First, ace your undergrad classes; and include courses in Statistics and also in Accounting. And be ready to join 10 million lawyers...

If you are thinking about going to law school, make sure you have a really good reason for it. You should want to be a lawyer. Don't go to wait out the recession or to give yourself some extra lines on your resume unless you have a huge pile of cash sitting around with nothing to do with it. You are about to take on 50-200k in debt (basically buying a house, without the house) at a time when lawyers are getting laid off by the truckload and even ivy league grads are struggling to find work.

If you already have a law job lined up through a friend or family member, or you know you want to work in your home town, go to the local law school. It will be much cheaper and it won't impact your job. If you want to go to NYC/DC or some other big city, go to a tier 1 school or don't waste your money and time.

Just what the world needs...ANOTHER lawyer.

Seriously, do something else with your life while you have the option.

I went to Ohio State law 20 years ago, love practicing and do not regret it at all. It is my life now. However, much of the above is true, and the job market is not great for graduates. You have to really want to do this now .... orangefarm is pretty much correct in what he says

Also, being a lawyer does not mean you will have a job as depicted in movies and television. In all likelihood, you will not be making a lot of money. A lawyer's life can be rewarding and provide significant income but to many these two things are mutually exclusive in this field. It is true though that you are competing against an overwhelming number of lawyers. The number of lawyers outnumbers the number of law jobs and is slowly overrunning similar jobs with no JD requirement. The debt taken on to become a lawyer may not make much economic sense for you when you factor in the rate of return being low.

Depending on your interests there are similar fields with less competition and a lot less cost. I suggest you research those while you are a sophomore.

If you decide to pursue law, the information you require on law school rankings and such are available through LSAC and US News. Political leanings of schools tend to be irrelevant unless you personally are specifically biased. More pertinent information is the ranking of the school and the state in which it is located. Both determine what you can do with the degree.

Anyone who tells you how awesome law is inevitably graduated 20+ years ago when law school was 20+ times cheaper than it now is.

Thanks for the responses! I suppose it is a rather tough market for law school grads these days. Like I said, right now I'm just thinking about it, I don't have a deep-seated need to be a lawyer or anything like that. Actually, coming into college I was pretty set on wanting to get an education to prepare me for seminary and the ministry. And that's still something I'm heavily considering doing. But I felt that studying law could be a way to influence the world in a positive way, much as studying ministry. I want my undergrad education to be about forming myself and asking good questions and thinking well about the moral/ethical/metaphysical dilemmas of our day and graduate education to prepare me to make a difference in the world.

I suppose that sounds kind of naive, but it is what it is.

@ Tiderion ~ I would be interested to here what you think those kind of similar fields would be.