Benefits of a Law Degree: A Literature Review for Law Students

This literature review examines the benefits of acquiring a law degree. It explores whether the investment of time and money in obtaining a law degree is ultimately beneficial for lawyers. The review analyzes different perspectives, including those of graduates before and after the Great Recession, to assess the value of a law degree in terms of job prospects, career satisfaction, and financial burdens. Key findings highlight the importance of law degrees for developing critical skills, understanding the legal field, and navigating the challenges of the legal profession. The review also compares the experiences of law graduates with those of non-law graduates, considering factors such as job market competitiveness and the practical application of legal knowledge. Ultimately, the review concludes that while a law degree is not strictly essential for pursuing a legal career, it offers significant advantages for aspiring lawyers.

Running Head: BUSINESS LAW
BUSINESS LAW

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Literature review
The present literature is aimed at researching if acquiring a law degree is beneficial to the
lawyers or not. According to Koehn and Hannigan (2017), earning a law degree is not an easy
thing to do as it requires a lot of effort of the students as well as a lot of money. Earning this
degree helps the students to find out their law jobs very easily. It is been widely argued that law
school is getting expensive every year and in addition to cost of the school, living expenses are
also increasing. The debt collected by student at the end of getting a law degree are a huge
burden till many years in future. However even if the profession tempts to pay well, the practice
of law is very hard. Practicing law is an adversarial process, contentious and a lawyer’s action
put the clients and license on the line. Interpreting client’s comments or contract incorrectly can
create grievous implications. Given these facts, graduating with a law degree teaches an
individual a healthy way to deal with the everyday curriculum of their job. However, to
understand in details how much actually they are getting benefitted two different perspectives is
taken, the first one is considering the students who have graduated before the great recession and
the second one is the students those who have graduated during or after the great recession.
Mathews (2017) organized a study and it is seen that the value of the law degree remaining very
high as compared to other bachelor’s degree or any other advanced degree holders. The law
graduates claim Juris Doctor Law degree as very valuable in their life and career and they
recommend it to others too. Penrod et al. (2016) argued that the scenario has changed for the
students who have graduated after 2008. The students who have received their degree before the
recession has got great esteem for their degree and they are very much satisfied with their jobs.
However, the problem started to rise from the time of the great recession. Bäuml and Dobler
(2015) added that the students who had graduated from the same law schools found it difficult
for them to get their desired job within a year of completing their degree. In the study, it is
observed that post-recession over 50 percent of the students had a good job that was waiting for
them after they had graduated from the law school (Murray, 2017). As opined by Paoline et al.
(2015), it is observed that for the top 10 percent of the students almost everyone had their job
lined up even before completing their graduation. On the other hand, Rowley (2016) stated that
only 30 percent of the law grad students who were outside the top 33 percent of their class could
edge a job before receiving their diploma. Blikstad (2018) further added that the scenario has

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drastically changed after the great recession and the students have reported that only 44 percent
of the students had a job waiting for them while they were completing graduation and almost 26
percent of them had to wait over a year to get the desired job after completing graduation.
Although it is seen that the cost of studying law has increased tremendously and students have to
take a six-figure loan to get admitted to the best law colleges in the country. Teubner (2017)
mentioned that this is basically giving an extra burden on the students and only 23 percent of the
students who are having a loan of more than $100,000 has agreed that their degree holds more
value to it. Paoline et al. (2015) argued despite the great demands and values of the law degree
only 48 percent of the students practicing law is actually thriving in their business where as the
majority has said that they are some how struggling with their job and life but at least they got a
job after completing the graduation.
According to Craft and Baker (2003) job rules regarding law comes in a variety of options that
include legal executives, paralegals, judges and legal secretaries. However, most opted
professions for University students remain barristers’ or solicitors’ profession. Addressing the
research topic the study confirms that it is necessary or beneficial for an individual to have a law
degree in order to get into a law profession. Koehn and Hannigan (2017) opined that getting
enrolled into a law college helps the students to cover different areas of law that he might face
during his practice, helping him have a more in-depth understanding of certain aspects. Further,
Mathews (2017) stated that having a law degree will also be helpful to learn skills like critical
thinking, logical reasoning, problem solving and analytical skills. However, studying law and
practice in it has a vast difference. Murray (2017) argued that while studying law a student only
understands the importance as well as the boundaries of the law. While practicing the law an
individual can learn from specific circumstances and the problems of the client in the real world.
Bäuml and Dobler (2015) mentioned that going to the university with other students sharing the
same goal and ambition will help to keep the student motivated for his career. The author further
added that student will also be benefited by career advice, guest speakers, fairs and other events
that will help create links to good employers. Craft and Baker (2003) added that the student gets
the opportunity to know if this profession is right for him or not. This can be done by getting
involved with the law society of the university that includes having moot courts, meeting
recruiters, socials, presentation, etc. However, Nonet et al. (2017) argued that this privilege is not

