What Are The Ropes In Becoming A Family Lawyer?

One Comment

1. Lisa says:

   January 8, 2010 at 11:20 am

   You have to go to four years of undergraduate school which can get you into whatever debt it costs you to complete it, and you would generally need A’s and B’s in undergraduate school to get accepted into law school. Once you graduate with your good grades, you have to get a good score on the LSAT, which would generally be a 155 or higher. Law school is generally another three years, and the tuition is more expensive than most undergraduate schools. If you get scholarships, then that would help, but you also have to add in living expenses so it could be anywhere from $30k to $50k per year to go to law school. While in law school, you should take some family law-related courses and then once you graduate and pass the bar, you can work at a family law firm or start your own business.
   I should warn you though, that family law is very litigious, and the clients are sometimes quite a handful.
   I worked at a small general practice law office on and off through college and I can tell you that criminal clients were generally more pleasant to work with than divorce/custody clients. I believe it is because of the strong emotional element involved. Many clients were amicable and nice to work with, but several were very vengeful and didn’t care as much about settling and cared more about making their ex miserable. Really sad, especially when kids were involved. Good luck though. I can tell you work was always interesting at least. Some clients’ cases were almost soap opera material – even though that shouldn’t be an incentive.