Why is law so popular?

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Reply 60

narusku

Original post by DontWantYourBloodMoney

Boston Legal.

....Denny Crane.

What A guy!

Reply 61

Agenda Suicide

After studying at A-level it has cleared up any doubt in my mind that I don't want to do it for another 3 years.

I guess it depends on what areas you study but it is so dry and boring it is terrible!

Reply 62

EonBlueApocalypse

From the many people I know who take Law, they think they are going to become a millionaire top London lawyer a year out of university.

The Image

While a lot of people who do Law do it because they passionately want to become a lawyer or whatever else, many simply use it as a fall back for a lack of imagination. (I was on of these people a year back, luckily I realised it wasn't for me at this point)

Reply 65

Kenocide

Original post by M1011

Interesting question.

People mention transferable skills, which undoubtedly there are in a law degree, but I doubt it has more transferable skills then several other degrees. Hell, I'd be confident in saying a law degree has less transferable skills then the Business & Management degree I did to be quite honest, yet I don't doubt law is the more prestigious. Economics is one that always springs to mind for me when I think about 'transferable skills'.

No the truth of the matter in my eyes is Law is oversubscribed because of reputation, not course content. There are those that want to be lawyers, and there are those that want to say 'I have a law degree'. The degree does have a very strong reputation, can't argue with that.

Original post by M1011

While I don't disagree with you that a Law degree has transferable skills (see my post a few up from this one), I fail to see the logic behind people picking Law for that reason.

There are other degrees with better transferable skills, simply because they mix qualitative and quantitative content. Sure law is a strong degree, but the question is why is it so oversubscribed, and I'm sorry but I refuse to believe it is because of the great 'transferable skills' because they simply aren't superior to many other degrees.

It's prestige, pure and simple. People associate Law with being difficult and therefore assume the degree must be difficult to do (which it may well be, I've never done one so can't comment).

There is absolutely sound logic behind choosing to study Law because of its transferable skills because it makes the degree versatile. So if you begin your degree not knowing what you want to do in life, Law is a great choice (provided you enjoy the course, which some don't) because it leaves many options open to you.

Reply 66

The_Male_Melons

Original post by thecrimsonidol

What modules have you done so far?

All the compulsories obv. I have studied Family Law and Relationships (boring), Medicine and Ethics (people don't die quick enough, all this ranting and raving for long hours seem like a lifetime), Consumer Law (don't go to Woolworths then, some people), Employment Law (meh, we all get fired) ... so on and so forth.

I am so bored and tired for law. I hate it. Find it boring and tedious. All I can say, don't choose law cos TV lies.

Reply 67

f1mad

Original post by Hippysnake

My son...

...IS BARRISTERRRR. WHAT IS YOUR SON?

Hahahahaha.

Reply 68

Picture~Perfect

Original post by chelseafan

Are they? I've heard a law degree is tedious and boring.

Even if learning something is boring, it doesn't mean it's not useful. :smile:

Corporate law innit.

Original post by Kenocide

You seem to be missing something here. You accept that Law has a strong, prestigious reputation, yet you think a Business and Management course offers greater transferable skills? Think about it, Law's reputation didn't spring up out of the ground from nowhere - the fact that it is known by people from all manner of different professions suggests that the quality of the transferable skills it offers is probably the best of any degree course.

There is absolutely sound logic behind choosing to study Law because of its transferable skills because it makes the degree versatile. So if you begin your degree not knowing what you want to do in life, Law is a great choice (provided you enjoy the course, which some don't) because it leaves many options open to you.

I'm not really trying to make a direct comparison between those two courses, as for one they quality of BaM differs hugely across different universities and I'm sure it must be similar for Law. My point though, is what are these 'transferable skills' that Law offers that other degrees don't that make it so oversubscribed? There's no quantitative side to a law degree is there? Surely that just makes it sound reasoning to assume there's more transferable skills from a degree which mixes qualitative with quantitative (think Economics if BaM offends you :tongue:

).

