About this guide

It’s common for US policymakers and other people in positions of social influence to have law degrees. This guide describes the law school experience and gives advice to help you decide whether a law degree might help your career goals. It consists of six articles, discussing:

1. What is law school and how can you test your fit? (this article) explains how law school works and outlines steps you could take to assess your personal fit for a law degree.
2. Why (not) go to law school? outlines the benefits and potential downsides of attending law school.
3. What are career paths after law school? outlines some promising career paths after law school, focusing on government and policy work.
4. How to choose which law schools to apply to? gives advice on where to apply, considering different career paths and program options.
5. How to apply and get admitted to law school? explains the law school admissions process and how best to strengthen your application. 
6. How to fund law school? provides advice on how to finance your law degree. 

We encourage you to read the articles that seem most useful to you, skipping material you’re already familiar with.

If you’re interested in a graduate school degree to prepare for a policy career, see also our more general Graduate school for policy advice and our Policy master’s guide. 

Summary

1. Law school is a promising route into careers in policy and government, especially for people interested in eventually holding senior roles for which formal credentials are highly valued.
2. Readers can test their potential fit for law school by speaking to current law students or recent graduates in position they are excited about, attending a law school class, watching videos of law school lectures, reading a book about the law school experience, or taking a look at a law school casebook and reading an edited opinion that they would likely read while in law school.
3. Some common advice about law school may apply differently to people aiming at policy roles, rather than roles practicing law. For example, earning top grades in law school appears not to be necessary for most policy roles; using marginal hours to pursue policy-relevant experiences and research may be more valuable for people targeting those paths.

About law school

Law school in the US is a graduate professional degree program. Most US law students enroll in Juris Doctor (JD) programs, which are typically three-year, full-time programs.

Curriculum

The first-year (1L) curriculum at most law schools consists mostly or entirely of required courses in core subjects like Criminal Law, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Torts, and Legal Research and Writing. (In this video, UVA professors who teach these five subjects explain what the courses are about.) Many law schools divide 1L students into groups, called “sections,” and assign students to first-year classes with other members of their section.

Second- (2L) and third-year (3L) students can choose from a wider variety of courses, including additional foundational classes, electives, and clinics in which students provide legal services to clients under the supervision of licensed attorneys. Upper-level students often also take on co-curricular activities like working as law review editors or participating in moot court competitions.

Most law school classes are taught using the case method, in which students read decisions (called “opinions”) written by appellate courts as homework and answer questions about them during class. Many law professors make extensive use of the Socratic Method, often by “cold-calling” students (calling on them at random in front of their classmates) to answer questions about the assigned reading.

Law school grades are typically based mostly or entirely on performance on a multi-hour, essay-style final exam. A smaller number of classes involve graded research papers or credit for class participation

Most law schools do not have “majors,” but some offer recommended tracks or suggested courses for students who know they want to pursue a particular area of law. For example, some schools offer courses in legislative drafting and policy advocacy that may be of interest to students who intend to work in and around government. Others offer specialized courses in intellectual property and trade issues of interest to students seeking to advise technology companies.

Some people find parts of the law school curriculum and teaching method to be frustrating. Almost all law school courses strongly emphasize understanding structure and procedure over debating the actual content of the law, which can be surprising and discouraging for people who enter law school primarily because of their interest in substantive policy. Some law school classes also seem to encourage creative argumentation over truth-seeking; for example, a professor might ask a student to state the argument on one side of an issue, then ask the same student to switch positions and argue the other side, then move on to another topic without pausing to assess which argument is better supported by the facts and the law.

Internships, externships, and other experiential opportunities

The typical three-year law school calendar leaves time for at least two full-time summer internships in government offices, nonprofit organizations, law firms, or other settings.

These internships can provide valuable, low-cost opportunities to test fit for different work environments, including settings in government. Especially during the summer after 2L year, it is common for law students to “split” their summer between two different internships, spending 6-8 weeks each working for two different employers. Some law schools provide funding to students pursuing public interest-oriented internships, which are often unpaid.

