The one book that I recommend to pre-law students is Corwin, The Higher Law Background of the United States Constitution. The con law course kills lots of first year law students because understanding the document requires skills and learning that are no longer supplied by a liberal arts education. Corwin noted this in 1920 at a time when liberal arts education in America was closer to its 18th Century roots than it is today. The fact is that the constitutional law cases that shaped our jurisprudence are impenetrable without some very pointed studies in philosophy, and Corwin fills that gap. Beyond this, I don t suggest books. I suggest that you subscribe to the New York Law Journal, or make your way to a law library daily. In part two of the journal is a feature titled quot;Decision of the Day.quot; Read that decision every day for three years, and the bar exam will be a cakewalk. Law school will be a breeze, too. This course of study will have you thinking and writing and talking like a lawyer before you set foot in law school, and you will tear the cover off the ball. I did this, and as a result I moved into BigLaw after law school and have consistently prospered through the business cycle and all the ups and downs of the profession. Play the cards correctly and you, too, can be at the top of the pack. Don t let the bitterness of the failures get you down. There are lots of people who became lawyers for the bucks who never understood what it is to be a lawyer. With your motivation, this should not be a problem.
If you want to become a lawyer, then you should give it a look see. Welcome in advance to a profession that will require a great deal of time and effort and that will tax you mentally, physically, and spiritually. To prepare yourself, I suggest you try to do some work at a law firm -- really basic stuff, at least to start. That will let you see what it s all about and the people at the firm can help steer you. As for books, my suggestion is that you read books such as Getting to Yes and other dispute resolution / negotiation books so you will have an increased understanding of how disputes can be resolved. You should also read books that help you learn about writing clearly. I suggest Steinbeck and Hemingway. Read some stuff by the Dalai Lama so you learn about compassion and gain some knowledge to help you deal with the pressures you will face. Get familiar with time management and document management software, as these are invaluable in the profession. Marketing books will help you promote yourself. That s enough for now. You will have noticed that I suggest you read books that will develop you as a person with the tools to work in the profession. There is plenty of time to push law into your head. My strong advice is that, before you start with law, you should get ready for the profession as it will be in a few years. Good luck!!
You are the type of person that probably should not be a lawyer. quot;I wanted to be a lawyer since the the 3rd grade...quot; What could you possibly have known about being an attorney in the 3rd grade? You are just one of those naive people that are attracted to the law, but know absolutely nothing. The odds are against you that you will happy being an attorney. Here is something for you to read to prepare you for the practice of law: From US News, Poor careers for 2006 By Marty Nemko Posted 1/5/06 Attorney. If starting over, 75 percent of lawyers would choose to do something else. A similar percentage would advise their children not to become lawyers. The work is often contentious, and there s pressure to be unethical. And despite the drama portrayed on TV, real lawyers spend much of their time on painstakingly detailed research. In addition, those fat-salaried law jobs go to only the top few percent of an already high-powered lot. Many people go to law school hoping to do so-called public-interest law. (In fact, much work not officially labeled as such does serve the public interest.) What they don t teach in law school is that the competition for those jobs is intense. I know one graduate of a Top Three law school, for instance, who also edited a law journal. She applied for a low-paying job at the National Abortion Rights Action League and, despite interviewing very well, didn t get the job. From the Associated Press, MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A lawmaker who persuaded the Assembly to eliminate all state funding for the University of Wisconsin law school says his reasoning is simple: There s too many lawyers in Wisconsin. From an ABA study about malpractice claims, More Sole Practicioners: There appears to be an increasing trend toward sole practicioners, due partly to a lack of jobs for new lawyers, but also due to increasing dissatisfaction among experienced lawyers with traditional firms; leading to some claims which could have been avoided with better mentoring. New Lawyers: Most insurers have noticed that many young lawyers cannot find jobs with established firms, and so are starting their own practices without supervision or mentoring. This is likely to cause an increase in malpractice claims, although the claims may be relatively small in size due to the limited nature of a new lawyers “In a survey conducted back in 1972 by the American Bar Association, seventy percent of Americans not only didn’t have a lawyer, they didn’t know how to find one. That’s right, thirty years ago the vast majority of people didn’t have a clue on how to find a lawyer. Now it’s almost impossible