The legal profession is one of the most respected career fields in the United States and Canada. Indeed, becoming a lawyer is a success in itself, and being a great lawyer affords one the opportunity to change the fortune of their entire family for generations.
Legal professionals are highly sought after, well paid, and very respected. So, do you have to be an excellent student in high school and college to earn a law degree? We’ll discuss that and more in this brief article.
Many people start preparing for their legal careers while in high school.
Many people know they want to become lawyers when they’re in high school, and they begin planning and pursuing their education accordingly. Malliha Wilson had no idea she would become a lawyer when she was a high school student growing up in her native Sri Lanka. However, watching her grandparents struggle for the rights of their Tamil community had a major impact on her career goals. Now, she’s a human rights attorney, and she also practices labour law as the founder and senior counsel of Nava Wilson LLP.
Indeed, it was the weekends young Malliha spent with her grandfather, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, who helped her decide she wanted to practice human rights law. You don’t have to know what you want to do with your life while you’re in high school, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
High achievers have a better chance of getting into law school.
Getting into the law school of your choice is all about being a high achiever while pursuing your undergraduate degree. The top law schools in the country want the top students in the country. It’s as if they only accept students whom an honor society foundation has recognized for their academic excellence.
If you want to get into a top program, you’ll need an LSAT score of at least 162 and a GPA much closer to an A average than a B average. You need at least a B average to get into a law degree program at a run-of-the-mill university, so you’d better hit the books if you want to get into a top school.
Being in the honors society helps admissions and scholarship applications.
If you haven’t heard, law school can be pretty expensive. However, students with excellent grades and test scores who show exemplary characteristics often pay for their entire law degree with money from scholarships. Sometimes the difference between the law student who graduates with a mountain of debt and the one who graduates debt-free is a matter of grades. There are various scholarship programs, and most of them require you to achieve a certain level of success in the classroom.
So, do you have to be a great student to earn a law degree in the United States and Canada? Well, think of it this way: If you’ve suffered a human rights violation or you need a special legal advisor for a business deal, would you want legal services from the lawyer who excelled in school or the one who did just enough to make it? Furthermore, which attorney would you rather be?
Law schools are selective, so it’s best to be diligent when working on your undergraduate degree. You don’t have to have great grades and test scores if you’re interested in getting into an accredited law school that will have you. However, if you want a law degree from Saint John’s, Arizona State University, or the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, you should start by aiming to become an honors society member while working on your undergraduate degree. After all, isn’t being a lawyer about being the best?
