Is Law a Difficult Degree to Get?
Are you looking to pursue a new career? Perhaps you've spent some time in another industry and decided that you want to take on the challenge of a legal career. If you choose to become a lawyer, it can seem like a long transition into a highly rewarding profession, if you don’t understand how to transition into a legal role.
For those who wish to take on the challenge of representing clients, challenging ideas, and utilising legal precedent to represent your clients to get the outcome that they're after, a legal career may just be the next step for you. In this piece, we'll be exploring the concept of a law degree and some of the questions that many prospective students ask such as:
- Is a legal qualification difficult to obtain?
- What are the sort of things you’ll learn in a legal qualification?
- What sort of career options are available upon completion of a law qualification?
Law is A Respected Career Choice
The legal profession can often seem like a bit of a tricky industry, particularly when you consider the various reasons you may have to represent people. These may sometimes even be considered morally or socially indefensible. Defence lawyers in particular often get this feedback when they represent those that are accused of serious crimes such as murder.
Ultimately while there are many different facets to the law a career in the legal profession is highly respected and well remunerated. While you may not always be able to talk about the work you do with friends and family, in many cases, a legal qualification can make a genuine, positive difference in the lives that it serves.
You’ll Learn a Lot in a Law Qualification
One of the things often cited by law professionals is that university coursework can often be quite stressful. Initially, due to the nature of law, you need to have a really good understanding of how the legal system works - and as such, need to have an understanding of a wide brief of legal material, whether it be existing case standards, applications in terms of Commonwealth law, or how the law connects all of this together with common standards.
This can be a little bit more complicated than a more generalist degree, such as engineering, where you may learn about more standardised formulas and functions rather than explicit casework, but only have a rudimentary understanding of how they link together. In contrast, the law, by nature of design, requires a much greater level of understanding to help piece together disparate concepts and information. Therefore, being able to dedicate a proper amount of time to studying complex material can be helpful in setting yourself up for future success.
Don't be concerned, however - while a legal qualification may seem initially overwhelming, being able to get a rapid understanding of what's going on and then to be able to use that information to inform your further studies is something that is essential. Understanding the basics will not only enable a legal professional for future success, not only within the course but in the outside world when you eventually pursue a legal career upon completion of your qualification.
The Many Career Paths of Law
There are a wide number of career paths available when completing a legal qualification. While it may seem like legal graduates simply go from the classroom to the courtroom, in fact, there is a wide range of alternative career options that may see you never step into a courtroom at all.
For example, legal counsel for large corporate firms may be involved in the development and signing of legal contracts such as sales contracts and non-disclosure agreements. A legal counsellor or a legal aid may provide legal advice in the nature of contract setting or dispute resolution, particularly helpful for those that are in the process of separating from former partners. At the end of the day, a legal practitioner isn't always someone that is stuck in a courtroom - there are a variety of different ways to pursue a legal career but not be enclosed in a classroom environment
Not as Hard as You Think
Ultimately while law may be considered data-intensive, it’s not as hard as you think. In fact, there are a wide number of graduates that come out of legal courses in Australia on an annual basis, working in all sorts of exciting areas. If you want to become a legal professional, there is undoubtedly a career pathway that is available to you, and you should strongly consider getting in touch with a career counsellor to explore your options.
Law, while intense, is not a terribly difficult degree. If you practise honing your soft skills such as being able to process lunch quantities of data and problem solve, then you are likely to do just fine in the legal profession.