For the students leaving undergraduate school and going on to three years of law school, the journey is full of challenges. They may embark on this journey to law school for any number of reasons, including the pursuit of a high salary, the drive to enforce law and order, or the desire to make a beneficial change in the world through the legal system or politics.
Although the mention of law and lawyers may conjure images of greedy men and women with an expertise in parting honest people of their money, the truth is sometimes far from the stereotype.
“It’s really given me the opportunity to give back to the community. There are always people in need of legal help, and I’ve handled a number of cases on a variety of matters, but the ones that I’ve gotten the most satisfaction out of are the ones that I’ve done pro bono, just as a way to give back,” Laura Fidelie, criminal justice associate professor, said.
Some attorneys find their passion for the law while in college, but others discover their dream much earlier in life.
“As a kid, the book To Kill a Mockingbird had a profound impact on me. Growing up, athletics were a really big part of my life and the courtroom really interested me because It was kind of like a struggle or battle, much like you do on the athletic field,” Barry Macha, university attorney, said.
Macha graduated from MSU in 1977, and served as the Wichita County district attorney from 1985 to 2010. Today, his office on the second story of the Hardin Administration Building sits in the same space that he had English class in when he was a freshman.
However, not all students attempting to go to law school do so in the pursuit of practicing law. Law schools present graduates with a Juris Doctorate, or JD, which possesses a unique versatility among graduate degrees.
“I like the JD degree because it doesn’t lock you into just being an attorney. Clearly, I teach now, a lot of the people that I went to law school with do practice law, but some went into private business, some own their own businesses now, and some are in politics,” Fidelie said.
At any time, one to nine students are seeking guidance from the pre-law program at MSU, according to Kris Tilker, pre-law adviser.
Getting into law school
The path to law school begins with the dawn of students’ university careers.
“The Law School admissions Test, the LSAT, is the driving force for admission into law school, and preparing for the LSAT is fundamentally important beginning your freshman year,” Tilker said.
Preparation for the LSAT consists of education and practice, according to Tilker.
“The practice part is usually software that students buy from different vendors. It will bring questions up and figure out where strengths and weaknesses are,” Tilker said.
The second piece of LSAT preparation is the investment of time and effort in education.
“The academic part has to do with taking classes, and students, on their own, pushing critical thinking skills and learning how to analyze, synthesize, and process information,” Tilker said.
Students should take the LSAT in October of their junior year, so that they have time to put together their paperwork and apply to law schools that they have a realistic chance of gaining admission to, according to Tilker.
The two-part approach of LSAT preparation addresses academic performance, but with an emphasis on setting students up to perform well on the exam instead of just having a high GPA.
“While a good GPA is important, and different schools weight differently, fundamentally, the LSAT is the most important score,” Tilker said.
The LSAT helps law school admissions offices compare applicants to each other regardless of undergraduate university and majors.
“You’re the dean of a law school and you’ve got an English major from MSU, a history major from the University of Colorado, an engineering major from Texas A&M University, and a philosophy major from the University of Texas. They all have good GPA’s, so the LSAT levels the field,” Tilker said.
The LSAT becomes the universal unit of measurement for law schools in determining which applicants have the best potential to be successful in law school.
“It is a common denominator that they can look at and make the best analysis of who is going to be successful in law school, and what people don’t realize is that this is what deans are looking at,” Tilker said.
MSU students receive, from a plethora of academic factors, a unique education that allows them to succeed in law schools filled with students from bigger, more prestigious undergraduate universities.
“The students at MSU really benefit from smaller class sizes, the writing intensive curriculum, and really just very challenging undergraduate majors. I’ve had a number of my own students go on and do very well in law school,” Fidelie said.
The experience of past MSU undergraduates back up the claim that MSU graduates are at no disadvantage to other students when participating in law school.
“I ended up at Texas Tech in 1976 and competed just fine, and I realized the fine education that I had received at MSU,” Tilker said.
