The wide career opportunities open to law graduates is evidenced by the fact that only about half the students who study law at British universities choose careers as practising lawyers. A legal education opens more doors than just the practice of law.
Many students from common law countries go to England and Wales to study law. Most of these students then go back to their country of origin to continue their professional training in chambers or by setting up their own practices. Their time spent in Britain often gives the students an advantage over fellow professionals at home because of the exposure to the English judiciary system. This helps to give students a greater appreciation of the workings of the system and the parts that ensure it's functioning. Recently over at some of my favorite websites geared to sports economists, an interesting discussion arose over whether or not and why a trained economist should spend his days studying sports. The biggest downside to the study of sports is that, apparently for an academic economist, the subject of sports economics veers dangerously close to career suicide. The upside? Here are the initial thoughts, posted by economist Justin Wolfers on the Marginal Revolution site. Although you can judge for yourself, Wolfers basically says sports is interesting, fun, culturally significant and produces lots of decision-points that are transparent and thus ripe for study. Other economist-bloggers have weighed in. See here, here and here .