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Law students face challenging times

Earning a law degree is a long, intensive process that can take up to 10 years to complete.

Should students want to pursue a Juris Doctor degree – an entry level law degree – they must go to a law school that is accredited by the American Bar Association after completing their bachelor’s degree.

“Students can major in any area of study before applying to law school, although the traditional areas of study — and those associated with the highest Law School Admission Test Scores — include philosophy, economics, history and political science,” said Nellie Wieland, associate professor of philosophy at Cal State Long Beach.

There are about 200 ABA accredited schools, 18 of which are located in California. For this reason, obtaining accurate data on student transfers is difficult, according to Wieland.

Students must pass the Law School Admission Test with a score between 120 and 180 points to be considered for admission.

“The LSAT is important because it gives laws schools an idea of how well you will do on [the] bar exam,” said Berna Warmer, a self-practicing attorney in Beverly Hills and a 1984 graduate from Loyola Marymount School of Law in California.

For example, at Stanford University, 86.8 of students passed the LSAT with a median score of 171, whereas 97.3 percent of students from Harvard law school passed with a median score of 169 according to an article in U.S. News and World Report.

“Rules of admission are the province of the state Supreme Court,” Beverly Holmes, a program associate for the ABA said.

Both Yale and Stanford prefer a student to have a GPA of 3.8 or higher, according to the Princeton Review. An admissions committee will also look at transcripts from high school and/or college, essays, and SAT/ACT scores, according to the admissions websites for Stanford and Yale.

Both schools are considered the toughest admissions in the country. According to the Princeton Review, Yale only accepted nine percent of its applicants and Stanford only accepted 11 percent.

But Congress is adding pressure to law schools to change their admission process. Currently, about 30 percent of students who are admitted to law school are eliminated from the start.

Students have to meet a certain grade point average in their first semester. If they fail to meet this requirement they will be put on academic probation for their second semester. If they still cannot meet the requirement they will be kicked out. The GPA varies depending on the school.

“They do this [elimination] because law school is a commitment. You need to prove that you put in the time and the effort. Those that do not meet the standards are flushed out,” said Maren Carmona, dean of students at Pacific Coast School of Law.

Students looking into law school can expect to pay a high price for it. On average, students pay $60,000 a year, not including additional fees, books and supplies, according to Coleman.

Private schools, such as Pacific Coast University in California, may cost less than that.

“Pacific Coast costs about $7,500 a year… not counting books and supplies, as its program only focuses on law,” said Dean Andrea Lua.

After graduating law school, students must take the bar exam, which varies from state to state, before earning their Juris Doctor degree.

“Students will receive their degree upon passing the exam, which allows them to practice in the state that they earn their degree. If students want to practice in other states, they must take the bar exam for that state as well,” said Warner.  

According to an article on TaxProf, a networking site for lawyers, the overall percentage of students passing the bar exam on the first attempt in 2015 was much higher at more prestigious schools such as Stanford (88.7 percent), UC  Berkeley (84.8 percent) and UCLA (85.4 percent) than at private schools such as Loyola Marymount (76.5 percent) and Whittier College (37.7 percent).

Even though jobs are harder to come by now than they have been in the past, a good lawyer is still desirable. According to Above the Law, a website that provides job statistics, there are more than more than 30,000 job vacancies in California, New York and Washington, D.C.

Additionally, lawyers’ compensation also is influenced by their alma mater.

According to the Internet Legal Research Group, a website that collects data about law professions, students who graduated from Stanford, Yale and Harvard will earn a median salary of $160,000. Students who graduated from smaller schools, such as Florida Coastal University and Appalachian Law School, will earn a median salary of $45,000.

There’s a lot to earning a Juris Doctor degree. Students have to go through years of studying, two exams before they can begin their practice. But afterward, they can land a steady job as an attorney.

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