Part of the unique advantage that MSU students receive is the close relationship that smaller class sizes allow them to form with professors.
“I got a big bonus from going to Midwestern. The smaller classes and the ability to really have great interactions with the professors, several of whom continued to help me even after my days here,” Macha, said.
The LSAT and GPA scores are the primary method of basic academic distinguishment between applicants.
“It’s important to know that your major is not relevant to the law school,” Tilker said.
However, there are majors that do a better job of sharpening students’ aptitudes and equipping them with the necessary skills for studying law.
Majors with law integrated into them, like business, political science, and criminal justice are natural fits for law school, but English, history, psychology, and science majors also demonstrate a superior transition into law school, according to Tilker.
While the major itself may not be important for law school admission, Tilker advises students to think beyond simply applying to law school when choosing a major.
“Pick a major that you know that you can be successful in if you don’t go to law school. I’m not talking about dollars and cents, but purpose and values. Doing something that you enjoy doing,” Tilker said.
Although some majors integrate law courses, law school admissions officers do not look into transcripts specifically for experience.
“Law schools don’t care if you don’t have any kind of law background. They just want to know that you have the analytical, critical thinking skills, logic skills, and some ability to advocate, orally and in writing,” Tilker said.
However, Tilker said the pre-law program advises students to take a few law courses regardless of their major.
“It gives you base vocabulary and understanding, but it also gives you a sense of what three years of law school will be like,” Tilker said.
From fall 2013 to spring 2014, 30 students took the LSAT at MSU, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.
The cost of law school
The cost of law school continues to rise every year, forcing applicants to weigh the potential benefits against the exorbitant costs.
The average tuition and fees for a resident to attend a public university for law school have risen, on average, 9.63 percent annually from 1985 to 2012. The costs have risen from $2,006 per year in 1985 to $23,214 in 2012, according to the American Bar Association.
“I think that’s why you see a big drop in applications for law school, because the student debt a lot of students incur,” Macha said.
The high cost of law school reflects the relatively high potential salary for graduates.
“Any sort of graduate program is really an investment in your future,” Fidelie said.
There is a unique silver lining for MSU students thinking about applying to law school, as Texas hosts two of the top law schools for return on the investment of attending.
The University of Texas in Austin reports a median starting salary for law school graduates of $160,000 and an average student debt of $92,180. This places the UT’s law school above other law schools like Stanford, Harvard and Yale. The University of Houston also ranks high on the list, as the sixth best starting salary to debt ratio out of law schools, according to usnews.com.
There are a number of high-paying careers in law, but the legal landscape continues to transform as technology and social trends alter the role of law in our world.
“The highest-paying area, and the one that technology doesn’t influence as much, are the trial skills. The trial lawyers have a whole level of expertise,” Tilker said.
The future of law
There are a few areas of law that are emerging in importance as the social climate of the nation continues to evolve.
“I foresee that one of the areas that is going to be more and more important as time goes by is the environmental law field, just because of the global environment and how countries are really starting to seriously push environmental constraints in terms of growth of business and in terms of pollution,” Tilker said.
Today, the emerging legal fields often correlate with the major social issues that our country, and the world, faces.
“Another area that will be big is immigration law because it’s becoming a flat world and people are crossing borders more and more frequently, and it has an economic facet to it as well as an intellectual capacity in terms of increasing the skills and talents of the work force,” Tilker said.
Technology has had a major impact on the role and scope of law, but the classic areas of the legal system are not becoming obsolete by its continuous advancement.
“The internet has been a real game changer. Intellectual property is one area that has really exploded, but the other areas of law will always have importance,” Macha said.
Law, the essential foundation with which our society is built upon, continues to modify itself to reach a greater level of justice, and opens new frontiers for future law school graduates as the world progresses into the 21st Century.
“There’s a lot of areas to practice law in and there’s going to be some on the horizon that are going to be great,” Tilker said.
