Not true, MANY have majors as options, and without question concentrations on the rest, and different quality of clinics for options (if any at all in those specific areas)
Muahahahaha!
Many law schools have "majors" as options? Really?
So, when I'm on the hiring committee, and someone tells me that they received a JD with a major in corporate law* ... do you think I'm going to laugh, or just toss the applicant's file?
So, moving on from that foolishness (you get a Doctorate in Jurisprudence, not a Bachelor of Science/Arts with a major), let's address your other incorrect points.
Do schools offer concentrations / certificates / gold stars? Of course they do! After all, they need things to put in brochures for impressionable 0Ls. You know, the kind that think, "I wanna be an international lawyer!" Allow me to rank the value of these concentrations / certificates / gold stars in the real world (assuming you haven't been practicing for a while, in which case, who cares what you did in school?)-
1. Class Rank/School.
2. Law review/ Moot court.
3. Trial Team
4. Jobs / Positions taken during 1L and 2L summers
5. RA to Professor, other academic work.
6. Secondary journal.
7. Cool facts about the person, like their middle name.
....
38. Concentration.
I kid, but only slightly. Because these "certificates" and "concentrations" have no more validity than what the school says they have. They are just another thing to on your resume - nothing more, nothing less. And they are almost all a big joke.
Do some schools have better clinics? Sure. Can I think of a school that doesn't offer clinics in criminal law? No. Is this something that someone will easily find out, as opposed to every single school saying they offer "amazing clinics, with hand-on ability to work with actual clients and practitioners!" Nope. Isn't it true that only a small percentage of the student body will usually take advantage of the amazing opportunities, while the vast majority won't- yep (and can you blame some of them- if you're going into transaction work, why the heck do you need a litigation clinic)?
Finally, let's look at the request. Even assuming you weren't wrong (which is difficult, but we're analyzing a hypothetical here), the specific question was directed toward criminal law and child advocacy law. Now, I respect people that can practice in those fields. And while "child advocacy law" is somewhat ill-defined for purposes of the question, family law and criminal law as fields are the two easiest areas to break into, if that's what someone would like to do. I'm not saying that all areas of each are equally easy to get into- the difference between federal prosecution and state public defense is ... not small.
Anyway, to sum up- please don't believe the crud law schools are shoveling at you.
*Except someone with that lack of knowledge wouldn't say corporate law, they'd say M&A, because of course they would.
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