Aspie = good lawyer?

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i considered law as well. but i think it reqires some people skills, which i do not posses. so much is open to interpretation and manipulation - i would not be successful at that. the law interests me, and even the procedures around litigation and criminal prosecution (i've thought about radomly sitting in on cases at the law courts), but i could not handle the fuzziness around actual application of the law.

Definetely! Especially if you can lack emotion while publicly speaking, but be charismatic.

I wouldn't want to become lawer. One reason is I would have to deal with the police and strangers. No thanks!

Get to know what kind of people become lawyers and are in law school... not my type of people. Same as business school. Usually very extroverted A types, cutthroat about getting top grades, etc.

Ever since I was three or four or whenever I started talking, my parents said I should have been a lawer when I grew up because I would "argue with a dead man".

I would have loved to have been a lawyer, but there weren't any schools around here at the time. I went to court and argued before the judge without a lawyer twice now. One case I easily won. The other I lost, but I was against an entire law firm. There was me on my side of the courtroom and three highly experienced lawyers on the other. One was a primary partner in the law firm. Not to mention all their minions behind the scenes. Even still, after the trial the primary partner was very impressed with me and practically offered me a job, but I had to refuse on the grounds that I didn't have a law degree.

I've thought about going to law school, but I'm just worried I won't be able to find a job when I get out. After all, I can't find a job with my master's degree.

I'm a lawyer and I have AS -- I do solely research and drafting, and I do not have to go into court ever, so its works great. I am very good at my job, I am sure because of the AS attention to detail and ability to focus. I'd recommend it to other persons on the spectrum, but agree that finding a job is hard, especially if you are like me, and received dismal grades in law school for nonattendance (I frequently skipped class to research my special interests).

Tlaltecutli: It's always those darned "special interests," isn't it? My degrees are in music, and I probably should have done WAY better in theory, Form and Analysis, and so on, but I just couldn't get past how boring common practice music is to me.

But grad school in composition? Oh yeah... Nothing like grad school to pursue a "special interest" and actually get a degree in the special interest. As long as special interests don't interfere with the main interest. I was in a place where I didn't have to get distracted.

I'm not a lawyer, but my wife is a paralegal and is the TRUE boss at her law firm. I love debating law with her because she is so smart. She works almost exclusively in bankruptcy while her coworker handles Social Security and divorces. If you're an aspie and law looks good, I'd recommend trying out something like this before actually applying to law school. Work your tail off learning procedure, and insist on going to court with the lawyer. My wife is REQUIRED to attend 341 Hearings in federal bankruptcy court and the bankruptcy cases she handles go like clockwork. Lawyers RARELY take paralegals to court proceedings, but if you have a paralegal who pays attention and takes notes, objections can be handled IMMEDIATELY after hearings and you won't have to worry about whether a case is going to get dismissed on a technicality. You also get to network with other lawyers and get a lot of inside information which, as a paralegal, puts you WAY ahead of the game.

Keep this up for 3-5 years and THEN apply for law school. Most lawyers don't care whether you have a degree in paralegal studies, but it does help. My wife's degree is in psychology. Seriously, the lawyers generally don't care and are just glad sometimes to get someone who knows how to take dictation and type. Once you get IN law school, you'll already have a good feel for legal procedure and you won't struggle quite as much as some might, not to mention real-world experience in applying legal concepts--court procedure changes all the time, so you can't really go "by the books." Given that I've also known some lawyers who are complete imbeciles, ESPECIALLY bankruptcy lawyers who represent creditors, of all people, getting a law degree can't really be THAT hard (though I don't doubt a lot of work goes into it). But even something as "simple" as family law can be a really interesting way to make a career (as long as you understand there's not much money in it!! !).

Great advice, AngelRho -- paralegals often are extremely knowledgeable and are invaluable to the firms the work for.

Stare decisis is the rule which holds that where legal question has been answered before in binding precedent, the court is bound to follow the prior decision of the same or a higher court.

Where a legal issue has not been decided before in your jurisdiction, the court looks to persuasive authority from other jurisdictions to decide this "issue of first impression" for the first time.

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