Working as a paralegal...how much does it really help in admissions??

[TheNewGuy]

How much does working as a paralegal help in admissions?? It seems like there would be a ton of paralegals applying to LS, so they would see it as nothing special. But I really have no idea...

What about doing something kinda interesting, like working in a museum? Would that help?? Or are they just looking for real world experience in general...not really one profession over the other?

[dta]

According to Monauk's "How to get into the best LS", work as a paralegal is not very impressive to admission boards. According to Monauk, adcoms know that as a paralegal one has little opportunity for leadership and is merely following the instructions of a lead attorney. Further, adcoms view the work done by paralegals (again, according to Monauk) as very minimally pertinent to what will be done in law school.

[TheNewGuy]

So i guess doing just about anything that might help you grow as a person, and develop some leadership skills is good enough. Whether that be building houses for the poor in Mexico, working in a museum, or working at small financial firm...etc?

[dta]

previous 'legal' work is in no way viewed as any more impressive than any other kind of work to adcoms. They look for the standard things regardless of what your work is: leadership, handling lots of responsibility, etc.

[akwolf]

Although I am not yet in law school, I am working as a paralegal and applying for law school. For what it's worth, the attorneys in the firm where I work claim that the paralegals in law school performed well. I think that the fact that I work daily with civil procedure may help some in a civil procedure class. I attended an ABA-approved paralegal school, and that coursework may benefit me, also. Still, most of the people who post on this website seem to have extremely high scores and excellent undergraduate educations. Nothing about my work will help me compete against them. At best, I have a head-start in knowing how to brief a case. I'm sure that most admission committees prefer high LSAT & GPA to any length of experience as a paralegal.