Law

Types of Degrees Law Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many law graduations there were in 2020-2021 for each degree level.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Doctor’s Degree	36,216

What Law Majors Need to Know

O*NET surveyed people in occupations related to law and asked them what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. The responses were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most important.

Knowledge Areas for Law Majors

According to O*NET survey takers, a major in law should prepare you for careers in which you will need to be knowledgeable in the following areas:

• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.

Skills for Law Majors

When studying law, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

Abilities for Law Majors

Some of the most crucial abilities to master while a law student include the following:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

What Can You Do With a Law Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with law:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers	3.9%	$99,850
Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators	11.5%	$62,270
Judges, Magistrate Judges, and Magistrates	5.6%	$133,920
Judicial Law Clerks	5.7%	$53,540
Law Professors	12.3%	$111,140
Lawyers	8.2%	$120,910

How Much Do Law Majors Make?

Master’s Degree Starting Salary

According to 2019-2020 data from the U.S. Department of Education, students who graduated with a master’s degree in law have a median salary of $43,574 during the early years of their career. During this timeframe, most salaries fell between $32,844 (25th percentile) and $46,326 (75th percentile).

We don’t know for sure if all of these people took jobs related to law so take that into consideration.

Salaries According to BLS

Law majors often go into careers where salaries can range from $72,760 to $130,710 (25th to 75th percentile). This range includes all degree levels, so you may expect those with a more advanced degree to make more while those with less advanced degrees will typically make less.

To put that into context, according to BLS data from the first quarter of 2020, the typical high school graduate makes between $30,000 and $57,900 a year (25th through 75th percentile). The average person with a bachelor’s degree (any field) makes between $45,600 and $99,000. Advanced degree holders make the most with salaries between $55,600 and $125,400.

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Law

Some degrees associated with law may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

Find out what the typical degree level is for law careers below.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	1.2%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	7.2%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	1.0%
Some College Courses	2.9%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	0.4%
Bachelor’s Degree	6.1%
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Baccalaureate degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees carrying the title of Master.	5.7%
Master’s Degree	4.4%
Post-Master’s Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master’s degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.	2.2%
First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.	28.8%
Doctoral Degree	36.7%
Post-Doctoral Training	2.0%

Online Law Programs

In the 2020-2021 academic year, 211 schools offered some type of law program. The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	0	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	0	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	11	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	211	6
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Is a Degree in Law Worth It?

The median salary for a law grad is $101,210 per year. This is based on the weighted average of the most common careers associated with the major.

This is 154% more than the average salary for an individual holding a high school degree. This adds up to a gain of about $1,226,200 after 20 years!

Majors Related to Law

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to law.

Major	Number of Grads
Legal Research	6,659
Legal Professions (Other)	1,424
Legal Support Services	446
Non-Professional General Legal Studies	444

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020

More about our data sources and methodologies.