In a nutshell, a legal education is simply the education of individuals who intend to become attorneys and judges or some other legal professional. It is also pursued by those who intend to use a law degree towards some end, such as a career in politics or the academe, or another end which has no relation to law, such as business entrepreneurship..

A legal education covers both academic and vocational studies. A main requirement is for students to acquire an academic grounding in the legal system of their jurisdiction before they can obtain a law degree. For many, this is the hardest part of pursuing law as it entails endless hours of study and analysis, which is not a natural inclination of many students.

Before they can practice as lawyers, law students are required to demonstrate that they have learned professional skills such as advocacy and analysis. For instance, in many countries, law is an undergraduate degree and graduates of such a program can only become lawyers by passing the country's equivalent of a bar exam. There are post-graduate programs available to help students specialize in a particular area of law.

In contrast, law is a graduate degree in the United States which students can only undertake after completing an undergraduate degree is some other field, whether related to law or not. Most American lawyers hold bachelor's degrees in the humanities and social sciences. In many cases, law schools are an autonomous entity within a larger university.

Meanwhile, in Canada and other Commonwealth countries as well as in many other places around the world, a law school is referred to as a faculty of law, which is distinguished from a law school in the sense that a faculty is a subdivision of a university and is on the same rank with other faculties.. Also, in other countries, the final stages of a vocational legal education required to qualify to practice law are carried out outside the university system.