40 Questions to Ask Lawyers as a Student (With Tips)

Lawyers are easy to talk to. That sounds like a small thing, but it is the whole reason this is worth doing. A judge has rules that stop them from saying much. A lawyer can tell you almost anything about the job, and most of them are happy to, because someone did the same for them once.

The catch is that you usually get twenty minutes, and most students burn it on questions they could have answered with a search.

The questions to ask lawyers as a student are the ones no search can answer: what the job feels like on a Tuesday, what it cost them to get there, and whether they would do it again.

So here are 40 questions to ask lawyers as a student, sorted by what you are trying to find out, with a line on why each one works.

Plus the one thing a lawyer is not allowed to tell you, which is worth knowing before you ask for it.

The one thing a lawyer cannot tell you

Every lawyer in the United States is bound by a confidentiality rule. The American Bar Association's Model Rule 1.6 says a lawyer must not reveal information relating to the representation of a client without that client's informed consent.

And it is broader than most people assume. It covers everything relating to the case, not just the secrets the client whispered.

So the question every student wants to ask, some version of "what is the wildest case you ever had," is the one question that gets a shrug. Not because they are being cagey. Because they would be breaking a rule.

The fix is simple. Ask about the work, not the client.

What you were going to ask	Ask this instead
What is the craziest case you have worked on?	What kind of case teaches you the most, and why?
Tell me about a client who lied to you.	How do you handle it when you do not have the full story?
Did your client do it?	How do you defend someone when the facts look bad?
Can you look at my family's situation?	If someone in my position needed help, how would they find the right lawyer?

One more thing to leave alone: do not ask for free legal advice about your own problem. It puts them in an awkward spot, and it is the fastest way to end a friendly conversation.

Where to find a lawyer who will talk to you

This is easier than students think. Lawyers are used to being asked, and a short, polite email works more often than you would guess.

Someone you already know. A family friend, a friend's parent, an alum from your school. Start here, because the reply rate is close to 100 percent.
Your school. Pre-law societies, career days, and alumni networks exist to make this exact introduction. Ask your advisor who has said yes before.
Your local bar association. Many run mentorship programs and student events, and they keep lists of lawyers who volunteer for them.
A cold email on LinkedIn. Short, specific, and asking for twenty minutes. Say what you are studying, say why you picked them, and ask one clear question. Do not attach a resume.
The courthouse. Public defenders and legal aid lawyers are in and out of court all day and are often the most candid people you will meet about what the job costs.

If you want to see the other side of the courtroom too, we have a companion list of questions to ask a judge as a student. The rules there are stricter, and it is worth knowing them before you walk in.

Three numbers to know before you open your mouth

You do not have to be an expert. But if you walk in knowing these three things, your questions land like someone who did the reading, and the conversation changes.

Lawyer pay is not one number, it is two. The National Association for Law Placement publishes a salary distribution curve with two humps. More than half of reported starting salaries sit between $55,000 and $100,000. Another cluster, around 19 percent, sits at $225,000. Almost nobody earns the average. Ask which hump their world lives in.
Billable hours are not working hours. Yale Law School's career office has done the math in a handout called The Truth About the Billable Hour: to bill 1,800 hours in a year, an associate works closer to 2,430. The gap is the reading, the email, and the time you cannot charge to anyone. This is the single most useful thing to understand about firm life.
Law school costs about as much as a house deposit. The American Bar Association puts average law school debt around $130,000. Ask how they paid for it, and whether it shaped the job they took.

Questions about how they got here

Start here. It is the easiest thing for anyone to talk about, and it warms up the room.

Why law, and not something else? The opener. It gets a story instead of a job description, and stories are what you will remember.
What did you think this job was before you started, and what is it really? The best question on this list. Everyone has an answer, and it is always more honest than the brochure.
How did you pick your practice area? Most lawyers will tell you they fell into it. That itself is the lesson.
What was your first year like? Ask this and watch their face. The first year in law is a rite of passage and people rarely sugarcoat it.
Did you take the traditional route, or a strange one? Career changers, paralegals who went back to school, people who practiced for a decade before switching fields. The strange routes are more common than the tidy ones.
What would you do differently if you started again? This is the regret question, asked politely. You will learn more from the answer than from any list of tips.
Who helped you early on, and how did you find them? You are asking how mentorship works, while sitting in front of a potential mentor. That is not an accident.
What is the best career decision you made? Balances out the regret question, and usually surfaces something specific you can copy.
Was there a moment you nearly quit? A big question, so save it for when the conversation is already warm. It almost always gets a real answer.
Would you tell a student today to go to law school? Ask it straight. The hesitation before the answer tells you as much as the answer.

Questions about what the job is really like

Court on television is a closing argument. Court in real life is paperwork, phone calls, and negotiation. This is the section that shows you the difference.

Walk me through yesterday. Not "a typical day," which gets you a rehearsed answer. Yesterday. Specific, real, and impossible to fake.
How much of your week is spent in a courtroom? For most lawyers the honest answer is very little, and that surprises students more than anything else.
How much of the job is writing? A lot of it. If you hate writing, this is the moment to find that out, not in your second year of law school.
What does a case look like when it is going badly? Asks about pressure without asking about any client. Fair game under the confidentiality rule.
How do you deal with a difficult client? General enough to be answerable, specific enough to be interesting.
What part of the job would you happily never do again? Everyone has one. Document review, billing, chasing invoices, dealing with opposing counsel who will not answer the phone.
What does the stress feel like day to day? The profession has a real mental health problem and most lawyers know it. Ask kindly, and listen.
How do you switch off? A softer way into the same subject. It also tells you whether they can.
What skill do you use every day that you never expected? Usually the answer is negotiation, or plain writing, or managing people. Rarely anything they taught in law school.
What makes a good lawyer, as opposed to a smart one? The gap between those two words is where the whole profession lives.

