As August winds to a close, the September 30 LSAT exam and its deadlines are fast approaching.

If you've been doing much research into law school I hope you know what I'm about to say. But for those of you just starting out on your journey to law school, I don't know how I can be anymore clear other than to say that the LSAT means everything as far as getting into law school.

It alone can make or break you in terms of getting accepted to law school. A high score can mask a low GPA and still get you into great schools. A low score can make it as if a sparkling resume and great undergrad GPA never occured. Take the LSAT mores seriously than any test you have taken in your life.

University of Buffalo Pre-Law Advising Blog has a nice post that points out the different study methods for the LSAT and resources for each. I was a self-study guy, but that's just my personality (I'd rather do it on my own, especially if it saves money).

Don't be afraid to take courses or use a tutor to get your test score up. You'll be spending a ton of money on law school and there's no reason not to spend just as much trying to get into the best law school you can.

Lawschoolnumbers.com
Every LSAT post from here out is going to include this link to lawschoolnumbers.com. CALI has no affiliation with the folks at LSN but I just think it's a great tool.

At LSN thousands of law school applicants post their undergrad GPA, LSAT scores, etc, as well as to what law schools they have applied. I suggest you do the same, anonymously if you like.

It's a nice way to benchmark your target schools and see what types of applicants those schools are accepting. I used it religiously during my application process.

You may remember this post from a while back that collected some of the advice around the blogosphere. I'm posting one more link to this advice from Spencer Overton of blackprof.com separately because it deserves it. Read more below...

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Another great reader submitted question today:

• I've heard the Blue Book and ALWD Citation Manual are two different citation systems. However, others have said the ALWD Citation Manual is simply a user-friendly guide to the Blue Book. The Blue Book is confusing, so if I can use the ALWD Citation Manual to comply with the Blue Book rules, that would be a great option. If you could clarify which of these views is correct, I would be very grateful. Thank you.

Differences between ALWD and Bluebook
Of course these are not the same. ALWD is for legal citations, Blue Book is for pricing your used car....

I kid.

In reality I understand the differences to be minor, but ALWD Citation Manual (say it: "ALL-WOOD") is not just a user-friendly version of The Bluebook.

Bluebook is maintained by law students at top law schools. It was the first on the legal citation format scene of the two and was the standard for many years. It contains one citation method for law reviews and another citation method for all other types of documents.

The ALWD manual, the newer of the two systems made in response to what the ALWD people viewed as deficiencies of the Bluebook system, is maintained by a group of law professors. ALWD, according to its website, "contains one system for all legal documents, making no distinction between law review articles and other types of writing."

Darby Dickerson, author of ALWD Citation Manual, points out some of the stylistic differences between the latest versions of ALWD and Bluebook in this powerpoint presentation. Also see Dickerson's comparison chart.

My Experiences with Legal Citations
Based on my experience, your school's legal writing program chooses to follow either ALWD or Bluebook. You then must conform perfectly to every last comma, space, and capitalization based on that format or face losing points on your legal writing paper.

If you participate in a law review or another journal, you will be doing a bunch of cite checking. A lot of cite checking involves making sure that the author's cites match the format. That format may or may not be in the format which you learned for legal writing.

And then this happens when you get into practice: "The realities of professional practice in many settings, particularly at a time when digital distribution of legal materials is displacing print, lead to dialects or usages in legal citation neither manual includes"--(quote from this article by Peter Martin, posted on LII...I feel like I should format this online scholarly article reference to match proper citation form considering the subject of this blog post...nah).

I don't have enough real world legal experience to know for sure, but I hear that perfect format is not nearly as important in actual practice as it is in law school. Does anyone have something to add about legal citation in practice compared to citation in law school?

Links
The above mentioned article by Peter Martin goes to great lengths in its discussion of legal citations. Greater lengths than you may be willing to read about. Still an extremely informative article.

CALI lesson based on Bluebook citations.

CALI lesson based on ALWD citations. (actually authored by the ALWD manual's author, Darby Dickerson).

Article written when ALWD first decided to publish the manual.

A good FAQ on legal citations posted at Case Western Law School's legal writing website.

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*I am a law student. That means I don't have all the answers. I may be lacking knowledge in certain areas, namely the real world practice of law. But I have done a lot of research into the law school process as a whole and I am currently living through law school. I am also surrounded by a lot of smart and experienced people with unique insight into the law school world who either work at CALI or with whom CALI has close relationships. I hope that you seek others' opinions and insights in addition to mine in order to make an informed decision.

