This article discusses how an online economics degree is a great undergrad degree for aspiring lawyers. With an economics degree, future law students can take their studies into the edge because of both law and economics deal with behavioural psychology, intersecting principles, importance in money, and most importantly, its relevance and involvement in issues that the world faces… Read More »

This article discusses how an online economics degree is a great undergrad degree for aspiring lawyers. With an economics degree, future law students can take their studies into the edge because of both law and economics deal with behavioural psychology, intersecting principles, importance in money, and most importantly, its relevance and involvement in issues that the world faces today.

Introduction

To become a successful lawyer someday, you need to have the continuous yearning to learn and pursue your studies, such as going further with your undergraduate degree to step into law school. There are various undergraduate degree programs that you can take as a prerequisite, and the years you’ll be spending in these programs are crucial for your law school admission.

Among these degree programs, taking a bachelor’s degree in economics is a great option – either online or in a brick and mortar school. But, what exactly makes an online economics degree a great pre-law concentration? Here’s why:

Psychology Behind Thinking

For most people, economics might only revolve around money and businesses. However, what makes the discipline of economics an essential prerequisite for law school is their psychology behind human behaviour – how people’s actions and decisions impact the economy and law altogether.

The economy is run by different people with different behaviours and personalities. They also have varying approaches to problems existing in economic transactions. When people have deviating decision-making capabilities, even though they’re presented with the same items and problems, this can highly affect the entire economy, and how it differs from classical theories.

Finishing an economics degree can help you have a better grasp of this, compared to other degree programs, and use it as an important tool in figuring the implications of legal rules and laws in both rational and irrational decisions, and vice versa.

That being said, to further help your studies, while studying an economics degree, you can simultaneously enrol in online psychology courses.

Overlapping Principles

Law students with a solid background in economics have better possibilities at being good lawyers, because of how these two disciplines, law and economics, intersect with one another. For instance, an important principle in both law and economics that highly depends on one another is the arrangement of property rights via the patent law.

In economics, the arrangement of property rights revolves around the handling of resources in the most efficient way. Business entities and individuals are protected with rights under the patent law, by letting them market their products and services as a monopolist while undertaking research and development at the same time. In exchange, these business owners should also play their roles in the market and make sure to follow consumer rights, or they’ll be subjected under law punishments.

Basically, economics comes up with an analysis of how decisions are made despite existing law constraints. Punishments and laws are continuously created to prevent people from having irrational and inefficient behaviours, as judges wish to pursue societal welfare that’s beneficial for the people. These legal actions placed and regulated by lawmakers and professionals prioritize one certain goal – economic efficiency.

Importance of Money

Some might wonder, shouldn’t money matters be handled by accountants? Understanding the concepts of money and how it’s used in daily transactions are also deemed important by lawyers. When you have a weak foundation about the concept of money, you might find it difficult to understand the law.

The government has the greatest control when it comes to the creation and regulation of money. By money here, this isn’t equivalent to the ones you have on your wallet and bank account right now, but it represents the debt and funds that a nation currently holds.

As an economics major, you can easily solve problems with law violations and implementations once it comes into conflict with money.

Also, the importance of money in law arrives once crimes and controversy surrounding money happen. For example, small-scale family finances problems to bank robberies can be solved by lawyers with a background in economics.

Relevance and Involvement

In today’s world situation, economics and law play simultaneous roles to keep everything running smoothly. Inevitably, some issues that people face involve the intervention of law and economics.

Some economic issues relevant to society today, as witnessed in the economy of several countries, are:

  • Unequal economic development in first to third-world nations
  • Global economic inequality
  • Scarcity of non-renewable resources
  • Poverty, graft, and corruption
  • Climate change and global warming
  • Environment depletion
  • Inefficient regulation of financial markets

In order to solve these problems, people should be able to understand how these issues relate to the real situation. Thus, solving it requires going back to where it started: law and economics per se.

Conclusion

In preparing for law school, professionals recommend various specializations and concentrations that’ll help aspiring law students in pursuing their later studies. However, these degree programs don’t offer equal advantages once students step into law school, despite their extreme relevance.

With an economics degree, future law students can take their studies into the edge because of both law and economics deal with behavioural psychology, intersecting principles, importance in money, and most importantly, its relevance and involvement in issues that the world faces today.

Updated On 18 March 2020 11:59 PM GMT
Mayank Shekhar

Mayank Shekhar

Mayank is an alumnus of the prestigious Faculty of Law, Delhi University. Under his leadership, Legal Bites has been researching and developing resources through blogging, educational resources, competitions, and seminars.

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