Law and liberal arts is an interdisciplinary program designed for students interested in a broadly based liberal arts education that focuses on the law and can provide a solid preparation for law school. Because a number of philosophy courses count toward a major in law and liberal arts, pairing the two disciplines is a natural fit and double majoring can be easily accomplished. Furthermore, law and philosophy have a long history together that goes back thousands of years, and education in philosophy has traditionally been regarded as one of the best types of preparation for law school.

Related Skills
    Philosophy and the practice of law both depend heavily upon skills of critical thinking. Taking courses in philosophy will help improve your practical abilities of reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and communication.

    Studying philosophy will equip you with the mental tools for analyzing complicated problems, assessing competing claims, and discerning connections of logic and cause and effect.

    A national study found that students majoring in philosophy scored 10 percent better than political science majors—a popular choice of students preparing for law school—on the LSAT. In fact, philosophy majors received higher scores than students in any other humanities area, higher scores than all social and natural sciences majors except economics and mathematics, and higher scores than all 'applied' majors.

Theory and Practice
    Just as the profession of law involves the application of theoretical concepts and abstract principles to actual case situations, so too the focus of much contemporary philosophy is upon concrete problems faced by society. Many philosophical/ethical issues overlap legal issues: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, affirmative action, environmental protection, and so on. Just about every significant social problem of the present day brings interconnected philosophical and legal implications.

Philosophy Courses that Qualify Toward a Major in Law and Liberal Arts:

• PHIL 100: Introduction to Philosophy
• PHIL 101: Introduction to Critical Thinking
• PHIL 220: Ethical Issues in the Modern World
• PHIL 226: Business Ethics
• PHIL 301: Logic and Language
• PHIL 303: Knowledge and Understanding
• PHIL 333: Social and Political Thought
• PHIL 380: Philosophy of Law: Jurisprudence