Prelaw

Students interested in law at Albion major in academic disciplines of their choice, as is usually the case in strong liberal arts colleges. Traditionally, these students have majored in political science or history, but nearly any major is possible without prejudicing possible admission to law school. Indeed, the American Bar Association and the American Association of Law Schools have consistently stated that there is no specific 'prelaw' course of study that will enhance a student's chances of gaining admission to law school. Rather, both organizations emphasize the acquisition and development of analytic and problem-solving skills, critical reading abilities, and a high level of competence at written communication. A solid liberal arts education will help to provide such skills. Albion College students consistently translate their liberal arts education into admission to a wide range of top-ranked law schools and successful professional careers in the law.

However, for those students who are interested in the study of law at the undergraduate level, we have recently designed a concentration—Law, Justice, and Society—to serve their interests. While participation in the concentration probably will not increase a student's chances of success in gaining admission to the law school of their choice, we do firmly believe that such participation will enhance the student's performance once in law school. That is, in addition to the interdisciplinary, liberal arts orientation of Law, Justice, and Society, we believe that enrollment in the concentration will expose the student to the languages of law and approaches to legal reasoning that are so integral to an understanding of predominant legal ideas and institutions. In other words, students will be able to hit the ground running in that all-important first year of professional legal training. Thus, while we want to discourage the narrow instrumentalism of much preprofessional training, we certainly welcome to Law, Justice, and Society (LJS) those students who have already made the decision to pursue a post-graduate legal education—we believe LJS is well-suited to meet their needs.