Pre-Law Career Panel Discussion!

I was not able to attend the Accounting Career Panel Discussion due to the fact that I had class during the 10:45 time period.  Therefore, I decided to attend the Pre-Law Career Panel instead.  At this panel I listened to people who are lawyers and judges describe the career path they took and their experiences in the law field.  The speakers all had different majors that they graduated from Wartburg with.  For example, some were political science majors, business majors, an economic major, and even an accounting major! These speakers practice in things including family law, healthcare & insurance law, employment defense law, lobbying, and company defense work.

It was very interesting to learn about the different types of law that they practice.  For example, one man on the panel talked about cases that involved eBay and Facebook.  Some worked at law firms with 700 lawyers, and another worked at a law firm where he was one of two lawyers.  This was intriguing to hear about the differences within sizes of law firms.

Another discussion topic that was interesting was the fact that all of the speakers agreed that law school does not teach you about the business end of being a lawyer.  Being an accounting major I found this interesting.  They said that being a lawyer is just like running a business because you have to attract customers like every other business does.

One ironic discussion point that I remember is that the growing cost of schooling, including law school.  One of the panel guests wanted to warn pre-law students that if you don't know for sure that you want to be a lawyer, you should not go to law school.  I found this somewhat ironic considering that every student in this discussion panel is paying $30,000 plus to attend Wartburg.

This panel was much more interesting than I thought it would be.  They actually brought up business aspects that are within the law field much more than I thought they would.  I was very intrigued with the fact that an accounting major went on to become a lawyer because before I thought they were two very different career paths.  However, I now realize that you could practice law that involves business or even financial law.