Harvard Law: What Elle Woods’ Career Options are After Going to Harvard Law, and What Yours Would Be Too
- UCL Law for All Society
- Dec 6, 2025
- 3 min read
By Angelica Bidlack
Studying law: why is it such a significant commitment in the United States when compared to other graduate programs? As an American planning to return home for graduate school after completing my undergraduate studies at UCL, I am exploring potential academic pathways, which includes discovering what a law degree in the U.S. would entail. This essay outlines what it means to commit to law school in the US and the career opportunities you can expect it to open.
The elephant in the room for pursuing a law degree, like with most educational pathways pursued in the United States, is the financial commitment. In other words, law school is expensive, more so than other grad school degrees like public policy. This financial burden is what shapes most decisions around a law degree: whether someone will do one, how they will obtain the degree, and what careers they are able to pursue with the degree.
Due to the exceptionally high costs of a law degree, many students decide to go to law school after a few years of work experience. This trajectory comes with the objective of getting a company to pay for their education. The risk with this path though is the risk of binding yourself to a certain career path. A company paying for your education usually implies that you will work with them after you graduate. This could be risky—a large part of education is being exposed to new things, and through that, your career plans may change. However, if you prefer a stable, structured future planned for the next few years of your life, this could be an attractive pathway for you.
That being said, finding ‘independent’ ways to finance the degree does not necessarily imply complete flexibility in career options after you graduate either. This is because after you pursue your degree, there will come what haunts millions of Americans: debt. Financial debt often shapes your career, because you will need a job which has a high enough salary to pay off your debt. Usually, these jobs include jobs where you will be working for a firm or on a private, client basis.
Personally, this aspect disappointed me the most. I am looking for a career path which could serve a broader range of people, not just individual clients, such as, perhaps, a career in government. Whilst such careers definitely exist and can be obtained with a law degree, the likelihood that you have the financial flexibility to go down this career path is relatively low. Jobs like ones in government pay less than a job in the private sector would provide.
Generally, you are expected to pursue a job as a lawyer with a degree. In a discussion with Kate Cronin-Furman, Associate Professor and Director of the Human Rights MA at UCL, she joked that many who end up in law-adjacent roles, like in academia, are simply law students who discovered halfway through their degree that becoming a lawyer was not actually what they wanted.
Where a law degree does offer flexibility is the choice of sector of law you would want to go down. There are many types of law. The US has four main categories of law, but there are many more subject-matter categories. So, whatever you are interested in, there is a field of law which covers it. A plus about law school is that you do not have to decide or even specify in your application which sort of law you are interested in studying or which law you seek to pursue later in your career. So, if you are thus far unsure as to which specific field of law you want a career in, do not let this gap steer you away from applying to a law school!
The overall conclusion of this essay is that a law degree, especially when completed in the US, should be a carefully considered decision, taking into account both financial feasibility and your intended career path. A law degree should not be approached the same way as many may have approached an undergraduate degree—it is important to avoid the mindset of ‘law seems interesting, and a legal career might be nice.’ Instead, thoroughly research the opportunities available both during and after law school, as the field can quickly narrow your professional direction. Nevertheless, completing a law degree can be deeply fulfilling, offering the prospect of a stable, financially rewarding career in which you can help companies, individuals, and families work toward a better future.
Edited by Artyom Timofeev