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just don't see what these extra transferable skills are that make the degree so oversubscribed. For this reason I maintain my opinion that it isn't the content that makes the degree so well respected, it's the prestige. The reason for the prestige is obvious - people respect lawyers etcetera and recognise it's a difficult well paid career. Therefore they link the prestige of a 'law career' to a 'law degree'.

Nothing at all wrong with that, and please don't see this as an attack on law degrees which clearly are very challenging, but I just don't see what these transferable skills are that explain why it is a more popular degree then any number of courses. It's prestige, pure and simple.

Reply 71

philistine

Because crime pays.

That goes tenfold if you're a barrister.

Original post by gethsemane342

Not everyone finds it boring - I've just graduated and I absolutely loved it. It was definitely the right choice for me. I do think you've got to be sure you'd enjoy it before you do it though because I can see why a lot of people would hate it

Original post by lyrical_lie

What you've heard is purely subjective. I love law. I find it interesting. I love learning about how my law progressed through-out history, how EU law is having an impact on it and I love reading the cases. You can't be bored when you're reading cases about snails and bottles.

I had no misconceptions about career prospects and course content when I choose Law. I just love the subject.

Original post by philistine

Because crime pays.

That goes tenfold if you're a barrister.

I was under the impression that for the majority of criminal barristers, crime doesn't pay. Or if it does, it's diddly-squat. :tongue:

Reply 74

Alkain1607

I'm not sure about Barristers, but for solicitors in criminal cases I think the majority are legal aid- which obviously is not a lot (in terms of solicitor pay per hour scale)

Reply 75

Kenocide

Original post by M1011

It's difficult to state exactly which transferable skills one acquires whilst studying Law as opposed to any other degree, not least because I haven't done any other degrees.

As a Law student, my perception is this: the 'prestige' of a Law degree stems from the difficulty. The difficulty comes from the skills that you must have, most of which just happen to be very transferable. And, without sounding elitist about the course, I think if you drew up a list of transferable skills from the BaM or whatever other course you want to use as an example and compared it to that of a Law student there might not be much difference in quantity, but the thing is you must have all of those skills and you must use them with the utmost accuracy just to do well in Law.

The Law is so technical, so convoluted and so very reliant upon precise definitions and exceptions (and exceptions to exceptions!) that you can easily misstate the law completely if you simply misread or misunderstand one word. And if the law you're analysing/discussing/applying isn't even correct then everything else you're saying is pretty much worthless.

So again, without blowing the trumpet of my own degree, I think perhaps the difference between the transferable skills gained in the study of Law vs any old degree lie in the fact that employers in particular know that the Law graduate has had to apply all the necessary skills with consumate precision and rigour just to do well (ie 2:1), whereas this may not be the case to varying degree depending on what we're comparing it to.

Reply 76

tehforum

Original post by nulli tertius

At times. However, it can be stressful and as dull as ditchwater. The law has been good to me, but I can't help feeling that I have had it better than those that are coming along now.

Why is that?

Reply 77

GenialGermanGent

Original post by Legen...dary!!

I was in the top 10 students in my school according to grades, and I studied Maths, Further Maths, Chemistry and a couple of other A-levels, plus I missed out on the A* in FM for a few d@mn marks. I study Law now. Jus sayin :tongue:

There are always a few exceptions. I have it on good authority that many
law students do want to avoid maths.

Reply 78

M1011

Original post by Kenocide

It's difficult to state exactly which transferable skills one acquires whilst studying Law as opposed to any other degree, not least because I haven't done any other degrees.

Some interesting points. I must admit my knowledge of what is involved in Law is limited. I did a first year module in 'English Legal Method and Contract Law', but that's as far as I go with the subject so it would be foolish of me to pretend to be any kind of an expert (or have any real knowledge of Law at all).

One more point, just to clarify (again!), I'm not looking to put down a law degree, just to answer the question of why it is such a popular choice.

Original post by Kenocide

As a Law student, my perception is this: the 'prestige' of a Law degree stems from the difficulty. The difficulty comes from the skills that you must have, most of which just happen to be very transferable. And, without sounding elitist about the course, I think if you drew up a list of transferable skills from the BaM or whatever other course you want to use as an example and compared it to that of a Law student there might not be much difference in quantity, but the thing is you must have all of those skills and you must use them with the utmost accuracy just to do well in Law.

