Im Afraid Of Going To Law School

I want to do law in the US but I'm afraid that if I choose law in the US and if I end up jobless I might not have a backup plan, unlike the UK law degree?

I used to be a chicago lawyer.  I voluntarily retired my license.  The field is completely oversaturated with out of work attorneys right now who are willing to work for nothing.  It's impossible to make a lateral move or to enhance your career.  If you have the ability, pass and move on to something else.

Should I go to law school if I am not good at speaking up?

TL; DR: Public speaking ability is not necessary to having a successful law school career or legal career. Go for it if you want.If you're worried about your future career, public speaking is not an important skill for many lawyers. I would venture to guess less than 50%. If you're worried about law school grades, just do some diligence on the law schools you apply to. For the vast majority of my law school classes, participation was not graded and only a handful of seminars had presentations to the class.Many attorneys do not need to speak publicly.The critical skill for all attorneys is critical analysis, primarily via reading and writing. Here are some types of lawyers that virtually never need to speak publicly: transactional attorneys, BigLaw associates, government lawyers working for regulatory agencies (for example, the FTC, the FDA, the EPA, the SEC, unless you are a litigator there), trusts and estates lawyers, tax lawyers, document review attorneys, and most in-house counsel (unless you are a litigator). Of course you need to be able to speak with your clients and colleagues, but you will almost never have to speak before a judge or a large audience. You read and write e-mails, letters, memoranda, and reports in front of a computer.In law school, your grades do not need to depend on your speaking ability. But you may be embarrassed.Most law schools in the U.S. still use the Socratic Method, which I understand to actually have been basically debunked as a useful teaching method. But it does involve cold calling students and questioning about cases and hypotheticals. However, in none of my classes was your performance during classroom discussions part of the grade. In some classes, there was a participation component to make sure that you attended class and you got credit each time you spoke (up to a threshold until you received maximum credit), but the quality of your participation was not graded. In some seminars, you might have to present on a paper or if you did something like a trial advocacy class you would probably have to speak. But it is easy to avoid all of those classes and just do well in law school on the basis of your reading and writing ability.I wouldn't be discouraged to go to law school or to become a lawyer just because you don't like to speak up. If you didn't like to sit in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, then I would be worried.

I am not really into too much reading. Can I still get to law school?

Yes, absolutely. But you have to be smart.Before I went to law school, I hardly read anything that wasn’t math, physics, or chess. I just couldn’t bring myself to maintain interest long enough to read anything else.When I decided to go to law school, I was actually scared shitless over the amount of reading I’d have to do. See, in math, if you manage to read three pages a night you’re usually making good progress. The information is just super dense. I knew that, intellectually, but I still couldn’t fathom how one will have to read 100 — a fucking hundred — pages a night in law school. Sure, the information isn’t as dense, but… that?I literally “practiced” the summer before law school. My girlfriend at the time was very sweet, and bought me a John Grisham book to read. I also read another novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. I was still nervous.Eventually school starts, and there’s that first reading assignment. I tried to dig in, but I just couldn’t. So boring, so inscrutable.To add insult to injury, my school books were stolen very early into my first semester. I didn’t replace them. And in fact, I altogether stopped buying law school textbooks after that.So how did I get by? I just paid attention in the lecture. I’d go for a month or so, doing nothing but listening to lecture. No notes, no studying, no other sources, etc. Every month or so, I’d binge-read all the stuff I was supposed to have already read.Doing it this way makes it very quick. If you know the Smith v. Jones case very well, you can skim it in 2 minutes (rather than spend 20 minutes reading it). Or if you’re a little shaky on the Doe v. Williams case, maybe it will only take you 5 minutes.It’s a totally nonstandard way to go, but it worked for me.

Should I take a full ride at a top 20 law school or go to a T14 without a scholarship? My parents can pay for my tuition but it is still a lot of money. I'm also afraid that T20 won't allow me to go to wherever I want to go after graduation.

Short answer: full rideLong answer: we need to talk about that last sentenceI graduated from Vanderbilt Law.I want to tell you a secret. Your law school is going to do very very very very little to “go to wherever you want” after graduation.That’s on you.As it should be.Law school is where you go for 6 semesters, to sit for the 83 credit hours (77 of which are in a classroom under flourescent lights), so you can get a J.D. so you can take the state bar exam of your choice, so you can pass, so you can get a law license, so that you can practice law.The end is you practicing law. For money. Helping people.Harvard, Vanderbilt, Florida Coastal, Alabama…all the same.The types of potential behavior you do at each of these? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.And this separates those who get jobs and those who don’t.And it’s not “study hard and get on law review.” Yuck.Want to know the answer? It’s in my book.And the other 200 answers i’ve written on QuoraAnd the last sentence of this post.Help others, network, know thyself.That’s how jobs and futures and destinies come about.Happy to talk more if you would like.Take the full ride, but do some research / soul searching on the last sentence you wrote. If you don’t believe me, ask as many lawyers you can if their law school “got them anythign” after law school.No one’s does.It’s all on youAnd that’s a great thingAll you need to know is “how.”I wish you the best! Keep me posted via private message on how it goes. I’m always interested in helping people on their law school journeys.Check out my bestselling law school guide Most Law School Advice Is Bullsh*t, on Amazon: Most Law School Advice Is Bullsh*t: Why the Rankings Are Wrong, The Right Way to Pick a Law School, What to Do Once You Get There, and How to Graduate with Your Dream Job: Andy Brink: 9781723430268: Amazon.com: BooksIt will teach you how to know if the practice of law is for you, how to choose a law school if it is, how to ace the LSAT to get a full ride scholarship, and what to do once you get to law school.Watch my YouTube presentation entitled HOW TO DO LAW SCHOOL:And always remember, your law school grades are not important. Meeting people, helping them, and understanding how it changes you IS.Andy