If you are going to work as a junior associate in a large corporate firm, you have probably heard that at least at first, you will not be coming in frequent contact with the law. This depends on the firm you work for but a lot of the work of a junior associate typically revolves around diligence, backup and coordinating meetings. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that you went to law school to become a skilled lawyer. Even though I knew I was going to practice corporate law, it was important to me to be well rounded and versed not only in securities law because statistically, most of us end up leaving BigLaw. Here are some classes I took in law school that I have used in my everyday life.
1. Income Tax: I took this class to understand the annual process of filing my tax returns. While I will heavily rely on the leading tax filing software each year, it is helpful to know why the software is asking certain questions. For example, what is the standard deduction? Would it make more sense to itemize? What is the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction? While I may not remember every case we covered in case law, the basics are helpful in my life outside of corporate law.
2. Trusts and Estates: I took Trusts and Estates for two reasons. First, the professor had a stellar reputation and second, I wanted to at least be able to follow my own estate planning process. Did I learn how to draft a will or a trust? Absolutely not. I did learn the steps necessary to properly execute a will and how to challenge the validity of a will. It is also useful to know when using a trust over a will can be beneficial.
3. Criminal Procedure: Truthfully, I enrolled in Crim Pro because I am a huge fan of Law and Order SVU. In all seriousness, though, it is important to know your rights if you, a friend or family member is involved with law enforcement. I wanted to know when I am entitled to a lawyer and when I could potentially be searched at random.
Hope this helped!
Comments