Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsberg were all lawyers by training who went on to create history. Studying law opens a wide range of doors in careers such as litigation, research, policy making, finance, and entrepreneurship.
Whether you’re studying the five-year or three-year law programme, a law school will be a rich experience, pushing you towards excellence. Your courses will hone your critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and communications skills. Your teachers and fellow students will challenge and inspire you. You might be a successful Mooter by participating in national and international Moot Court Competitions. If you’re interested in research, you can write papers and be published in journals.
Multiple entrance exams
Studying law in India requires you to write and qualify in entrance examinations. For instance, the Common Law Admission Test offers admission to various National Law Universities. Similarly, the Law School Admission Test-India offers admission to a number of India’s premier private law schools. The LSAT-India also offers multiple scholarships to improve access to legal education for all socio-economic sections.
There are various other entrance tests in India that open doors to individual law schools across the country. Since the format and nature of each is different, students need to prepare accordingly. But this can be both costly and time-consuming. If you choose to go this route, first identify the law schools that interest you and then focus on their exams. Here are a few general tips to help prepare for any law entrance test:
Test yourself: It is not enough to attend your courses or study your books. You will be truly prepared for the exam only if you take tests and learn from your mistakes.
Time yourself: When you take tests, it is important to stick to the time limits of that exam. Attempt to take tests while simulating an exam environment.
Don’t rely on a single result: Don’t lose a chance at studying law because of glitches in one exam. Write at least two to three to keep your options open.
While many entrance tests test your accumulated knowledge, the one skill you need to succeed in a law school is critical thinking or the ability to understand the logical connection between ideas, and engage in independent thinking. You should be able to identify and evaluate arguments, systematically solve problems and recognise inconsistencies in reasoning. A skilled critical thinker will also reflect on the justification of one’s own beliefs.
If you believe you are talented at critical thinking and logical reasoning, and wish to have a successful career that touches lives, consider a career in law.
The writer is the Vice President of Emerging Markets and Business Intelligence at the Law School Admission Council (LSAC).