Students can gain additional work experience during law school by pursuing “externships,” which are part-time, often remote roles with similar responsibilities to traditional internships. Most externships take place during the academic year. Students can also earn academic credit through hands-on courses called clinics, in which students advise clients in a particular area of law. Many law schools offer semester in DC programs that allow satisfying their clinical requirements by working full-time for the federal government in DC during an academic semester. Law students also commonly write independent papers or take on research projects in areas that interest them as part of seminars.

Each of these experiences provides valuable opportunities to test fit for potential paths after law school. Coming into law school with a plan for the kinds of work experiences you want to have and specific questions you want to explore can help you find and make the most of these opportunities.

Time commitment

The first year of law school has a reputation for being time-consuming, competitive, and sometimes discouraging. Most law schools grade on a curve and signal to students that their outcomes after graduation will depend on their grades, leading many students to work hard to keep up with or outperform their peers. Anecdotally, many law students report spending 50-60 hours per week on their coursework during the first year; some report spending even more time. Most law students find that the 1L year requires significantly more work per semester than they did as undergraduates.

Some 2L and 3L students continue to spend 50-60 hours per week (or more) on schoolwork, but it is more common for students to dial back their time investment in schoolwork after the first year. While there is lots of variation in the approaches students take, many students still spend about 30-40 hours per week on coursework during their 2L and 3L years. Students who spend less time than that are often very active in extracurriculars, such as journals, clinics, or externships.

Law students who decide not to optimize for high grades can likely pass their classes while investing less time in coursework, freeing up time to work toward other goals. This strategy closes the door to some paths (e.g. attorney roles in highly selective government offices and certain nonprofits), but can be compatible with other opportunities (e.g. non-attorney policy roles, many nonprofits), especially for students at highly ranked law schools whose “brand” employers recognize and value. Some of these less-grade-dependent paths have lots of potential to help address important social problems, and are discussed here. When deciding how much time to dedicate to working toward high grades in law school, evaluate whether the career outcomes that interest you most require high grades.

Cost of attendance

This article provides financial advice for law school. In brief, as of 2023, some state universities were offering in-state tuition and fees totaling less than $25,000 per year, while the total for many highly-ranked private law schools was nearly $70,000 per year, not including room and board expenses. Most students cover some of the cost of attendance using a combination of need-based scholarships, merit-based scholarships, and loans.

Path to law school

Before starting law school, most JD students earn a bachelor’s degree (and sometimes one or more graduate degrees) in a subject other than law.

An applicant’s particular undergraduate field of study does not tend to matter very much in predicting law school admissions outcomes; but undergraduate grades are an important factor. Opinions vary about whether undergraduates aiming to attend top law schools should consider “easier” majors with more generous grading curves. For more information, see this companion post with detailed advice about law school admissions.

Unlike with some other graduate programs, if you have exceptional grades and test scores, you have very strong odds of admission to a top law school, even if other aspects of your application are less strong. Admissions “predictor” calculators (for example, here and here) can give you a sense for the odds of admission to top schools with a given LSAT score and undergraduate GPA.

It is common for students to work full-time for one or more years between finishing a bachelor’s degree and starting law school. For example, in the 2026 admitted class at Harvard Law School, 82% of students were at least one year out of college and 69% were two or more years out of college. Most students work somewhere between two and four years before starting law school. (While it is possible to enter law school after a longer period of working, and every year many people do so, applicants with longer work histories may face a bit more skepticism from law school admissions committees; admissions officers may expect to see a particularly compelling explanation of why such applicants are now pivoting toward law.)

Finally, law school candidates must take an admissions test. Historically, American Bar Association rules have required candidates to take the LSAT and law schools have used LSAT scores as an important factor in making admissions decisions. Following a policy change by the ABA in 2021, an increasing number of law schools now accept the GRE in lieu of the LSAT. It is possible that future applicants may not have to take either test: in spring 2022, an ABA committee recommended dropping the test requirement. But at least historically, law school admissions outcomes have been driven in significant part by undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores, alongside factors like candidates’ personal backgrounds and any extraordinary accomplishments they may have had prior to law school.

Alternatives to law school

If you are considering law school primarily as a route into policy work, see our guide comparing law school to several alternative graduate school options. 

