Pre-Law: Do You Really Need to Major/Minor in a Law-Related Field?
By RJ Edrolin
As a Cinema and Media Studies major, there aren’t a lot of students who are interested in law school within my major nor within SCA. As someone who untraditionally chose the Pre-Law path, one of the first things I considered was if I really needed to major or minor in a traditional pre-law subject for law school. To cut the chase: no, you don’t need to. Unlike medical school, dental school, or other fields, there are no required prerequisites you need to take in undergrad to apply to law school. However, I still found my minor in Law and Social Justice (which is offered by Gould School of Law) to be extremely helpful in solidifying the idea of me going to law school. Because of this, I wanted to seek out what studying the law was even about.
Before I committed to the Law and Social Justice minor, I took LAW-210: Fundamentals of the U.S. Legal System. I would highly recommend anyone who is even slightly interested in the legal field to take this course. It’s not only a great introductory course into the legal field, but it also fulfills the GE-H requirement, and can be used to fulfill credit for other minors like Legal Studies, and Philosophy of Law, Politics and Economics.
Immediately after the first few LAW-210 classes, I found the content to be extremely fascinating and I knew I was interested in studying the law. Additionally, it definitely helped that Professor Scotten is an extremely engaging professor with fun and interesting lectures, who also deeply cares about everyone’s success in the class (seriously, he got a standing ovation on the last day of our class!).
But, one of the main reasons I was afraid of committing to law school was the hefty workload and cold calling. In LAW-210, I discovered that I was at least interested in the content and I got a small taste for the amount of reading and some cold calling. But it wasn’t until I took LAW-355: Law and Homelessness with Professor Sharma, that my interest in law was completely solidified.
To cut to the chase, LAW-355 is intense. This course, “examines the current housing crisis by interweaving tenant/landlord law, local ordinances, historical exclusionary policies and reviewing current reporting and scholarship.” This class has a heavy amount of reading, a bit of cold calling, and tough grading. LAW-355 not only allowed me to dip my toe into what law school actually is like, but also really pushed me to heavily engage in content that I previously had minor interest in.
I specify the latter point because I think one of the difficulties with law school (or even the LSAT) can be the discipline involved with engaging with topics that you aren’t entirely riveted by. While I had some interest in housing policy, I wasn’t naturally absorbed by it to the level that my peers were in that class and adding a legal lens to housing made the topic even more difficult to absorb. But I really pushed myself to engage and comprehend the content to meet the course’s expectations and learn more about housing.
And as a result, as someone who came into this class with zero background on housing policy, by the end of it I genuinely had never felt more enlightened from a course before. I still use the knowledge that I gained from that class to this day, whether it be in class, reading the newspaper, or even hearing about the California housing propositions during the last election. So while the work was difficult, the course pushed me to be a better student, and I felt like an entirely different person after. Law school wise, my decision was 100% set after this class.
So: do you really need to major in a traditional pre-law major to go to law school? The answer to that is no! In fact, if you scroll down to take a look at the 2024 Entering Class Profile at Columbia Law, you can see some of the other majors the incoming class majored in like Economics, STEM, Philosophy, etc. Furthermore even the American Bar Association cites, “The ABA does not recommend any undergraduate majors or group of courses to prepare for a legal education. Students are admitted to law school from almost every academic discipline.”
But even though there’s no required major, you might be wondering if you’ll still be at a disadvantage when law school rolls around. If you’re worried about this, personally, I would take a few classes that target what you specifically think you can work on. For example, if you’re not the best Public Speaker, consider taking COMM 204: Public Speaking at Annenberg! But ultimately, you shouldn’t have too much to work on as the American Bar Association (ABA) also reiterates, “whatever major you select, you are encouraged to pursue an area of study that interests and challenges you, while taking advantage of opportunities to develop your research and writing skills. A sound legal education will build upon and further refine the skills, values, and knowledge that you already possess.” Essentially, the ABA itself says that law school is meant to prepare you for a legal career and to build upon the knowledge you have. So no, there is no ‘disadvantage’ for not majoring in a Pre-Law related field, but if you feel like you could personally develop some skills you want to reinforce before law school then it doesn’t hurt to take classes or major in a related field!
Look: law school is a huge investment, financially, mentally, and emotionally. And yes, while you don’t have to major or minor in a traditional pre-law related field to go to law school, if you are unsure if law school is for you, it’s extremely beneficial just to take a Gould class and get an idea for what you may be getting yourself into. In both LAW-210 and LAW-355, I got a taste of what law school was like and realized that it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be and most importantly: that I could do it! Taking a few classes in the field, especially if you are not in a traditionally pre-law major, can provide you with a more well rounded foundation to decide if law school really is for you or not.
