This content was adapted from The Center for Pre-Law Advising at the University of Wisconsin.
Exploring Legal Careers
The American Bar Association advises students to explore law and legal careers before pursuing law school.
Why should I explore legal careers now?
- Learning about the field will help you get a more realistic view of practicing law, skills that will benefit you as a lawyer, and the job market after law school.
- By learning about the legal system you can also:
- Learn more about what you’ll study in law school.
- Identify practice areas that might interest you.
- Find employment opportunities before, during, and beyond law school.
Things to Note:
You DO NOT need to know what type of law that you wish to study prior to entering law school. We encourage you to explore the legal profession only to gain a greater understanding of what lawyers do in general, as well as get an idea or explore possibilities. Your final determinations will most likely come during law school, as many current attorneys will tell you!
Lawyers provide legal advice and representation to companies and individuals in both civil and criminal matters. They are essential to all major aspects of business, personal and government matters. Lawyers often find themselves on the cutting edge of political and social debates, responsible for managing deals involving millions of dollars or even helping to settle life and death questions.
A practicing lawyer’s work can encompass:
- Reading legal cases, spending hours or months in law libraries or online databases
- Preparing contracts, briefs, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs and writing text from scratch
- Planning and conducting depositions and other methods of evidence discovery, which in complicated cases can generate thousands of pages of testimony, all of which has to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information
- Traveling to jails and prisons to meet with clients
- Delivering news to clients that is at times life-altering
- Appearing in court frequently (Litigation Attorneys), or never/seldom appearing in court (Transactional Attorneys). Lawyers who specialize in litigation will argue cases before judges or juries.
Almost all American lawyers earn their JD degree after three years of law school, and then take the bar exam in the state in which they wish to practice. They are not required to stay in the same state where they earn their JD, though they often choose to do so. About 70% of attorneys get a job in the state in which they graduated law school.
Learn more about law degrees from the Law School Admissions Council
Explore Legal Careers & Practices on Vault
While many lawyers are generalists, you can choose to specialize. Here is a list of law specializations to help you explore! The major job sectors in law are private practice, business, government, judicial clerk, public interest, and education. If you’re curious how common each of these job sectors are for law graduates to pursue, see Percentage of Law Jobs by Sector. Also, salaries can vary widely depending on what type of law you practice. See Law Salaries by Job Sector.
Learn more about types of law:
- American Bar Association: Career Paths in Law
- Explore Vault’s Guide to Law (under Career Guides)
As you may have already come across ,obtaining a traditional internship within the legal field can be challenging. This is for a number of reasons, but mainly because most internships that you will find at law firms are reserved for current law students.
If you are interested in an internship, we recommend pursuing a legal-adjacent opportunity. For more information, please read this article here.
Networking with and shadowing attorneys are a great alternative method to learning more about the legal profession and if it is the right fit for you. Whether or not you have lawyers in your personal network, Villanova has a plethora of resources to connect you with various legal professionals.
- Browse Nova Network
- Nova Network is like Villanova’s version of LinkedIn. We currently have almost 20,000 users who have opted in to receive notifications from current students – they want to help you! Once you have created your account, use the filters up at the top of the Network tab to see all of the Villanova alumni currently working in the legal profession. They might even be willing to offer internship advice, proofread your resume, or serve as a point of contact going forward. The possibilities are endless!
- Job Shadowing
- While it might not be an internship, job shadowing is a great professional alternative that grants a student a way to learn more about a certain profession! You can use Nova Network and sort alumni based on the ‘Help Topic’. One of the options should be ‘Job Shadowing’. Filter alumni based on these results and see what options come up!
- Use LinkedIn
- LinkedIn is another great tool that can provide you with access to a very active legal community. Navigate to Villanova’s LinkedIn page, click on ‘Alumni’ and type in ‘attorney’ or ‘lawyer’ into the search bar. This will filter through all alumni with LinkedIn accounts that are currently working as attorneys! Don’t know what to say? Read our Professional Communications Guide to send a request to connect!
- Ask Your Personal Network
- A sometimes overlooked method of connecting with people is asking your friends and family! Even if you don’t have an immediate family who is an attorney, you’d be surprised how large your personal network already is! Ask around and see if there is anyone who would be willing to put you in touch with an attorney for an informational interview. Bonus: because you have made a connection through a mutual friend or family member, the conversation might not feel as intimidating!
Financing law school, like other aspects of law school preparation, can be overwhelming and intimidating.
We’ve curated helpful information on the Financing Law School page of our website, and also want to highlight an organization dedicated to increasing access to legal education through providing extensive financial guidance and related resources: AccessLex.
AccessLex Institute
AccessLex is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing valuable FREE resources for prelaw students and law students related to financial education. MAX Pre-Law by AccessLex(Now Ask EDNA) provides asynchronous lessons on financial education, as well as a live hotline, AccessConnex. You can also attend a live webinar, search the database for law school scholarships, or get ideas about schools you may want to look into using XploreJD.
Read their publication “Guide to Financing Your Legal Education!”
