Many people who hate numbers but want to try their hand at an intellectual profession that has a high income earning potential naturally gravitate toward law. It’s true that one’s chances of gaining entry to a Bachelor of Laws or Juris Doctor is not hindered by a lack of math or science subjects in high school, since only English is a prerequisite in Australia.
However, getting entry to university is just the first step in a long and competitive process. The next step is to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other graduates and get offered a position in a law firm. And one way to do that is to show depth of knowledge since there are now very specialised legal jobs also utilising science, math and even medicine.
Suppose that you want to practice in commercial law. An understanding of contracts and corporate law is mandatory of course, but if your goal is to work as counsel for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or as a lawyer for another government agency, there are many situations where understanding economics and accounting can be useful too. In these agencies, a dual Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Laws qualification can be an advantage because many cases that go to trial require an understanding of how businesses function in a market economy.
Or perhaps you have an interest in criminal law. Well it is understood that one needs knowledge of all the applicable legislation and cases to be a good criminal lawyer, but think about how handy it would be to understand forensic science too. In many criminal cases, conviction or acquittal turns on the expert evidence regarding DNA, so imagine the outcomes you could achieve for your clients if you could rigorously cross-examine witnesses armed with knowledge of biology and chemistry!
Consider also the field of tort law. In particular, if you are interested in working as a medical malpractice lawyer there is an obvious advantage in knowing about medicine, since you could then make better arguments in court about how doctors were or were not negligent when discharging their duty of care to patients.
These are just a few examples of how undergoing a broad-based curriculum can pay benefits later. Even if you don’t go on to do a full-fledged degree in math, commerce, science or medicine at university, having a basic understanding from Year 12 will at least allow you to grasp the technical concepts from other fields that you will inevitably encounter when practicing as a solicitor or barrister. It can also sharpen your thinking by helping improve the logical reasoning skills that are also required for legal careers.
So, my humble suggestion is as follows: don’t make the mistake of narrowing your career path by dropping math or science completely. When choosing high school subjects, do keep your options open, because it’s far too difficult to predict three years in advance (the average length of a degree course) exactly which industries will be in demand when you graduate.
The Law Classroom 