Law is the way society regulates its behavior. The intent of law is to create rules of conduct that are widely understood and respected throughout the jurisdiction in which they were written and to create normalized processes for adjudicating disputes. Individuals and companies hire professional lawyers to help them understand it and follow the procedures it defines.

To practice law, you must pass the bar exam in the state in which you want to practice. Almost all lawyers earn their degree after three years (five years after XII) of law school, and then take the bar exam in the state in which they wish to practice. In general, the better the law school you graduate from, and the higher your class rank, the better your job prospects once you graduate.

Most of what lawyers do is research and paperwork. They read about legal precedents, spending hours or months in law libraries or with online databases. They prepare contracts, briefs, and other documents, assembling boilerplate paragraphs or writing text from scratch. They plan and conduct depositions, which in complicated cases can generate thousands of pages of testimony, all of which has to be read, analyzed, and refined into usable information.