Some Perspective for Students Considering Law School

• Plan to graduate without student loan debt. Nothing shapes your early career like student loan debt. You can do a lot of things with a law degree, as they say, but nothing will clip your wings like a loan that’s basically a 20-year mortgage with no house. It will dictate what jobs you can consider and how long you’ll have to work at them; it will especially restrict your ability to consider social justice and policy work. The school financial aid officer is there to get the school paid, not to “help you afford school.” Get outside financial advice before you matriculate and sign any loans.

• Consider your own mind. Law school teaches you to think like a lawyer. Law school sharpens the mind by narrowing it. The study and practice of law is an inch wide and a mile deep. The law is a taxonomy of power – it is a system of definitions that qualifies categorizes actions and actors for rights or consequences, entitlements or liabilities. It does nothing else.

• Law is a service profession. A lawyer’s clients are a community to whom the lawyer provides services. Your value as a lawyer is not calibrated to your smarts or your skills – it’s established in relation to the value you bring to your specific community. Any success as a lawyer will start with understanding who your clients are and how you can serve them.

• The US News rankings are bogus. The law school that’s ranked highest for you is the one that allows you graduate with zero student loan debt and welcomes you into a solid legal community.