How Do I Become An Immigration Lawyer?
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at
6:51 pm
I’m interested in becoming an immigration lawyer but I’m not sure what is required. I am fluent in two languages (English and Spanish) and I’m working on a 3rd (German). I’m a freshman in a junior college taking “intro to paralegal studies” cause that’s pretty much all the law related courses I can take. How many years of school am I looking at and what is the graduation rate for this particular area? I was never an A+ student in high school so I’m somewhat concerned.
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To become to Lawyer you would need to attend Law School which lasts for 3 years.
You are able to attend law school if you have a four year college degree. The type of degree doesn’t really matter, what does matter is your GPA, the higher the better!
I would suggest taking a lot of english, writing and critical thinking courses in college as that is what a lawyer spends most of their time doing.
Try to save all of the law and legal courses for Law School. It’s generally better to wait to take them because colleges never really teach as in depth as the law schools do, and they don’t want you to pick up any bad habits.
The first year of law school is pretty much the same anywhere you go, you have to take some general required courses. In your second and third years is when you have the ability to take some elective courses, in your case, immigration law.
I would suggest trying to find Immigration Law Firms and trying to score an internship or maybe work part time as a secretary, just so you can see what you would be getting yourself into.
Good Luck with your goal!
Of course, the first step is to get accepted by a Law School. You should first be researching what it takes to get into one. If getting into a school of law is not an option for you then the class load for the specialized law degree is just not important.
I normally recommend that you major in English or Jounalism to prepare you for law school and a legal career. 99 Percent of practicing law is writing. You don’t need straight A’s, but do your best to keep your grades high because it will increase your choices of schools. You’ll need to focus on the LSAT a year before you graduate college. Although they are expensive, you should seriously look at the test prep courses such as KAPLAN because they will get you in the “zone” before the test.
Law school is 3 years. When you start law school, focus everything on your first year and doing as well as you can. Your first year grades are VERY important. Yes, you can make up a bad GPA over the next 2 years, but it can be difficult. The summer after your first year, look at interning for a law firm that focuses on immigration (Fragomen is the largest) or at a non-profit that helps the immigrant community. Hopefully, you will have a summer associate position at a law firm after your second year of law school. This should help you land a job at that firm after your graduate.
If you are getting a paralegal certificate, you should consider working at a firm such as Fragomen before you start law school. Also, go to http://www.aila.org for information about the area of immigration law.