In law school you are likely going to be bombarded with more reading than you have ever had in your life.

I saw a free speed reading tool called Spreeder at the very cool blog, Lifehacker. Basically a person copies text from his or her computer, puts it in the Spreeder program, and the program flashes each word up on the screen at a speed that the user can adjust.

The goal is to stop you from going back and re-reading words/phrases and also to stop that voice inside of your head from saying words as you read. I'm not endorsing Spreeder and can't say if it would actually increase your reading speed, but if it does help reading speed it could be a valuable tool for law school.

Warning: Don't Compromise Comprehension
One thing to watch out for as you try to increase your reading speed for law school is compromising comprehension for the sake of speed.

Especially when you first enter law school, you are reading cases that you will not understand. Plus you are not going to know what parts of those cases are important so that you are able to speed read through less important parts and slow down through those important parts that need thorough comprehension. This has to make it tough to try to speed read in law school in the beginning.

But especially once you get the hang of law school reading assignments, I could definitely see where speed reading would be a huge advantage in law school.

And if nothing else you could use it to increase your speed in regards to magazines, web articles, books, newspapers, etc. in order to increase efficiency outside of law school when comprehension is less crucial. So give Spreeder a try and see what you think.

Here a few more examples of the huge library of CALI lessons that CALI offers to all member school students and subscribers to learnthelaw.org:

Punctuation Basics and Grammar for Law Students
How to Brief a Case
Evaluating Websites

We chose some basic lessons that incoming law students might be interested in.

Don't forget, those of you not yet in law school can access CALI Lessons through a subscription learnthelaw.org.

New law students at CALI member schools need to get in touch with the CALI contact on campus to get an authorization code to gain access to CALI Lessons.

New law students at schools without CALI (not a lot of you), contact your adminstration and suggest they become members of CALI.

This post has been up awhile over at Clever Wot, but for some reason I didn't get around to reading these short student written essays about the first year of law school until today. You should take a look at them.

These essays remind me that it is extremely important to get seek the perspective of real or recently graduated law students if you want to honestly understand what law school is really like.

A lot of commonly suggested movies/books are out of date or completely irrelevant (Turow's 1L or The Paper Chase). Professors are a great source, but their personal experience as law students are usually a ways in the distant past. Not to mention their teaching experiences can give them an unrealistic or idealistic perspective of what law school is like for a student. The materials you get directly from a law school are likely given from a marketer's perspective.

So in addition to those sources mentioned above, continue to seek out resources by current and recently graduated law students. I realize there is a lot of junk out there, but blogs, message boards, etc. can help you gain a real, honest, and up-to-date perspective through the eyes of people experiencing law school.

Here I posted suggestions on buying casebooks from online resources to save a lot of money. I saw this question (do I need to buy the newest version of a law school casebook?) posed at lawschooldiscussion.org and I thought I'd add to the previous casebook post.

If you are unfamiliar with law school casebooks, publishers tend to frequently publish new versions of a casebook. In the new version small mistakes are corrected, new cases are added, and some problems are updated. But the structure is generally the same and surprisingly little is changed from the previous version.

If you have been shopping online for casebooks you may have noticed that older versions are much, much cheaper than the newest version. Knowing that little changes from version to version you may wonder how easy it is to get by in a class with the old version of the casebook.

My Experience
I actually got by using an older version of a casebook in a professional responsibility class. I had bought the wrong version by accident online There were a few annoyances, but it didn't hurt me at all in the class.

At the least using older version casebooks results in being unable to pinpoint a certain page quickly because the older version's pages are always different from the new version's. At the worst it results in missing out on some important updated information that is only in the newest version.

Advice
I would not suggest buying the older version of a book even to save a decent amount of money. It gets to be a bit of a hassle when the professor says turn to X page and you always turn to the wrong page. Plus in the worst case scenario you could end up missing out on important information.

The boss-man at CALI announces on his blog CALI's two newest member law schools: University of Virginia School of Law and Drexel University College of Law.

That makes 201 law schools as members of CALI. That means that if you're attending one of these schools you have free access to CALI Lessons because your school is a member (ask your CALI contact about getting online access).

If you're headed to one of the less than half dozen of schools that are not CALI member schools, you're missing out! Contact your administration and let them know you'd like for your school to become a CALI member too.

