Classes I should take before law school?

[barraq]

I am currently in my first year of college and have decided to become a lawyer. I am working on a Bachelors in history right now and I will probably take some criminal justice classes or something like that(Ill have to look into what law based classes are available).However right now im just focusing on general classes and history classes. My question is taking these law classes essential or even required to get into law school or will I learn everything needed to become a lawyer in law school

[warton26]

History is not going to help you.
Take business law, international and business finance, and business classes.

[sayre]

Take a class on personal debt management and how to pay off over $100,000 of debt while working at a gas station making minimum wage lol. All kidding aside though, it is a TERRIBLE job market for lawyers right now. I graduated from a good law school 2 years ago and have friends that are literally working at gas stations and grocery stores. Just not a good time to go to law school.

If you ignore that advice here is my answer to your question. First of all there are no required courses you must take in undergrad to go to law school. You need no understanding of the law prior to enrollment (unlike medical school). You should take classes that develop the most important skills for law school success, critical reading and writing. These are usually history, english, political science, philosophy etc. There is a misconception that law school is all about criminal law; this is compeletly untrue. In fact only about 6-9 credits of the 90 or so you earn in law school will deal with criminal law. Its just not that big of an area. Therefore, CJ classes are pretty much useless as the little bit of crim law they cover are covered in so much more detail in the few classes you take in that area during law school. Best of luck.

[gedalyahu]

Take classes that improve your writing and research skills. Those will help.

P.S. This isn't a slam against your writing style above.