The most common undergraduate background among American law students, giving future judges early grounding in constitutions, legislatures and the institutions their rulings will constrain.
Pay78
Resists AI90
Barrier to entry88
A Political Science / Government background connects to 2 professions on this site, ranked by pay. Each card explains why the major still matters for that job.
Where it leads
Political science remains the single most common undergraduate major among US law-school applicants, valued for training in institutions, argument and the structure of government that overlaps heavily with constitutional and administrative law.
Pay74
Resists AI58
Barrier to entry85
Where this major is taught
École nationale de la magistrature
FranceThe state school in Bordeaux that trains virtually every French judge and prosecutor; entry by concours of a few hundred places a year, trainees salaried for 31 months.
Harvard Law School
United StatesHas educated more US Supreme Court justices than any other school; its JD and LLM programs are a global common-law credential.
University of Oxford, Faculty of Law
United KingdomWith Cambridge, the traditional nursery of England's senior bench; its BCL graduate degree is the common-law world's most storied advanced law qualification.
University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law
JapanThe dominant feeder of Japan's judiciary and elite ministries; graduates proceed through the bar exam to the Supreme Court's Legal Training and Research Institute.
National Law School of India University
IndiaBangalore's NLSIU, founded 1987, tops India's law-school rankings; admission is through CLAT, taken by tens of thousands for a few hundred seats.
Heidelberg University, Faculty of Law
GermanyGermany's oldest university and one of its most respected law faculties, preparing students for the state examinations that gate the German bench.
Leiden Law School
NetherlandsA center of international and European law an hour from The Hague's tribunals; a common credential among international-court judges and staff.
Seoul National University School of Law
South KoreaKorea's most selective law school since the 2009 shift to US-style graduate legal education; the historical training ground of the country's senior judiciary.
University of Oxford (Faculty of Law)
United KingdomOne of the world's oldest common-law faculties, teaching the standard English three-year undergraduate LLB route directly into the profession, and producing generations of barristers, judges and politicians.
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
FranceOne of France's leading law faculties, teaching within the civil-law tradition descended directly from the Napoleonic Code of 1804, which itself drew on the Roman law codified in Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis.
National Law School of India University (NLSIU)
IndiaIndia's first National Law University, founded in Bangalore in 1987, pioneered the five-year integrated BA LLB degree and the national CLAT entrance exam now used across India's other national law schools.
University of Tokyo (Faculty of Law)
JapanHistorically the most direct pipeline into Japan's senior judiciary, prosecution service and central bureaucracy, reflecting a system where the toughest entrance exam in the country still shapes elite legal and civil-service careers.
Credentials on this path
Judicial Appointments Commission selection
England & WalesSince the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, judges are chosen by an independent commission through open competition — application, qualifying tests, references and panel interviews — ending three centuries of appointment by the Lord Chancellor's private soundings.
Article III nomination and Senate confirmation
United States (federal)Federal judges are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lifetime appointments. There is no exam and no formal qualification beyond the politics of confirmation — unique among major systems, and the reason US confirmation hearings are televised battles.
Concours and diploma of the ENM
FranceEntry to the French magistrature runs through the École nationale de la magistrature's competitive examinations, followed by 31 months of salaried training and a ranked graduation that determines the first posting. Judges and prosecutors qualify together as magistrats.
Bar examination and the Legal Training and Research Institute
JapanWould-be judges pass the national bar examination, complete the Supreme Court's own institute in Wako, and are then selected as assistant judges — a ten-year apprenticeship on the bench before full judgeship, inside one of the world's most centrally managed judiciaries.
Uniform Bar Exam (UBE)
United StatesAdministered by individual state bar authorities using a standardized format from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, the UBE lets a passing score transfer between the roughly 40 states that have adopted it, replacing older exams unique to each state; a newer 'NextGen' bar exam began phasing in from 2026.
Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE)
England & WalesIntroduced by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in September 2021, the two-stage SQE replaced the older Legal Practice Course as the standard assessed route to qualifying as a solicitor, alongside two years of supervised 'qualifying work experience.'
Bar Course and Call to the Bar
England & WalesAspiring barristers must pass a separate Bar Course, complete a year of pupillage under a practicing barrister, and be formally called to the Bar by one of the four Inns of Court — a parallel, distinct qualification track from the solicitor route.
All India Bar Examination (AIBE)
IndiaAdministered by the Bar Council of India since 2010, the AIBE is a mandatory open-book exam that every law graduate must pass after enrolling with a State Bar Council before being certified to actually practice.