This is my first attempt to answer one of our reader submitted questions. I'll try to make this a weekly thing if you keep the questions coming. First off, read my little disclaimer at the bottom of this post...Ok, here's the question. And feel free to comment, suggest, or criticize what I say in the comments:

• How old is too old to become a lawyer? I am 35, and I have two years of college. I am going back to school this fall for nursing, but have wanted become a lawyer for a long time. Do you think that at my age I could have a meaningful career in law or is it too late now?

First off, congratulations on heading back to school. Whether or not you go to law school, I'm sure you will not regret finishing your degree. As far as your questions about law school, there is no doubt in my mind that you can still have a meaningful career in law.

There are many students in my classes who I'm sure are 40+. Especially after I switched to the part-time program this year. I highly recommend keeping up with this blog from a "thirty-something" mother in law school who is recounting her experience as she goes through law school. Read her advice for parents entering law school here.

What follows are some factors you might need to consider regarding going to law school at an older point in your life than most.

Getting into law school
Once you take the LSAT and score well enough, getting into law school won't be a problem at all. If anything, your age and unique life experiences are going score some points with law school admissions.

Law schools love to diversity of all kinds. And I can see why with older students as the real world knowledge that older students bring to the table makes them stars of many classroom discussions in my experience.

Money and Loans
You may have accumulated enough wealth to afford law school on your own. If so, it makes things a lot easier and some of what I say may not apply to you. But law school is EXPENSIVE. $25,000+ in tuition a year at many private schools. Add in living expenses and many students rack up well over $100,000 in student loan debt during law school.

Compared to the younger students, older students who take out loans are on average going to have less working years to pay back a potentially large debt. It also means you will have less years of experience at the end of your career to help you build a higher salary. So you may need to be more averse to loan debt than the normal student which, in turn, may limit your school choices.

Full-time or Part-time?
Generally, full-time programs take 3 years, part-time programs take 4. The ABA says a first year, full-time student cannot work over a certain amont of hours (20 I think. But i have no idea how they enforce this). And most people say treat law school like a full-time job. So if you go full-time, can you afford to not work for at least a year or preferably longer?

Going into a part-time program would allow you to work, thereby giving a source of income and reducing or eliminating loans. But I can attest to this, working full-time and going to law school takes up nearly all of your working and free time. Even more so in the first year of law school, which will be the hardest year of law school. So factor in the time you can afford to give up (especially if you have a family or other obligations) if you work in addition to part-time law school.

Choosing a law school
A lot of people say that as a law school applicant you should attend the highest ranked school to which you are accepted because the reputation of the law school has a huge affect on the opportunities you will be afforded after law school. This is not always the right advice, but probably even less right for the average older student.

Back to money again, if you go your highest ranked option (unless your LSAT numbers are phenomenal all around) that school is likely offering less scholarship money than your other options. Do you have a source of money or are you willing to take on the loans it might take to go to your highest ranked law school option?

Additionally, as discussed here, almost all law school scholarships are not guaranteed past the first year, dependent on class rank/gpa. So you cannot assume your scholarship offer will last past your first year anyway.

Ability to relocate may also play a significant role. I assume more older students are in less of a position to up and move compared to the straight out of undergrad types. Are you willing to relocate? Where to? Do you have a house, family, or other "grown-up" obligations that will not allow you to relocate?

All of these factors mean that you may have to "settle" for a less reputable law school. This, in turn, may mean you forego the opportunity to attend a higher ranked school that, under normal circumstances, would be the most likely school to open doors after graduation.

Getting a job
Your age shouldn't hold you back from getting any variety of job you could get as someone in the same position at a younger age. I don't think employers are going to hold your age against you, but I'm a little weak in knowledge of real world legal hiring practices (if anyone has an idea feel free to comment). Besides, I learned in Employment Discrimination that an employer cannot discriminate against you because of age after 40 years old (if I remember correctly).

But do you have visions of 6 figure job offers straight out of graduation? That would certainly reduce the burden if you have to take loans out. Or it could reduce the impact of three years of no income if you go full-time.

Truth is, about the only way to get a coveted 6 figure big law firm job offer straight out of law school is to land a summer associate position after your first year in school. Likelihood of landing summer associate position is highly dependent on a combination of your school's rank/ quality/ reputation and your individual class rank.

So "settling" on a school based on factors that may affect you as an older student hurts your chances at a big salaried job straight out of school. This also makes betting on landing the high paying job as an older student by taking out a lot of loans for a non-top tier even riskier than normal. It could could mean you are stuck with a large debt, less than expected salary, and less possible working years to pay the debt back.

