A legal education is both challenging and rewarding. You
will develop your analytical, synthesizing, creative, and
logical thinking skills, and you will strengthen your
reading and debating abilities. A legal education is
necessary to become a lawyer in the United States, but it is
also excellent preparation for many other careers, both
because of the framework for organizing knowledge it
provides and the analytical approach it brings to problems.
Many teachers, business people, and writers first obtained a
legal education before pursuing careers other than law.
Law school can help you obtain the following skills and
abilities:
- Core Skills and Values
- Analytic/Problem-solving Skills
- Critical Reading Abilities
- Writing Skills
- Oral Communication and Listening Abilities
- General Research Skills
- Task Organization and Management Skills
- The Values of Serving Others and Promoting Justice
- General Knowledge
The above skills, values, and knowledge may be acquired
in a wide variety of ways. You may take undergraduate,
graduate, or even high school courses that can assist you in
acquiring much of this information. You may also gain much
of this background through self-learning by reading, in the
workplace, or through various other life experiences.
Moreover, it is not essential that you come to law school
having fully developed all of the skills, values, and
knowledge suggested in this Statement. Some of that
foundation can be acquired during the initial years of law
school. However, if you begin law school having already
acquired many of the skills, values, and knowledge listed in
this Statement, you will have a significant advantage and
will be well prepared to benefit fully from a challenging
legal education.
