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Championing Legal Rights  

Prepare for grad school and take the first steps to becoming a lawyer with a degree from Hardin-Simmons. As a lawyer, you’ll advocate for justice and legal rights, represent clients in court, provide legal counsel, and negotiate settlements, all as a part of your day-to-day career. Your expertise and dedication will ensure that justice is served and that your clients are well-represented in their legal affairs. 

What to Expect

150k

$151,160 Median Annual Salary

Average

New job opportunities are likely in the future.

N/A

No Data Found.

What you Should Know

  • 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, and 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.
  • Administrative: Knowledge of administrative and office procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and workplace terminology.
  • Computers and Electronics: Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
  • Communications and Media: Knowledge of media production, communication, and dissemination techniques and methods. This includes alternative ways to inform and entertain via written, oral, and visual media.
  • 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.
  • Education and Training: Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  • Personnel and Human Resources: Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
  • Public Safety and Security: Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
  • Mathematics: Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
  • Psychology: Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
  • Economics and Accounting: Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
  • Sociology and Anthropology: Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures, and their history and origins.
  • Sales and Marketing: Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
  • Telecommunications: Knowledge of transmission, broadcasting, switching, control, and operation of telecommunications systems.
  • Therapy and Counseling: Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
  • History and Archeology: Knowledge of historical events and their causes, indicators, and effects on civilizations and cultures.
  • Production and Processing: Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
  • Geography: Knowledge of principles and methods for describing the features of land, sea, and air masses, including their physical characteristics, locations, interrelationships, and distribution of plant, animal, and human life.
  • Philosophy and Theology: Knowledge of different philosophical systems and religions. This includes their basic principles, values, ethics, ways of thinking, customs, practices, and their impact on human culture.
  • Transportation: Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
  • Foreign Language: Knowledge of the structure and content of a foreign (non-English) language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition and grammar, and pronunciation.
  • Medicine and Dentistry: Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
  • Engineering and Technology: Knowledge of the practical application of engineering science and technology. This includes applying principles, techniques, procedures, and equipment to the design and production of various goods and services.
  • Chemistry: Knowledge of the chemical composition, structure, and properties of substances and of the chemical processes and transformations that they undergo. This includes uses of chemicals and their interactions, danger signs, production techniques, and disposal methods.
  • Fine Arts: Knowledge of the theory and techniques required to compose, produce, and perform works of music, dance, visual arts, drama, and sculpture.
  • Biology: Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
  • Building and Construction: Knowledge of materials, methods, and the tools involved in the construction or repair of houses, buildings, or other structures such as highways and roads.
  • Design: Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
  • Mechanical: Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
  • Food Production: Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
  • Physics: Knowledge and prediction of physical principles, laws, their interrelationships, and applications to understanding fluid, material, and atmospheric dynamics, and mechanical, electrical, atomic and sub-atomic structures and processes.

Programs Related to this Career

Criminal Justice Degree

BA, BBS, BS

Political Science Minor

Minor

English Degree

BA

Master of Science in Criminal Justice

MS

Your Day to Day

  • Interpret laws, rulings and regulations for individuals and businesses.
  • Analyze the probable outcomes of cases, using knowledge of legal precedents.
  • Gather evidence to formulate defense or to initiate legal actions by such means as interviewing clients and witnesses to ascertain the facts of a case.
  • Represent clients in court or before government agencies.
  • Evaluate findings and develop strategies and arguments in preparation for presentation of cases.
  • Advise clients concerning business transactions, claim liability, advisability of prosecuting or defending lawsuits, or legal rights and obligations.
  • Examine legal data to determine advisability of defending or prosecuting lawsuit.
  • Prepare, draft, and review legal documents, such as wills, deeds, patent applications, mortgages, leases, and contracts.
  • Study Constitution, statutes, decisions, regulations, and ordinances of quasi-judicial bodies to determine ramifications for cases.
  • Negotiate settlements of civil disputes.
  • Supervise legal assistants.
  • Negotiate contractual agreements.
  • Confer with colleagues with specialties in appropriate areas of legal issue to establish and verify bases for legal proceedings.
  • Search for and examine public and other legal records to write opinions or establish ownership.
  • Perform administrative and management functions related to the practice of law.
  • Present and summarize cases to judges and juries.
  • Select jurors, argue motions, meet with judges, and question witnesses during the course of a trial.
  • Present evidence to defend clients or prosecute defendants in criminal or civil litigation.
  • Probate wills and represent and advise executors and administrators of estates.
  • Prepare legal briefs and opinions, and file appeals in state and federal courts of appeal.
  • Act as agent, trustee, guardian, or executor for businesses or individuals.
  • Help develop federal and state programs, draft and interpret laws and legislation, and establish enforcement procedures.

Helpful Skills & Abilities

  • Speaking: Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • 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.
  • Writing: Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
  • Complex Problem Solving: Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Judgment and Decision Making: Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Negotiation: Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
  • Persuasion: Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
  • Active Learning: Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Social Perceptiveness: Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
  • Time Management: Managing one’s own time and the time of others.
  • Coordination: Adjusting actions in relation to others’ actions.
  • Monitoring: Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Systems Analysis: Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
  • Instructing: Teaching others how to do something.
  • Learning Strategies: Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
  • Service Orientation: Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Systems Evaluation: Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
  • Management of Personnel Resources: Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
  • Operations Analysis: Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
  • Management of Financial Resources: Determining how money will be spent to get the work done, and accounting for these expenditures.
  • Management of Material Resources: Obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
  • Mathematics: Using mathematics to solve problems.
  • Programming: Writing computer programs for various purposes.
  • Science: Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
  • Technology Design: Generating or adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs.
  • Operations Monitoring: Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
  • Equipment Maintenance: Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
  • Equipment Selection: Determining the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job.
  • Installation: Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or programs to meet specifications.
  • Operation and Control: Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
  • Quality Control Analysis: Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
  • Repairing: Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
  • Troubleshooting: Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
  • 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.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • 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).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without “giving out” or fatiguing.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one’s side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.

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