Welcome to break into law school with Sydney, Montgomery. I'm Sydney, and I'm a law school admissions consultant, specializing in working with first-generation and minority applicants. This podcast will help you break down generational barriers so that you can step confidently into your dreams and become an attorney. 

I'm here to answer any questions that you have and give you encouragement along the way. . 

You can always submit questions to me at bit.ly/breakintolawschool.

So let's get started. 

Today's episode is going to start at the basics. Is law school for you, and what can you do with your JD?

I think this is a really important first question, because when students come to me, oftentimes I feel like they don't fully know what they want to do with their law degree. And that's okay. You don't have to have a completely mapped out plan, but I think it's a little different from being a doctor or an engineer or a scientist. I think people have more of a concept of what really goes into those jobs. And I think it's hard, especially like I was as a first generation student and the first lawyer in my family, it's hard to really know what the day-to-day life of a lawyer was like. 

So there's this disconnect, I think, between the desire to want to be a lawyer and the reality of what it means to work with a lawyer or work as a lawyer. That's one of the reasons why I strongly suggest students take some time to figure out what issues they want to be part of solving. 

One of the things that is really important is that you have a general idea about the passions that you have. So what is driving you to law school? And sometimes I will get answers that will say, well, I'm really interested in equality, equity, and justice for all. And I want to help all the marginalized communities. 

And I don't want to take away from that. Absolutely. Of course. That's good. That's great. But I do want to press you to get more specific. Because when you have a specific goal, When you know why you want to go to law school and you know what you want to do with your law  degree and that only will it help you in your applications, but it will actually help you in your law school career, because there's going to be times in law school when you're going to be like, I don't know why I'm here. 

I don't want to do this anymore, or this is really hard. And this isn't what I thought it was. I wanted to be an attorney since I was eight. I wanted to do family law. And that's exactly what I practiced after law school. But there were times at Harvard when I was sitting there and I was like, why am I here? 

Why did I do this to myself? And you need to have that. Oh yes, because I want to be part of solving this problem.

I want to help families in really tough times and tough situations. 

And maybe for you that looks like you want to help communities that have been impacted by environmental pollution, or you want to be able to help women get a better life and escape from domestic violence and trafficking situations. When you have something that is tangible, something that is specific, that is really calling you, it gives you motivation in those moments that you might want to give up. It gives you a purpose. It gives you a higher calling. I think when we don't have that, when we're just, uh, I don't know, I think I'll be a really good lawyer. That's not enough to push you through those hard moments and that's not enough for you to think strategically in law school about the types of internships and externships and clinics you want. Law school is not like undergrad. There are less rules. Less boundaries. Everyone does take the same class load their first year, however, after that, you're sort of on your own. Some schools will have an evidence requirement or they might strongly suggest that you take a certain class, but other than that, you have to craft the courses. And the clinics and the internships and the opportunities that are going to give you and your career the best foot forward. And if you get to your 2L year and you're still like, I have no idea what I want to do. It may be hard for you to make strategic decisions about what classes are going to best set you up for your career... and what experiences you want to pursue while you're in law school, so that when you graduate, you'll actually have some practical experience on your law school resume. You'll be able to tell future employers, "while I was in law school, I did work on trials or I did work with clients in this matter. I did write policy briefs on this issue." All of those things will help you in the specific career that you're going to. When you're looking at professional school, when you're really looking at this level of education, it's training ground for what you want to do after. So sometimes students also ask me, will law schools not like it if I seem too focused? And I'm like, no. Being focused is a good thing. This is training -- it's professional school. They want you to be focused because then they know that you're actually going to do what you said you're going to do versus wondering whether or not, what it really means to be a lawyer, whether you'll return your first year, or whether you won't be able to get a job because you wouldn't have done the steps necessary to prepare yourself for the career search and they're also thinking what kind of alumni are you going to be. So yes, they are very interested in you having a goal setting that goal and then accomplishing that goal.

And so even with all of that aside, I know that there are going to be people listening who are going to say, okay, but I really don't know how am I going to figure out what kind of law I want to practice? Even if I know that law school is right for me, I'm still trying to figure out if this is a good path. 

Well, I think there are certain things that you can ask yourself. To say yes, this career path makes sense investing in myself the time and resources to apply to law school makes sense.

There are three things that you need to keep in mind. The first thing is, I want you to look at your actual academic strengths and desires. Of course we can always get better at things. But as a lawyer, you will be doing a lot of research and writing. Research writing and reading. Those are the three main things. 

And so if you're telling me. I don't like to write. I hate research reading isn't fun. Law school is going to be..it's going to be pretty hard. I wouldn't say, oh, I want to be a doctor, but I hate science. Everybody would look at me sideways. There are no doctors or people that go to med school that say that they hate all science. 

