Lawyers spend most of their time reading, writing and speaking. When University of Scranton English majors reach law school, the reading load does not shock them as it does their classmates from lighter disciplines. When they become lawyers, they are able to extract from the reams of paper set before them the pieces of information they need to make a strong case for their clients. The American Bar Association website on legal education lists English as one of several traditional paths to law school and identifies six primary skills and abilities that law schools look for in their applicants. Two of these skills are especially relevant here.

Under the heading of Critical Reading Abilities, the A.B.A. notes that "Preparation for legal education should include substantial experience at close reading and critical analysis of complex textual material, for much of what law students and lawyers do involves careful reading and sophisticated comprehension of judicial opinions, statutes, documents, and other written materials." The English Department at the University of Scranton can give you exactly this sort of experience.

Likewise, the A.B.A. website indicates (under the heading of Writing Skills) that "Those seeking to prepare for legal education should develop a high degree of skill at written communication. . . . Legal education provides good training in writing, and particularly in the specific techniques and forms of written expression that are common in the law. Fundamental writing skills, however, should be acquired and refined before one enters law school. Those preparing for legal education should seek as many experiences as possible that will require rigorous and analytical writing, including preparing original pieces of substantial length and revising written work in response to constructive criticism." (Check out the full text of this document at http://www.abanet.org/legaled/prelaw/prep.html.) Again, we believe that our departmental programs are very strong in this area.

A campus-wide survey of the university's last two graduating classes supports these claims. The survey indicated that our English majors were much more likely than the average university student to indicate that their college education had made them "much stronger" in writing and critical thinking.