What Are the Prerequisites to Getting Into a Law School?

A lawyer is a prestigious and respected profession that is sought out for. The increase in the number of law aspirants only shows the growing interest of students in choosing a lawyer as a career.

To become a lawyer, you've to do a bachelor's course of LLB and further branch out by doing any specializations. Due to students' increasing interest in pursuing law, it is only getting harder and harder for students to get through. The competition is getting more challenging, and it takes more preparation than ever to pass the entrance exams.

Getting into a law school, albeit a time-intensive process, can also be cracked easily with due preparation and research. With the advent of free information and resources available on the internet, knowledge is accessible to a lot more people, and many students are using them to crack the exam.

First thing first, before you go through into a law school, research about the entrance examination process and prepare for the test and follow the step below - 

Clean up your writing 

Get rid of typographical errors grammatical errors, stop forgetting words while conversing, proofread everything beforehand. This is going to help you immensely.

Law school prerequisite 

One of the extraordinary things about law school is that you don't have to know an undergraduate degree and make a prior decision that 'yes, I want to go to law school.' This is not like medical school, in which it is incredibly incumbent for you to make a decision.

You can major in whatever you want, and you can even do pre-med and end up in law school. You can do science and end up in law school. You don't have to have a philosophy major, psychology major, or anything like that. You can do whatever you want.

The important thing, though, to get into a reputed law school is to make sure that you get the best grades possible. You NEED to get excellent grades. Take classes that you enjoy, take courses that you're interested in, and make sure you do well in all those classes. This is essential for you to build a successful career in law. 

Develop a timeline

It is highly recommended that you give yourself at least six months before you press that send button on your application to prepare for law school. It might take much longer for many people, and that's because the law examination is a beast of an exam.

Some people take the exam for the first time and get respectful marks, making them straight suitable for law school. Although, for a lot of people, that is not the reality for the vast majority of people. It isn't an easy journey at all, and it might turn into a gruesome journey filled with tears, sweat, and blood for some people. 

This is not for making you feel incompetent and demotivated, and this is just to prepare you for the days to come if you're planning on or even giving the law as a career a thought. It's merely a confrontation with reality.

Develop a studying routine

consistency and ideal study habits like going to the library early in the morning and leaving late, giving you sufficient time to sit and plan and study every day accordingly up until you take the test.

Minimize distraction - 

This is an entirely personal process. One of the significant distractions is social media, so make sure that you have your social media accounts deactivated or apps uninstalled if you cannot resist checking them every five minutes. 

Practice - 

During your study period, take tons of practice tests, drill into logic games, prepare through logical reasoning sections, etcetera will give you a direction for planning your studies and give you enough time to study. 

Creating a mind map or mind palace is a very efficient way of retaining information for a more extended period in your brain. Practice the Pomodoro technique while studying. 

Recommendations - 

something that you need to start working on. Give yourself at least three to four months before you apply.

Reach out to your professors to write you a recommendation for law school. If you did an internship somewhere or worked somewhere, get one of your ex- fellow employers to write you a recommendation.

Start with this quite early because you need to give your recommender enough time to write a friendly in-depth, thoughtful letter for you, and that works well.

In general, for recommendations, you need to pick someone who knows you well enough and can write specifically for you. You need someone to write you a particular proposal to you that is very heartfelt and compelling to the reader.

A pitch for yourself - 

After getting your recommendations, start thinking about your narratives. What it means is that if you could give an elevator pitch for yourself like, for instance, this is who you are, this is why you want to go to law school. packaging yourself compellingly and memorably because admission officers look at hundreds of thousands of applications. It would be best if you stood out among those many applicants. 

For narrative, three things are predominantly important- look at your résumé, look at experiences and list them out, try to establish a connection between them all, and lastly, look at your interests (what pushed you to the opportunities you pursued) and in the end list out your life goals and visions.

Gain work experience - 

it is recommended that you work for at least a year and a half. This is less of a setback for some schools than for others.

It doesn't mean that if you don't work, you're not going to get in. Gaining work experience is an accessory to other prerequisites mentioned above. Many universities like their students to work before their admissions. It would be best to assure the admission officers that you are set out to become a lawyer, and this is not something you've casually stumbled upon.

Author Bio: Adv. Ashok Yende, D.Lit., Ph.D., LL.M., is the CEO & Managing Partner at Yende Legal Associates Mumbai, overseeing a distinguished law firm across Mumbai, Nagpur, and Delhi. With over 35 years of comprehensive experience in administration, teaching, and the legal profession, he had previously served as Professor & Head at the Department of Law, University of Mumbai, and founded the University of Mumbai Law Academy. Empaneled as a Mediator by the Bombay High Court, and Maharashtra State Consumer Commission, he's renowned for his mediation expertise. Dr. Yende's initiative includes philanthropic projects through the Global Vision India Foundation and establishing educational centers for underprivileged children. His scholarly endeavors have yielded nine doctoral candidates under his mentorship and seven authored books, one featuring a foreword by Hon. Justice Bhushan Gavai and released by Hon’ble Justice Dipak Misra, then Chief Justice of India. Dr. Yende has contributed extensively to over 45 national and international conferences. Dr. Yende has the privilege to participate in the United Nations Conference on Cyber Crime Convention as a Panel Member, and conferences of leading global institutions. Through his initiative "ICLER",  he has pioneered clinical legal education, enriching the legal landscape with practical training for aspiring lawyers. He has been honored with prestigious awards and is a member of reputed institutions.