It's just like, well, why are you here then? That's sort of the same thing with law school. There's a lot of reading. There's a lot of writing and there's a lot of research. And you want to be able to fully invest yourself in a legal question until you come up with a suitable answer. Whether you're a litigation attorney or you're a corporate attorney, or you're trying to advocate and find the loophole for your client, you will need to read a lot of case law. And you will need to understand and research what the precedents are and what the legal jurisprudence is on a topic and then come to your own conclusion and be able to back it up with other cases that you're reading and researching.

 This is why in law school, one of the first classes you take in your first year is always legal research and writing. And listen, I needed a refresher. So in my third year, I took advanced legal research because I was like, I think I need a little bit more research help than I got before I leave here. So it's just really important. 

Even if you say I'm not the best researcher or the best writer or the best reader, but you have a passion and desire to become better and you're committed to being a person who is really going to get into the academics of it because law school is really academic. That's totally fine. 

I know that what we mostly see on media... we mostly see trial lawyers and we see the court. And maybe you're like, Ooh, that looks good. I'm a really good public speaker. I'm a really good debater. Yes. However, those people also have done a lot of research and writing and reading. You have to write memos, you have to write motions for litigation. 

And everyone always sees trials and they're like, oh, that's what litigation is. But I can tell you as someone who was a litigation attorney, I was a family law litigation attorney. Most things don't go to trial. And you actually are very happy about that. Most things do settle, but in between there's a lot of motions. You're writing a lot. You're doing research on case law, you're drafting settlement agreements. You're drafting proposals. You're doing a lot of discovery and background work and research. If you're a litigation attorney, discovery is your best friend. And that's like reading through all the evidence, whether that's bank statements. Bank records, memos letters, notes, phone records, you are in the weeds. You are reading lots and lots of paperwork so if you don't like paperwork you really don't want to be a litigation attorney.

It really doesn't matter how much you love public speaking. There are different kinds of law, though, and some areas of law don't involve as much paperwork as others. Some areas of law have more research than others. But you do want to think: what are your skills and strengths academically? And does law school make sense for you?

The second thing that you can try to do to determine if law school is for you is to get some experience. And this doesn't have to be legal experience, although it could be. Internships are a really great way to figure out if you actually like the work of being a lawyer. 

I always want you to go into law school with a plan, to go into law school with a vision, but then be open to having your mind changed, especially as you gain more experience. So even if you're thinking: I want to make an impact in this area and you take classes there, you will hopefully also take classes in other areas. 

And you might come out with a different viewpoint. For example, I went in thinking I wanted to be a child advocate. And it's still within the realm of family law. However, once I did my first summer and I was a child advocate for legal aid, I realized there was a lot more paperwork and red tape and bureaucracy that I wanted to deal with. 

And I also was able to get experience doing policy work in school, which is something that I didn't think I wanted to do at all. I thought I only wanted to work with clients. But I got to work at the attorney general's office in Massachusetts with the child and youth protection unit and that was a truly great experience . 

And then as I got to be a 3L, I worked with domestic litigation at the clinic at Harvard. And so those experiences really shaped how I felt about policy work, but also the broader family law landscape.  

But even if you're not working at a legal internship, let's say you think that you want to do criminal law, but you have no experience in criminal law. Maybe you can try to volunteer for a prison project, or maybe you can do something that gets you tangentially adjacent to that world.  Even if it's not a legal internship, there might be opportunities at a defender's office or a prosecutor's office. What can you do? What can you expose yourself to that helps solidify your passion for this area or topic?  

The third thing that I want you to really try to consider is your work life balance. What kind of hours do you want to work? If you're the type of person who says, I only want to work nine to five, which that was me, by the way. It's going to be a little bit of a rude awakening when you get to law school and you look at your legal career. 

I mean, I was 21 when I went into law school. So I didn't have a great understanding of what 9 to 5 or anything else really looked like. I knew I didn't want to do a big law job. I also knew I didn't want to work 10 to 12 hours a day. That wasn't the work-life balance that I wanted for myself. 

And there are a lot of government attorney jobs that do have more of a 9 to 5 set schedule. One of the things that I really encourage students to do is see what they want to do, see who is doing that, and look at their LinkedIn and work backwards. What did this person do? Let's say I want to represent movie stars, figure out who that person is, and then maybe see their LinkedIn. Where did they start? 

What were some of their first jobs? Because you're not going to graduate from law school and start representing Will Smith or something like that. But you might want to see what the path is. 

Another thing to consider is the workplace, what kind of working environment do you want? Do you want to have a team feeling where you're collaborating on projects and cases? Do you want to have more of a traditional, I have a boss that gives me work and I do the work on my own situation. Do you want to feel like you're able to move up in your career? 

Do you want to feel like you're in an environment where everyone is sort of on the same page with the same hierarchy, but maybe there's not as much room for upward growth? I think those are some of the things that you also need to consider when you're looking at the types of legal career environments you would thrive at.

Now I did want to talk about the different things that you can do with a JD, because sometimes people come to me and their questions are really about the fact that they're pretty sure that they want to go to law school and they want a JD, but they're not entirely sure that they want to practice law. 

So they want to know, is it still worth it to get the JD? 

