Center for Pre-Law Advising
A Resource Center for Pre-Law Students and Alumni

Explore Law

decorativeThe American Bar Association (and CPLA!) advises students to explore law and legal careers before pursuing law school.

Why should I explore legal careers now?

  • Learning about the field will help you get a more realistic view of practicing law, skills that will benefit you as a lawyer, and the job market after law school.
  • By learning about the legal system you can also:
    • Learn more about what you’ll study in law school.
    • Identify practice areas that might interest you.
    • Find employment opportunities before, during, and beyond law school.

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What Does a Lawyer Do?

Lawyers provide legal advice and representation to companies and individuals in both civil and criminal matters. They are essential to all major aspects of business, personal and government matters. Lawyers often find themselves on the cutting edge of political and social debates, responsible for managing deals involving millions of dollars or even helping to settle life and death questions.

A practicing lawyer’s work can encompass:

  • Reading legal cases, spending hours or months in law libraries or online databases
  • Preparing contracts, briefs, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs and writing text from scratch
  • Planning and conducting depositions and other methods of evidence discovery, which in complicated cases can generate thousands of pages of testimony, all of which has to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information
  • Traveling to jails and prisons to meet with clients
  • Delivering news to clients that is at times life-altering
  • Appearing in court frequently (Litigation Attorneys), or never/seldom appearing in court (Transactional Attorneys). Lawyers who specialize in litigation will argue cases before judges or juries.

Almost all American lawyers earn their JD degree after three years of law school, and then take the bar exam in the state in which they wish to practice. They are not required to stay in the same state where they earn their JD, though they often choose to do so. About 70% of attorneys get a job in the state in which they graduated law school.

Attorneys who graduate from a law school in Wisconsin (Wisconsin Law School or Marquette Law School) also have the option of receiving diploma privilege, which means that they can be admitted to practice law in the state of Wisconsin without having to take the Wisconsin Bar Exam. This is currently the only state that has diploma privilege.

Learn more about law degrees from the Law School Admissions Council

The Occupational Outlook Handbook: Lawyers

Video interviews with lawyers & related careers

Types of Lawyers

While many lawyers are generalists, you can choose to specialize. Here is a list of law specializations to help you explore! The major job sectors in law are private practice, business, government, judicial clerk, public interest, and education. If you’re curious how common each of these job sectors are for law graduates to pursue, see Percentage of Law Jobs by Sector. Also, salaries can vary widely depending on what type of law you practice. See Law Salaries by Job Sector.

Learn more about types of law:

Networking & Shadowing

CPLA joins the American Bar Association in recommending students take advantage of opportunities to shadow, network with, or be mentored by practicing lawyers.

  • Networking is an important part of building a professional community that may positively impact your career for years to come.
  • While networking can sound intimidating, UW-Madison’s SuccessWorks in the College of Letters & Science explains, “Networking is simply making connections with other people and sharing information.” You do this in many ways already!
  • Besides sharing your interests with friends, faculty members, and advisors on campus, a great way to grow your network is to sign up for SuccessWorks’ Career Conversations canvas module. This is a low-pressure way to meet hundreds of UW alumni working in a range of fields (including law) who are available to speak with you about their educational and professional journey.
  • We know it can be challenging to connect with professionals and are happy to help get you connected.

Reach out to CPLA at information@prelaw.wisc.edu or visit us during 1:1 appointments and drop-ins for support.

Research Law School Costs and Funding

Financing law school, like other aspects of law school preparation, can be overwhelming and intimidating.

We’ve curated helpful information on the Financing Law School page of our website, and also want to highlight an organization dedicated to increasing access to legal education through providing extensive financial guidance and related resources: AccessLex.

AccessLex Institute

AccessLex is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing valuable FREE resources for prelaw students and law students related to financial education. MAX Pre-Law by AccessLex(Now Ask EDNA) provides asynchronous lessons on financial education, as well as a live hotline, AccessConnex. You can also attend a live webinar, search the database for law school scholarships, or get ideas about schools you may want to look into using XploreJD.

Read their publication “Guide to Financing Your Legal Education!”

Looking for an easy way to start learning more about law?

  • Above The Law is a popular blog that presents news on the profession in a more funny/sarcastic way but still includes lots of information.
  • LSAC’s I Am The Law Podcast regularly posts new episodes interviewing law school graduates doing all kinds of jobs. It’s a great way to get inspired!

See below for additional resources for exploring and building your professional networks.

Legal Documents

If you’re interested in law, you might have heard mention of all kinds of legal documents that lawyers work with, including briefs, motions, memos, etc. Here are examples of just some of the common legal documents to give you a better idea of what lawyers do:

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Bills

Bills

Bills are proposed laws introduced by a legislative body. Lawyers who work for the legislature are very involved in drafting bills.

Contracts

Contracts

Contracts create legally binding agreements between parties, outlining terms, conditions, and obligations. Some lawyers are “transactional” attorneys, and they may primarily deal with negotiating deals, drafting contracts, and other document work, and may never appear in court.

  • Professional Services Agreement – You can have contracts to hire employees, or to contract for other services. This example shows a contract to hire a consultant. 
  • Sales Agreement– Here is a short example of a contract for someone selling a business.  Contracts would look very different depending on what’s being sold and how complicated the terms and conditions are.

Wills and Trusts

Wills and Trusts

Wills and Trusts provide instructions on how to distribute assets and property after someone’s death.

  • Last Will and Testament: Most common document outlining how a person’s assets and property should be distributed after their death.
  • Living Will: A document that outlines a person’s wishes regarding medical treatment in the event of terminal illness or incapacity.
  • Trust Agreement: Establishes a trust, which is a legal arrangement where assets are held by a trustee for the benefit of beneficiaries. 

Pleadings and Motions

Pleadings and Motions

  • Purpose: To initiate or respond to legal actions in court. Litigation attorneys are focused on helping clients resolve disputes, and that means that when they cannot settle, they will spend a lot of time filing or responding to legal actions, which can take the form of many types of documents
  • Examples:
    • Complaint: A document filed by a plaintiff to initiate a lawsuit, outlining the facts and legal claims.
    • Answer: A document filed by a defendant in response to a complaint, admitting, denying, or raising defenses to the claims.
    • Motion: A formal request made to the court for a specific order or action.
    • Discovery Request: A request for information or documents from the opposing party in a lawsuit during a process called discovery. Types of discovery requests can include interrogatories, requests for production of documents, or requests for admission.

Briefs & Memoranda

Briefs & Memoranda

  • Purpose: To provide legal arguments and analysis.  This can happen in varied contexts and for varied audiences.
  • Examples:
    • Legal Brief: A written argument summarizing the facts, legal issues, and applicable law in a case. This is designed to be submitted to a court.
    • Memorandum (“Memo”): A written document used to communicate legal information or analysis within a law firm. This is not designed to be seen by a court, but instead to be used to answer a legal question with research to help determine whether to proceed with a legal action, or what legal strategy might be the most effective.
    • Case Brief: Not to be confused with legal briefs, case briefing is a process of reading and analyzing a particular case in preparation for a law school class.

Additional Resources