school application, some shit will come down that pipe. It may even hit you during your 1L year depending on whether your state allows you to apply early to the bar.

>>17901997
How did you feel about the personal statements? also, what were your stats/applied schools/etc

>>17902015
I've never been one to talk myself up all that much so the personal statements were a struggle. I'm sure you can find hundreds of articles about how to write a personal statement, but ultimately, it is up to you to use your experiences to both hype yourself up and communicate why it is that you are a good fit for a particular school. I will say that I wound up with a 3.65 GPA and a 160 LSAT. I had pretty good soft credentials such as my internship experience, work experience during school, and leadership in various on campus/academic organizations. I also had 4 great letters of recommendation. Two from professors, one from the managing partner of the firm I interned at, and one from my boss at work. I won't say what schools I applied to, just that I applied to schools from T45-T20. I got waitlisted at the T20 at the time although I applied the night of the deadline. Got accepted to everything under that. Wound up picking a state T40's school because it has by far the best reputation/employment prospects in my region and they gave me some money to sweeten the pot. It is also pretty cheap for in state students to begin with so I should graduate with a relatively low amount of debt for a law student. I would say that if I had one regret, it was not applying to certain T14 schools. I have a friend who had a 3.8 when he graduated and scored 162 on the LSAT. He wound up getting accepted to a T5 school. Granted he is a minority student so he did have better chances there, but he is a VERY smart and passionate guy so he definitely deserves his place. I guess what I'm saying is that if you think you have a good shot at a school you really want, definitely try. The worst they can say is no. Also, apply early to schools if you can. And when if comes to asking professors for letters of recommendation, do it as early as possible. Some of them take forever to actually write them and get them sent out.

>>17902034
Do you always need four letters? What are highly competitive hard scores

>>17902065
Nah. There might be some schools that would require four, I don't know any off the top of my head. A solid three is what I would shoot for. Adjust from there depending on schools you are interested in. And you want them to be from someone who can truly speak to your quality of work. Even if you have some congressman saying you are great, if they can't talk about your work, it is a puff piece and borderline useless. Defining highly competitive hard scores is difficult without telling me what schools you are shooting for. The easy answer is anything from 175-180 which can get you into HYS. Or really any of the T14s. Very few achieve that score. Those that do tend to work very long and hard on their practice LSATs. Typically months in advance of the test itself. As far as GPA, anything above a 3.5 is workable. As long as you have the LSAT and good letters of rec. and/or outside activities and unique experiences, you can make the GPA work.

>>17902079
does high gpa compensate for low soft scores

>>17902143
Essentially good GPA and LSAT scores are all you need other than a competent personal statement and letters of recommendation for anything outside of T14. High LSAT can offset lower GPAs, but higher GPAs don't offset low LSATs.

>>17902155
I think with that answer, I'm done for the night. Good luck making your decision OP. If you decide to take the last school route, I would advise starting your preparations immediately. That said, my final words of wisdom are that law school will always be there. So don't feel like you need to rush to get there. If you are uncertain, take some time to experience life after you graduate. Real life work experience can only make your law school applications more compelling anyway.