Should they know if they want to practice law before they go into law school?

 So my first point is going to be exactly the same here. Figure out what your passion is. What is driving you to law school? I never think it's worth it just to get the JD. Even though a JD does open doors. You do want to have some intentionality behind it because it's a big investment. Even if you have a full ride, it's a huge investment of your time. It's three years of your life. And so you don't want to do it because you're not really sure. And maybe it'll be helpful someday. You do want to have a plan. 

Now I had some fantastic sectionmates at law school who knew that they didn't want to practice law. They knew that they had other goals. And usually those goals are in the realm of business or consulting, compliance work, or maybe finance, CPA, those sort of things. There are a lot of jobs that are what's called JD preferred. 

What that means is that they prefer candidates who have a JD, although it's not required because you don't actually need to practice law in that role. But they do want someone with the legal background, with legal training, who understands how to read and decipher code in cases and who understands how to write policy and formulate different terms. They want someone with those skills, even though it's not something that you have to be a barred attorney for necessarily. And so there are a lot of JD preferred jobs that I think students really do benefit from getting a JD. If they know that's what they want. 

I had a friend who worked for Boston Consulting Group before law school. And she was pretty sure she wanted to go back. to working for BCG afterwards, which she did. But it allowed her to move up in her career at BCG so much faster because of her legal training. And it allowed her to do a different realm of work because she did have that JD background. So there are a lot of consulting firms that will really value the background and the experiences and the skills that you gained from law school. 

And then, like I said, there are a lot of finance jobs and compliance jobs. You know, especially if you're looking at universities like Title IX compliance work and maybe even insurance work that are JD preferred, or you do need to be a barred attorney, but the work is not traditionally what you would consider practicing law. 

So if you're not sure that you want to practice law, that's okay. I just want to make sure that you know what you're going to be doing with your JD. Again, these aren't binding questions. I think also sometimes students think that if they commit right now to intellectual property law, that they absolutely must come out of law school and practice intellectual property law, but they might go into law school and realized that they're really interested in criminal justice or food law. 

And. That's. Okay. 

 I mean, I didn't even know that food law existed before I went to law school. And I absolutely loved it. 

I was in the food law and policy clinic for two semesters. And we got to travel and we took a trip to Drake Law School in Iowa and my trip to Iowa was fantastic. We went to a farm, we went to some factories. We really got immersed in farmers and farmer's markets and what the crop culture was like there and how the Farm Bill was affecting Iowa, because, you know, there's a lot of staple crops that come from the Midwest. And so it was really important to be on the ground there. 

And there were some students who were super passionate about food law. Their family were farmers. They might have come from a farming background. Some students said that farming was super important to them in their family, but they didn't want to be a farmer. They wanted to advocate for the rights of farmers. And so they went to law school to do that. And if you know that you're really passionate in something like food law, you really do need to make sure that you're going to go to a school that supports you because not every school is going to have a lot for you.  I absolutely loved the Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard. So shout out to all of the clinic instructors and professors there because we did some phenomenal, phenomenal work around food deserts, food waste, the Farm Bill, school, food, urban gardening so much. It's such a neat area of law. 

But that's something that I wouldn't have known before I went to law school. 

I mean, there are well over 30 different areas of law that you can practice. And some might speak more to you than others. 

You want to really be thinking about what are the areas that you want to affect change in? So instead of just saying, I went to help marginalized communities. I want you to say, I want to help marginalized communities in the area of housing. Or I want to help marginalized communities as it relates to the criminal justice system. Or I want to help marginalized communities as it relates to food deserts or basic needs. Or healthcare policy. 

So I want you to always ask a two-fold question. What area do I want to affect change in and who do I want to help? And you can answer either one first. You can figure out who you want to help, and then how you can affect change and the area you want to effect change in, or you can figure out the area that you want to affect change in and who you want to help.  

When you're thinking about this question, I want you to remember that you did not just wake up yesterday and decide that you want to go to law school. This is something that has been percolating inside of you, the experiences that you've had in your personal and professional life up till now have prepared you for this and prepared you for your passion. There is something in your past that has really triggered. 

Your desire to act on this now and embark on this career. Even if it didn't look like what you think it would look like, there are so many experiences that shape and inform us and inform what our passion is. So never negate any experiences that you don't think are necessarily on brand or a direct correlation to where you want to go, because they have all prepared you for this moment. And they have all prepared you for the type of attorney that you're going to be. It's the background that you're going to bring to the cases and the research that you're going to do. 

So always be weaving in your stories, even stories that don't seem like the obvious stories to connect when you were thinking about what kind of law I want to practice whether JD is right for me and who I want to most help.

This was another episode of Break into Law School with Sydney Montgomery. 

 Have a question you want answered? You can submit them at Bit.ly/breakintolawschool. 

Make sure that you rate and review this episode, if it was helpful to you. And if you're looking for even more inspiration, check out my podcast, Mindful Prayers for Students, where I provide encouragement, mindfulness, and prayer on your academic journey.