How hard is it to become a lawyer?

Although there is no required undergraduate degree for an aspiring lawyer, you'll need a degree to be on track to obtain it in order to apply for law school and be considered for enrollment. Law schools are notoriously competitive.

When you apply, law school will also consider your overall GPA, your letters of recommendation, your personal statement, and your score on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). In addition, some schools also look at your scores on the Graduate Records Exams (GRE), and some schools offer their own proprietary admissions test.

Getting into a good law school is only half the battle. The atmosphere is highly competitive - law school is chock-full of intelligent, driven, strong-willed people. It takes more effort to stand out in that crowd.

Keep in mind that the curve in most law schools is brutal. Only a fraction of the class can do "well." That means that you not only have to master the material, but you must know the material better than the person sitting next to you and the person sitting next to them

Law classes are taught differently than undergrad classes. While undergrad is all about memorization, short-term memory, and didactic teaching methods (instructional), law school is all about critical thinking, long-term memory recall, and Socratic teaching method (cold-calling on students and interrogating them about the facts and decisions in various court cases).

Though most U.S. states require licensed attorneys to have a law degree, there are states such as California and Vermont where it is possible to become a lawyer without attending law school if the person spends several years working and training under the supervision of a practicing attorney.

This is known as "reading the law" and is rare for aspiring attorneys to do nowadays, though it used to be a common practice.

Once you finally complete law school, you must then pass the bar exam. Administered nationwide across all states and U.S. territories, the bar exam is widely known to be a test with an extremely high degree of difficulty.

One out of five does not pass the bar exam the first time around. Some states are known for their exceptionally difficult exams, such as California, as indicated by their pass rate of approximately 44%.

The bar exam is viewed as difficult for several reasons. First, it is two full days of intense testing - one day of multiple-choice questions and the second day dedicated to essay questions. The test covers a very wide range of legal topics.

Often, there is more than one correct answer to the multiple-choice questions, forcing you to dig deep to determine the best answer. Finally, it is not enough to have knowledge of a correct answer; you must also have the ability to analyze and apply that knowledge and express it in your essay writing.