In particular, you should also seriously consider policy master’s programs as a law school alternative. Among other differences, most master’s programs last only two years (compared to three years for law school), provide students significantly more flexibility in course selection, allow for part-time or even full-time work alongside your studies, and several of the top policy master’s programs are DC-based. On the other hand, a law degree might be a somewhat more valuable credential for certain roles.

People with the relevant background should also compare the costs and benefits of law school to those of a PhD program in fields such as economics or computer science. Among other differences, law school is shorter but more financially expensive than most PhD programs.¹ There are many differences in the career options available to law graduates vs. people with PhDs in these fields, but both paths open many options for careers in policy.

Testing your fit for law school

Whether attending law school is the right choice for you depends on your individual circumstances and personal fit. We recommend doing some “cheap tests” to test your fit for law school: 

1. Speak with a current law student or recent law graduate about their experience. It might be especially valuable to speak with a recent law graduate in a role you are excited about. People with firsthand knowledge may provide important insights about the law school experience not covered here.
2. Try attending a class at a nearby law school. Law school classes often use a format called the Socratic Method that might be different from the one you encountered in earlier studies; attending a class can help you decide whether you enjoy learning in this format. Many (but not all) law professors will allow prospective students to sit in on one of their classes, if asked politely in advance. Consider writing an email to a professor at a university where you are studying or are a recent graduate, or near where you are currently working.
3. If you can’t attend a law school class in person, watch a video of a mock law school class that includes student participation, like this video of a mock criminal law class from Suffolk Law School. (The few videos of real law school classes you may find online are unlikely to be representative of the Socratic format and the typical experience you would have in law school classes. Likely due to the need to preserve student privacy, almost all posted videos are in a lecture format in which students are not actively participating. While real classes sometimes use this format, it is uncommon.)
4. Read a book about the law school experience and strategies for succeeding as a law student. One example is 1L of a Ride, which describes itself as providing “a candid, comprehensive roadmap to both academic and emotional success in law school’s crucial first year.”
5. Try reading an edited version of an opinion written by an appellate court. Reading appellate opinions is among the primary forms of homework in law school, and law textbooks are made up mostly of edited versions of these opinions. Reading one can give you some sense of whether you might enjoy—or eventually learn to enjoy—that kind of work. But note that testing fit for law school by reading an appellate opinion without any instruction in the subject is a bit like testing fit for gymnastics by trying to do a cartwheel with no training: the point is not to succeed on the first try, but to get a sense for whether the hard moments feel tolerable and whether it would be fun to get better through lots of practice. With that caveat in mind, you could try reading an edited version of the US Supreme Court’s opinion in Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, which is a famous case that you would likely study in a first-year course on civil procedure. You could also try reading the Court’s brief opinion in McBoyle v. United States, which you would likely see in a class on criminal law.²

Separately from tests that might tell you whether you would enjoy law school, you should also consider whether you are likely to be successful in earning admission to great law schools and succeeding once you get there. To that end, consider taking a practice test for the LSAT, which you can do for free using the Khan Academy platform; LSAT Demon is a good alternative. While you should not rule out attending law school based on a bad first experience with the LSAT (most people can dramatically improve their performance on the test through study and practice), finding that one or more of the question types comes naturally to you would be good evidence that you already have some of the kinds of verbal reasoning skills that would help you succeed in law school.

If you’re sufficiently uncertain about your career path and willing to delay graduate school by up to several years, consider relevant positions to test your fit for potential paths after law school. For example, if you’re interested in law school to prepare for a career in US policy, we recommend first interning or working at policy organizations like think tanks, Congressional offices, or executive agencies. 

Similarly, if you are interested in impact litigation, working as a legal assistant or a paralegal in a plaintiff-side law firm that does a lot of impact litigation could help you evaluate whether you want to be a full-time litigator later in your career. These options involve significant tradeoffs, and are not the right choice for everyone: depending on your position, you might not have much direct impact in these roles, you may be surrounded by people whose goals and values differ from your own, and you likely would receive significantly less compensation than you could in other private sector roles. But these options could give you a better idea of lawyers’ day-to-day responsibilities and your potential fit for working as a practicing attorney, and give you substantive, valuable work experience that would strengthen your candidacy for admission to law school.

Footnotes