This is the third article in our six-part law school guide (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). See also our general policy graduate school advice and policy master’s guide.

Summary

• Law school can open up several promising career opportunities, including in government. But most law students pursue careers outside of policy. A large share of US lawyers, especially graduates of top-ranked law schools, work in large private law firms, organizing corporate transactions or defending large companies from lawsuits. Another significant fraction work on the front lines of the criminal justice system, where there are opportunities to help others, but that are often significantly bottlenecked by policy decisions. 
• 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.

A framing note: Practicing law vs. shaping policy

Some of the most promising ways of using a law degree for public service fall into two main categories: (1) practicing law, and (2) roles outside legal practice that involve making or influencing policy.

While there is much overlap in the skills, credentials, and experiences that would make a person a good fit for either kind of role, there are some important differences. For example, policy roles tend to involve much more social interaction than most roles practicing law. Policy roles might also be a better fit for people who like doing several different things during a workday, rather than work on a single task for many hours (or days) at a stretch as practicing lawyers often do. Roles practicing law tend to reward extraordinary attention to detail, ability to hit deadlines, and willingness to jump through procedural hoops without dwelling on the underlying reasons for certain requirements. Some legal roles also involve being “on call” at all hours to answer urgent questions from clients. Others involve spending a lot of time in adversarial settings, such as negotiations or court appearances.

In general, employers for roles that involve practicing law are more likely to value “traditional” legal credentials, such as graduating from a top law school with excellent grades, while employers for policy roles may be open to people with a wider variety of formal credentials and place higher value on candidates’ demonstrated ability to do relevant work.

Roles practicing law

The overwhelming majority of law school graduates practice law.¹ Anecdotally, many people who enter law school planning to pursue other paths—including roles in policy—end up practicing law instead.

In certain roles, individual practicing lawyers can have significant leverage to help others by shaping public policy or private incentives. Promising paths include:

• Litigation, either on behalf of a government enforcement agency or private plaintiffs. For example:
  • Lawyers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau write regulations and can bring civil lawsuits aimed at increasing transparency in the use of AI models in consumer lending.
• Negotiating and verifying compliance with international treaties. For example:
  • Lawyers in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance at the Department of State work with counterparts in other countries to design, verify, and enforce multilateral agreements to manage access to nuclear, biological, chemical, cyber, and conventional weapons.
• Providing regulatory advice in government roles that require bar admission. For example, attorney-advisors help implement important laws and regulations in offices like:
  • the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) in the Administration for Preparedness and Response in the US Department of Health and Human Services, which develops biomedical countermeasures.
  • the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Department of the Treasury, which is responsible for sanctions policy.
• Providing legal counsel about important strategic decisions, either as an employee of an important organization or an external advisor to people in high-leverage roles. For example:
  • In-house counsel at AI labs provide important legal compliance advice; senior people in these roles often also participate in strategic decision-making and may be responsible for representing “Policy” or “Governance” teams in meetings of “C-suite” top leaders.
  • In-house counsel at organizations and funders working on problems like positively shaping artificial intelligence and preventing pandemics can help organizations start up and scale effectively, while avoiding potential legal problems that could significantly reduce their impact.

More broadly, practicing law can be an entry point into working in the US federal government. According to FedScope data, there were nearly 42,000 practicing lawyers working in the federal government as of September 2021.

Practicing law isn’t the best fit for everyone. Legal practice can be intensely deadline-driven and can involve time-sensitive demands from clients, courts, or other parties that make it difficult to be ever truly “off the clock.” Many roles require an incredible level of attention to detail, since some parts of the profession view detail-orientation as a proxy for general competence and also because in certain settings, small mistakes can be costly and difficult to correct. Most roles are not particularly social; some legal work environments are described as “monastic,” requiring long, uninterrupted hours of individual research and writing. Finally, some roles (especially in litigation) require high performance in adversarial settings such as negotiations, depositions (a kind of formal interview that is similar to an interrogation), and trials.

Roles outside the practice of law

For some other promising positions, a law degree is a helpful credential and legal training provides useful background knowledge, but completing law school and joining the bar is not a job requirement. In some cases, other credentials and training might provide similar preparation for these positions at less cost.

For example, some roles in regulatory policymaking do not formally involve practicing law, but are very frequently performed by people with law degrees. For example:

• Lawyers at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs design and implement cost-benefit analysis procedures for the entire federal government.
• Lawyers in the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security maintain regulations governing the export of sensitive technologies.

Having a law degree could be a significant factor in actually receiving these roles, and can be especially helpful if you use your time in law school to stock up on legal internships and other experiences that you cannot access without attending law school.

Beyond these “traditional” lawyer roles, there are many other impactful roles for which a law degree can help a great deal.

• Working in the executive branch in a policymaking role may be among the most promising opportunities for people with law degrees to help others. There are a vast number and variety of potential promising roles in this area, many of which may preferentially hire people with law degrees.
• Congressional staffing is another especially promising option. One survey administered in 2017 found that about 16 percent of congressional staffers working in DC (excluding interns and fellows) have JDs; for comparison, about 30 percent hold a master’s degree in some field.²

Postgraduate public interest fellowships offered by many law schools and external organizations serve as a valuable entry point for law graduates pursuing policy work. Yale Law School’s fellowship resource page provides an excellent overview of fellowship types (organization-based, project-based, firm-sponsored, etc.), application strategies, and lists of opportunities open to graduates from all law schools.

Readers should also consider the following potential paths for which a law degree could be helpful, with examples of prominent people with law degrees who have pursued each one:

• Elected public office (e.g. three of the last five Presidents of the United States: Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton; a majority of US Senators and more than a third of US Representatives; and almost 50% of officials in the top four state executive official positions, as of 2023)
• Appointed roles in policymaking (e.g. looking only at a recent Cabinet: Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior; Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture; Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce; Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services; Marcia Fudge, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of Energy; Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security)
• Diplomacy (e.g. four of the last five Secretaries of State: Antony Blinken, Mike Pompeo, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton)
• Roles in global or regional governance bodies such as the United Nations or the European Union (e.g. David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme at the United Nations)
• Journalism (e.g. Matt Levine, columnist for Bloomberg News; Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter at The New York Times)
• Grantmaking (e.g. John Palfrey, President of the MacArthur Foundation)
• Business (e.g. Richard Anderson, former CEO of Delta Airlines and Amtrak; Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO of Goldman Sachs)
• Research focused on social problems (e.g. Cass Sunstein, a leading scholar on the use of cost-benefit analysis in law and policy)

Working at a law-focused think tank such as the Center for Democracy and Technology or Public Knowledge could be promising for JD holders interested in working at the intersection of policymaking and research. In some think tanks, having some type of “terminal” advanced degree, such as a JD or PhD, can be an advantage over having a master’s degree.

Some law school graduates also enter legal academia as professors, researchers, or law school clinical instructors.³ A law degree generally is required for these roles. In addition to helping prepare and shape the paths of future generations of lawyers and policymakers, people working in these roles can explore and substantiate legal theories and policy options in important areas, such as governance of emerging technology. Academics might propose new regulatory structures, articulate legal justifications for important agency powers, propose important legal limits on government or private action.

Finally, some lawyers work on defining social movements, often in part through litigation, but also using tools outside legal practice like grassroots advocacy and media strategy. This path emphasizes the indirect benefits of raising an issue to the public consciousness or conceptualizing a harm that might otherwise go ignored.

Footnotes