Questions about law school and getting in

If law school is the plan, this is the practical section. For the parts they cannot cover in twenty minutes, our guides to pre-law schools, law schools in the US, and the best books for law students fill in the gaps.

Does the school you went to still matter, ten years in? You will get different answers from big firm lawyers and everyone else. Both answers are true, in their world.
What mattered most on your application? Not what you think. Ask what got them in, and what they think would get you in now.
How much did your grades matter after your first job? The honest answer is usually "not at all after the first job, and enormously before it."
What did you do in law school that paid off? Clinics, journals, internships, moot court, or a part-time job. Ask which one earned its time.
What was a waste of time? Just as useful, and much less often asked.
How did you pay for it? Loans, scholarship, working, family. This is a money question wearing a school question's clothes, and it is the one students avoid asking.
What is the bar exam really like? Nobody enjoys it. Ask how they studied, and how long they gave themselves.
Should I work before law school, or go straight through? A live debate, and the answer usually depends on what they did themselves.
What do first-year associates get wrong? You are asking your future boss to describe your future mistakes in advance. Take notes.
What should I be doing right now, at my stage? The one question that converts advice into a next step. Ask it before you run out of time.

Questions about money and the business of law

Students almost never ask these, and then they are surprised by the answers five years later. Be polite, be direct, and nobody will mind.

It helps to look up the current numbers first. The Bureau of Labor Statistics profile for lawyers keeps median pay and job outlook up to date, so you can ask about their world instead of asking them to recite a statistic.

How do you get paid, and who decides what you are worth? Salary, hourly billing, contingency, public sector pay scale. The model shapes the entire job.
What is the billable hour target where you work, and do people hit it? The number they say and the number people work are two different numbers. Ask for both.
Do you have to bring in clients, and when does that start? The thing nobody warns you about. At some point being a lawyer becomes being a salesperson.
Is the money worth the hours? Blunt. Ask it kindly and you will get an honest answer, which is worth more than any salary chart.
What do lawyers do when they leave law? A huge number of them do leave. Where they go is a map of what the degree is worth.

Questions about where the job is going

This is the section that makes you sound like you are thinking about the next ten years and not just the next exam.

What has AI changed about your work so far? Ask for specifics. Research, first drafts, document review. Then ask what it has not touched.
Are firms still hiring as many juniors? Entry-level legal work is exactly the work software is coming for. Ask what that means for someone starting now.
What happens when a lawyer files something a chatbot made up? In 2023 a New York federal judge fined two lawyers and their firm $5,000 for a brief citing six cases that did not exist. Courts are still handing out penalties for it, so this is a live question, not a hypothetical.
What kind of law will still need a human in twenty years? You are asking them to bet on your future. Most of them will enjoy the question.
If you were starting today, what would you specialize in? The single best closing question in this section, because it gives you a direction to research tonight.

Questions to skip

These waste the slot:

Anything you can search. What is the LSAT, how long is law school, what does a paralegal do. Do not spend a person on a search engine question.
Anything about a client. Rule 1.6. They will not answer, and you will look like you did not prepare.
Free legal advice. For your parking ticket, your landlord, your cousin. Not the moment.
"Any advice?" Too big to answer. Every question on this list is a better version of it.

How to run the conversation

Ask for twenty minutes, not "a chat." A bounded ask gets said yes to. Then finish on time, even if they are enjoying it.
Send five questions in advance if they offer. Some lawyers will prepare. Most will not. Either way it makes you look serious.
Take notes by hand, and say you are doing it. People talk more freely when they can see you care about the answer.
Ask the "what should I do right now" question before you run out of time. It is the one that turns a nice conversation into a next step.
Send a thank-you email within two days. Mention one specific thing they said. If they gave you a book, a name, or a suggestion, tell them what you did with it.
Then do the thing. And write back a month later to say what happened. That is how a stranger becomes a mentor.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best question to ask a lawyer as a student?

"What did you think this job was before you started, and what is it really?" It works with every lawyer, in every field, at every stage of a career, and it gets you an honest answer instead of a polished one.

Is it rude to ask a lawyer how much they earn?

Asking for their exact salary is awkward. Asking how pay works in their field is not, and it gets you the more useful answer anyway. Ask about the model, the billable target, and whether the money is worth the hours.

Can a lawyer tell me about their cases?

Only in general terms. Confidentiality covers everything relating to a client's matter, not just the confidential parts. They can talk freely about the kind of work, the pressure, and the process, which is what you wanted anyway.

How do I email a lawyer I have never met?

Three short paragraphs. Who you are and what you are studying. Why you picked them, with something specific. Then a clear ask: twenty minutes, on a call or in person, at their convenience. Do not attach anything.

How many questions should I bring?

Five or six, in the order you care about. Forty is a menu, not a plan. A good answer takes five minutes, and the best conversations go somewhere you did not plan for.

If the answers push you toward law school, the next question is what it costs. We broke down the most affordable law schools in California, including the state-accredited ones that cost a third as much and the bar pass gap that comes with them.

40 Questions to Ask Lawyers as a Student (And the One They Cannot Answer)