English & Pre-Law
Law is one of the most established career pathways from Stony Brook’s English major; our alumni report that the skills they develop in research, analytical reading, writing and argumentation prepare them for success in law school and beyond. According to the Law School Admissions Council, English is the most popular humanities major among applicants, with a 76.3% admission rate.
The skills developed through the English major – close reading analysis, textual interpretation, evidence-based argumentation, research, and written and oral presentation – are all specifically germane to the study and practice of law. English majors learn the art of narrative: facts matter, but they are understood through stories. “As a lawyer my background in Literature made me see each case as a story where I could have an influence on the ending,” explains Louis G Adolfsen, Esq (BA ‘71). Amanda Korber, Esq (BA ‘09, Harvard Law ‘12) describes the value of the English major as follows: “So much of my day is researching, writing, trying to make persuasive arguments— whether it’s for court or for policy-making— about why they should do something that would be good for the tenants of the District of Columbia. That is a very practical skill that I really developed as an English honors student taking classes, writing papers, doing research, writing a thesis. Then there’s the less tangible— which is almost more important in some ways— which is just the motivation for doing the work that I do. There are many reasons why I’ve always wanted to work towards a more racially just and less totalist society, but…it was really through literature that I started thinking more in depth about how much wrong we have to right, how much I can do everyday to try and change that.”
Law and Literature is an established subfield in English studies. Its complementary premises are that a) Literature is a means to think through legal issues and their social implications and b) legal texts, like fiction and poetry, are fruitful objects for interpretive analysis.