not to see lawyers everywhere you turn. From a recent Wall Street Journal Article, Hard Case: Job Market Wanes for U.S. Lawyers Growth of Legal Sector Lags Broader Economy; Law Schools Proliferate By AMIR EFRATI September 24, 2007; Page A1 A law degree isn t necessarily a license to print money these days. For graduates of elite law schools, at the top of their class, prospects have never been better. Big law firms this year boosted their starting salaries to as high as $160,000. But the vast majority of law-school graduates are suffering from a supply-and-demand imbalance that s suppressing pay and job growth. The result: Graduates who don t score at the top of their class, from a top school, are struggling to find well-paying jobs to make payments on law-school debts that can exceed $100,000. Some are taking temporary contract work, reviewing documents for as little as $20 an hour, without benefits. And many are blaming their law schools for failing to warn them about the dark side of the job market. The law degree that Scott Bullock gained in 2005 from Seton Hall University -- where he says he ranked in the top third of his class -- is a quot;waste,quot; he says. Some former high-school friends are earning considerably more as plumbers and electricians than the $50,000-a-year Mr. Bullock is making as a personal-injury attorney in Manhattan. To boot, he is paying off $118,000 in law-school debt. quot;Unfortunately, some find the practice of law is not for them,quot; Seton Hall s associate dean, Kathleen Boozang, said through a spokeswoman. quot;However, it is our experience that a legal education is a tremendous asset for a variety of professional paths.quot; A slack in demand appears to be part of the problem. The legal sector, after more than tripling in inflation-adjusted growth between 1970 and 1987, has grown at an average annual inflation-adjusted rate of 1.2% since 1988, or less than half as fast as the broader economy, according to Commerce Department data. The NALP data also show that the percentage of graduates employed in private practice has been steady, fluctuating between 55% and 58% for more than a decade. But in law schools self-published employment data, quot;private practicequot; doesn t necessarily mean jobs that improve long-term career prospects, for that category can include lawyers working under contract without benefits, such as Israel Meth. A 2005 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, he earns about $30 an hour as a contract attorney reviewing legal documents for big firms. He says he uses 60% of his paycheck to pay off student loans -- $100,000 for law school on top of $100,000 for the bachelor s degree he received from Columbia University. The University of Richmond School of Law in the last couple of years started to be more open about its employment statistics; it now breaks out how many of its grads work as contract attorneys. Of 57 2006 graduates working in private practice, for example, seven were contract employees nine months after graduation. Schools quot;should be sharing more information than they are now,quot; says Joshua Burstein, associate dean for career services who put the changes in place. quot;Most people graduating from law school,quot; he says, quot;are not going to be earning big salaries.quot; Adding to the burden for young lawyers: Tuition growth at law schools has almost tripled the rate of inflation over the past 20 years, leading to higher debt for students and making starting salaries for most graduates less manageable, especially in expensive cities. Graduates in 2006 of public and private law schools had borrowed an average of $54,509 and $83,181, up 17% and 18.6%, respectively, from the amount borrowed by 2002 graduates, according to the American Bar Association. But just as common -- and much less publicized -- are experiences such as that of Sue Clark, who this year received her degree from second-tier Chicago-Kent College of Law, one of six law schools in the Chicago area. Despite graduating near the top half of her class, she has been unable to find a job and is doing temp work quot;essentially as a paralegal,quot; she says. quot;A lot of people, including myself, feel frustrated about the lack of jobs,quot; she says. Harold Krent, Chicago-Kent s dean, said it s not uncommon for new lawyers to wait a few months to more than a year to find a job that s a good fit. He added that there is a quot;small spikequot; in employment after his school s grads receive their bar-exam results, several months after graduation, because some firms wait until then before hiring. Some new lawyers try to hang their own shingle. Matthew Fox Curl graduated in 2004 from second-tier University of Houston in the bottom quarter of his class. After months of job hunting, he took his first job working for a sole practitioner focused on personal injury in the Houston area and made $32,000 in his first year. He quickly found that tort-reform legislation has been quot;brutalquot; to Texas plaintiffs lawyers and last year left the firm to open up his own criminal-defense private practice. He s making less money than at his last job and has thought about moving back to his parents house. quot;I didn t think three years out I d be uninsured, thinking it s a great day when a crackhead brings me $500.quot;
U should read Judge Mathis books. U should watch more shows with judges and lawyers. U should study some law books. I will find more info for you later.
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