Law degree

[Clarita12345]

Hi there
My son in Gcse this year would like to become a lawyer. He chose for his A Level History, Politics, Economics & French.
Are these good subjects to get him to Uni to study Law?
Thank you

Marking my place as DD keeps mentioning Law. She has chosen History, Economics, Psychology and either Eng Lit or Fine Art or RS.

Clarita any of those would do fine though if he is doing 3 A Levels it might be best to choose between Economics and Politics.
BigTilly depends where she intends to go, but it is always prudent (if not necessary) to have at least two of the Russell Group facilitating subjects for A Level.

Looks good to me - used to do legal careers advice, all subjects are serious academic subjects.

Most important though get good grades and legal work experience, good grades are no longer enough. You need to find that X factor to make yourself stand out.

Thank you to those who contributed. Xx

I work in the corporate law world, but am not a lawyer. Note that routes into law firms are changing right now, the old rules of offering training contracts at the end of year 2 and not before have been dumped. More are making sideways moves into law, bringing in experience from careers in medicine, engineering, etc. Everyone hears about the high salaries that the hot shot partners get in large corporate firms, but reality is that many law graduates never get to practice law as there aren't so many jobs around and firms like a mix of law grads and cross-overs. High street lawyers doing property law will probably be earning less than the secretaries and librarians in the large law firms. Those that do get a training contract will be working very very long and pressurised hours. It is rewarding, and will suit some more than it will others. Law as a degree however - provided at a good university is still seen as a good discipline even if they don't end up wanting/able to practice law. After your degree you also have to do more studying, hopefully funded by your future employer and then if want to be a solicitor (as opposed to a barrister) there is the requirement for two years of a training contract or equivalent - so a long journey.

Also lots of the trainee lawyers that come to our firm do not have a law degree but studied something else at University and then did a law conversion course later ( it adds another year to the qualification period and another £5-10k.) He should focus on doing well thought of A levels and a degree in a solid subject that interests him - we have trainees with degrees in history, classics, maths, languages, politics, genetics so pretty wide ranging but largely very academic

Its about the grades not the subjects really. I would suggest you do a search in talk on "solicitor" and "Law" and look at some of the recent threads where people are asking about careers changes to become a solicitor. They're all quite long but contain a lot of useful information.

Basically though unless they are going to get straight As at A level and a minimum of a 2.1 from a decent university then its time for a rethink.

Law is not always what people think it will be and there are far fewer jobs out there nowadays.