Law Books

Law Books and Tuition

One of my friends decided to get her law degree when she was fifty one years old. She had always wanted to be an attorney and she decided that she was going to make it happen. She put in her application to two different law schools. She then had to complete the entrance examine. She did well on the exam and was admitted into the law school that was closest to her home. She tried working full time as she went to night classes, but soon she realized that she needed to concentrate completely on her studies or she would not do very well. She hated to give up her income because she was spending so much money on tuition as well as her law books.

The night class program that my friend was involved with allowed her the option to finish in two years or three years, depending on how many classes she took at a time. She already had her bachelor’s degree and had worked as a social worker in the legal profession for many years. She told me that the amount of reading that she had to do was incredible. Some of the law books she found very interesting, but other areas of the law were quite complicated and boring.

Law Books and Law Library

I met her for lunch one day before she went to class. She had arrived at the coffee shop ahead of me and she had several of her lawbooks spread out. She was doing some research for a paper. I picked up one of the law books to make room for my purse. I could not believe how heavy it was and the amount of information it held. My friend explained that there are some core law books that every law student and attorney needs to have in order to practice law. The law books that she was working with that day were books that she would be keeping as part of her law library.

I asked her how she was doing with the studying as well as the writing. She said that the most difficult thing is to write the essay exams as an attorney rather than a social worker. She has been writing reports for the courts for years, but her job at that time was to recommend what was in the best interest of the child she was working with. Now she needs to focus of representing the wishes of the client, whether or not the wishes are in their best interest. She feels that this will be an interesting transition to make. So many lawbooks so little time...