Difficulty is relative, I'm sure some Law students would cry at the maths involved in an Economics degree or an Engineering degree (or BaM :tongue:

), and likewise I'm sure the same can be said the other way around for some aspects of a Law degree. So really difficulty is a very difficult thing to define (excuse the pun).

Similarly, does the level of difficulty really have anything to do with it? In truth I agree with you that Law is most likely one of the most difficult courses, but why does that matter? Surely employers are more interested in the skills you gain then the amount of books you read? Just a thought.

Original post by Kenocide

The Law is so technical, so convoluted and so very reliant upon precise definitions and exceptions (and exceptions to exceptions!) that you can easily misstate the law completely if you simply misread or misunderstand one word. And if the law you're analysing/discussing/applying isn't even correct then everything else you're saying is pretty much worthless.

Pretty sure that if you misunderstand most other subjects it makes your answer pretty worthless as well. Just saying!

But yes granted one of the traits one associates with Law is attention to detail. That is a strong point, no doubt. However would you insinuate I don't have to pay close attention to detail when digging in to a companies accounts or analysing efficiencies across large organisations using complex models etcetera?

That said, having been involved in a large scale contracting project in the past and having to proof read to minute detail 100s of pages worth of contracts, tweaking every second line, for hours on end, I do agree that Law gives an attention to detail probably unrivalled by most degrees.

Original post by Kenocide

So again, without blowing the trumpet of my own degree, I think perhaps the difference between the transferable skills gained in the study of Law vs any old degree lie in the fact that employers in particular know that the Law graduate has had to apply all the necessary skills with consumate precision and rigour just to do well (ie 2:1), whereas this may not be the case to varying degree depending on what we're comparing it to.

I agree that this is the case in Law vs lots of degrees. But I don't think you can claim this vs some other well respected degrees, for example 'the BaM'. I use this as an example simply because I know a fair bit about it, not because I'm trying to claim it's the best degree or anything like that (I mentioned previously that I to consider Law to be more prestigious). I just don't see how it can realistically be claimed that Law is popular because of the transferable skills, because so many degrees have just as strong (and more diverse) transferable skills. In my eyes Law is popular because of prestige (which you may well say is a result of difficulty, I'm not in a position to judge, but that doesn't equate to transferable skills).

As for the employers you mentioned, are you so sure they think that outside of law circles? Even when we include all the frankly awful business degree courses available in this country (see the number of undergrads), we still find employability very close between Law and Business (Guardian Source). Furthermore when we look at pay, it might surprise you to see that Business graduates are earning more on average then Law graduates (Guardian Source 2). I'll be honest, that surprised me, but there you go.

So with that in mind, I wonder if we compared Law employability with straight Economics or Business & Management employability for example (stripping out the less employable courses associated with business), do you really think Law is the one employers are after? Just a thought, in reality the right candidate will do well regardless of the degree they choose to do, I think that much is clear.

Further reading; http://education.yahoo.net/articles/six_in_demand_degrees.htm (I believe 3/6 here would typically be classed under the umbrella of 'business'.)

Reply 79

nulli tertius

Original post by tehforum

Why is that?

I came into the law with no student debt.

I qualified at a time when there was a shortage of articled clerks. Now we have law graduates as secretaries and as receptionists.

Those provincial firms that were growing in the 1980s have largely continued to grow for the last 30 years but as they have evolved, opportunities for young solicitors have closed off. Residential conveyancing practices are generally partner+unqualified staff; PI is going the same way. Family is under pressure from legal cuts, as is crime. The good firms are still doing well but their model has adjusted to need fewer young solicitors. In reality, the opportunities are only in commercial, commercial property, commercial lit and probate.

Most young solicitors will never have the opportunity to run their own practice. Many will simply be employees of Tesco Law like organisations. That is not a profession in any meaningful sense.

House prices have spiraled out of the reach of many young professionals.