Law Help?! Please!?

Question

I have had my heart set on being a lawyer for many years now. I am a junior in high school and although my grades are not all A's they are respectable. I plan on seriously buckeling down once I get to college. I would love to defend abused women and children. Although I don't know if I want to go to law school RIGHT after I get out of college. Are there any jobs I could get to prepare me for law school someday.
Any other advice?

Answer 1

I disagree with many of the other answers here (though not all) - and wanted to share my perspective.

While your college grades will be more important in the law school admissions process than your high school grades - the undergrad you attend will matter - and this can be greatly affected by your hugh school grades.

Working with abused women and children is certainly a job for a lawyer - I don't know where these other posters are getting their information. You can pursue this goal by working with various organizations who help these people pursue legal protection against their abusers, protect themselves against any number of ways that their abusers can assert ties to the abusees life (financially, child-custody, false claims against the abused, etc), and really any way in which the law is either helping ot hurting their chances of leading a successful life - there are many as the law intersects with virtually any aspect of our daily lives.

As for taking time off between undergrad and law school - I think this is a fabulous idea. While I agree with one comment that you can risk losing momentum - my personal experience and that of many of my colleagues (I am a law student currently) has been quite the opposite. I took one year off between undergrad and law school and it was the best decision I could have made. It allowed me to kick *** on the LSAT - which is crucial to your law school applications - and it allowed me to rest and regain my enthusiasm for school before jumping into an extremely intense learning experience. Many of my classmates who did not take a break between studies found themselves burnt out shortly after school started - whereas those of us who had some rest were recharged and able to sustain our momentum much longer.

Just my $.02 - there are different experiences and different resulting opinions - I just wanted to give you another perspective in light of some of the information already thrown at you. Good luck!

Answer 2

I've never seen a high lawyer suicide rate. Dentists supposedly have the highest suicide rate of professionals, but I bet that's only % wise. Maybe like .1% compared to .05% for others. Statistically, you can make that look huge. It's what, 100% higher than the next one?

Anyways, there's no real point trying to find something to "prepare" you for law school. Useless and pointless to do so. If you want to take some time off after college, do it gaining experience in the area you want to work in after law school.

The other guy was right in that there aren't any specific lawyer jobs to defend abused women and children. Closest would be legal aid rep helping them. Court appointed positions to a child or woman are very rare. You can get jobs where you have the opportunity to do that, but that's likely just going to be a minority of what you do.

People who help abused women and children on a daily basis aren't lawyers. They're counselors, etc. You can consider doing that for a while, but then why go to law school? If you end up in Family Law, you'll be doing divorces the great majority of the time. At best, to avoid divorce as much as possible, you might specialize in helping adoptions. Either way, you're still not going to be helping abused women and children all that much as a family law attorney.

Answer 3

You sound like a caring and intelligent teen. Here are a few bits of advice:

Waiting to buckle down after getting to college is a sign of procrastination and it is not conducive to successful careers such as law or medicine to name a couple. These professional fields of study require an incredible amount of initiative; not necessarily top grades, but initiative. If it's worth starting, it's worth starting today.

Another thing i have to address is that going into law school right after college will allow you to sustain a tremendous amount of momentum which is otherwise lost in the transition. It's by no means impossible to go to law school after taking an academic break, but there is a huge risk of being side tracked by life.

Answer 4

First, a junior in high school hasn't had their heart set on anything for many years.

Second, a lawyer doesn't get to pick and choose whe he or she defends.

Third, abused women and children are not typically charged with a crime such that they need defense.

Lawyers have an astronomical suicide rate. Unless it is your passion, "don't know if I want to go to law school right after..." steer clear. If it is your passion, pay a little attention and give it due priority in your life.