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given to the non-law undergraduates that are, without a law degree one might miss out on
insights regarding the profession as a UG student. On the other hand, Blikstad (2018) mentioned
that the academic study of law is less likely to be found pleasing by the student. While studying
law the student has to do a lot of reading attend a number of extra lectures than the students in
other fields. This leaves the students with very less free time and creates more pressure.
According to Paoline et al. (2015), solicitors and barristers need to specialize in a selected
number of areas of practice that means, a number of subjects that are studied by the student of a
law degree might not be that as useful for practicing as it was for academic purposes. Therefore,
most of the subjects studied as a law student has not to function once a student is in his
workplace. In case, the student decides to pursue a different career, then being a law student will
help them catch the eyes of various non-law employers. Murray (2017) argued that for being a
lawyer, it is not much of a concern to not have a law degree because, law recruiters set the same
criteria for law students as well as non-law students that are, to have good academics and the
skills that are required to become a successful lawyer. Blikstad (2018) stated that recruiters while
taking lawyers do not discriminate against students having or not having a law degree. Getting
into a course of law is highly competitive and requires high grades of A level and certain
universities also require the successful completion of the LNAT are the Law National Aptitude
Test (Teubner, 2017). The task of this law test is to help students understand better the course is
correct for them or not. However, this is one of the most direct cheapest and quickest routes to
pursue a career as a lawyer. The graduate diploma in law or GDL is necessary for non-law
students and as a result, the student is required to study for a year (Koehn, D. and Hannigan,
2017). This course ranges from £5,000 to £10,000 depending on the universities which increase
the financial expenses as well.
Having a law degree to pursue the career of a lawyer is not practically useful but has many
theoretical uses. Studying in law school and practicing as a lawyer is two different things where
being a lawyer is more challenging. A lot of difficult situations and decisions arrive daily where
the skills of a lawyer are tested for its competence problem-solving ability. By acquiring a law
degree one can have the opportunity to gain a detailed understanding of the field and also gain
practical insight for being a successful lawyer. Additionally, getting a law degree would help the
student to get an overall understanding of the tactics and skills required in the process and to

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know if this profession suits him or not. In comparison to non-law graduates, law graduates have
to invest lesser time and energy for their career. Irrespective of the fact that a law degree is not
necessary to pursue a career in law or become a lawyer, it can be concluded that having a law
degree for a lawyer is surely beneficial.

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References
Bäuml, K.H.T. and Dobler, I.M., 2015. The two faces of selective memory retrieval: Recall
specificity of the detrimental but not the beneficial effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41(1), p.246.
Blikstad, N.E., 2018. Beneficial Ownership Secrecy: The Hidden Control of Corporate Vehicles
and Its Regulation Through International Law (Master's thesis).
Craft, R.K. and Baker, J.G., 2003. Do economists make better lawyers? Undergraduate degree
field and lawyer earnings. The Journal of Economic Education, 34(3), pp.263-281.
Koehn, D. and Hannigan, M., 2017. Are Benefit Corporations Truly Beneficial?. Business and
Professional Ethics Journal.
Mathews, B., 2017. Why deconstruction is beneficial. In Derrida and Law (pp. 19-40).
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Murray, J., 2017. Beneficial Benefit LLCs. U. Cin. L. Rev., 85, p.437.
Nonet, P., Selznick, P. and Kagan, R.A., 2017. Law and society in transition: Toward responsive
law. Routledge.
Paoline III, E.A., Terrill, W. and Rossler, M.T., 2015. Higher education, college degree major,
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Penrod, C., McCorkle, K. and Harrell, S., 2016. DOING WHILE LEARNING: HOW
BUSINESS PROGRAMS CAN INTEGRATE BENEFICIAL EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRE-LAW BUSINESS STUDENTS. Southern Journal of Business &
Ethics, 8.
Rowley, J., 2016. Performance Enhancement for Litigators: an Exploration of Potentially
Applicable and Beneficial Mental Skills.
Teubner, G., 2017. How the law thinks: toward a constructivist epistemology of law. In Legal
Theory and the Social Sciences(pp. 205-235). Routledge.