You may just really want to work in the legal realm, whether it is at a small-medium firm or in the public sector. Maybe you hope to eventually work your way up to the higher salary. Maybe one of your experiences in life have inspired you to become a lawyer and you just want to help people. You're looking at a smaller paycheck out of school in this case, but it puts you in a better position as an older student. You can be less picky about the school you attend and put more credence into things like school location, expenses, and time you can spend on things outside of school. Performance in school is still important in landing a good job, but these types of employers are less set on class and school rankings.

Those are my thoughts and good luck with your decision.

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*I am a law student. That means I don't have all the answers. I may be lacking knowledge in certain areas, namely the real world practice of law. But I have done a lot of research into the law school process as a whole and I am currently living through law school. I am also surrounded by a lot of smart and experienced people with unique insight into the law school world who either work at CALI or with whom CALI has close relationships. I hope that you seek others' opinions and insights in addition to mine in order to make an informed decision.

Orientation has started or is just about to start for many of you. With that in mind, a lot of other students and professors have recently posted advice for those incoming 1L's who are getting ready to start law school. Take a look below...

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Deb has posted another great podcast over at CALI Radio. This time Douglas McFarland, an author of several CALI Lessons and professor at Hamline University School of Law offers up some advice for incoming law students.

Click here to listen to Prof. McFarland's podcast.

• A Question and Answer session with Prof. McFarland, author of several of CALI's lessons in Tort Law and Civil Procedure. Prof. McFarland has been teaching for over 30 years. His comments in this podcast about the first semester of law school focus on the Socratic method, preparing for class, note-taking during class, class participation, "riding out" that "lost at sea" feel common during the first few weeks of law school, the appropriate use of study aids, advice about law school exams, and general advice on doing well in law school.

Newsweek/MSNBC has made available the E-Guide to Public Service at America's Law Schools.

What is public interest law?
Public interest is probably a phrase you are unfamiliar with if you have not already worked in law. In the About section (here), the guide states that "'Public interest,' 'public service,' and 'social justice' are often used interchangeably to refer to issues and activities serving the public good."

It goes on further to specifically define "public interest" as programs that help the legal needs of:

• persons of limited means and charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental and educational organizations in matters that are designed primarily to address the needs of persons of limited means; and
• individuals, groups or organizations seeking to secure or protect civil rights, civil liberties or public rights, as well as law-related service to charitable, religious, civic, community, governmental and educational organizations of limited means in matters in furtherance of their organizational purposes.

Why should you care?
They explain here that a future law student should take a look at this guide because:

• No matter your practice setting, public service will play a role in your practice and you want to discover what works best for you while in law school.
• The opportunity to learn by doing – whether as a volunteer, a clinic or extern student or a summer clerk for a government or nonprofit office – offers an unparalleled experience in bringing the classroom to life, helping to ensure that you have the skills to practice law even before you graduate.
• Public service opportunities in law school provide an excellent avenue for networking and resume building.
• Many public and private sector lawyers will tell you public service and pro bono work is the most satisfying and fulfilling work they do with their law degree.
• Whether you want a full-time public service career or want a fulfilling pro bono practice, you want to attend a law school that offers the courses and programs that will help you succeed in your goals.

So take a look at this new tool to learn more about public interest and how it relates to your school or potential schools.

UPDATE 9/12/2006: Article on why the schools in this guide are not ranked here.

I was just thinking about my first trip to the bookstore as an incoming 1L because there are probably a lot of you making that same trip. More about legal dictionaries below...

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Law Career Blog posted some great advice about first year orientation here. There isn't much I I'll add, but I will say that you should attend every part of first-year orientation unless it completely doesn't apply to you. This even includes certain parts of orientation that the school may say are optional.

I say this because basically everyone is coming into orientation in the wanting to meet new people mode. You should take advantage of every early opportunity to meet people because a lot of long-lasting groups and friends are formed during that first week of orientation.

I remember having to sit through the substance abuse part of 1L orientation. Where they told us repeatedly how alcoholism among lawyers is rampant. When they told us about lawyer assistance programs. All of it culminating in the outright corny moment where they made us stand, raise our right hand, and give some sort of oath. The whole thing made me roll my eyes as I was reminded of D.A.R.E. from my days in grade school

But as I watch the very sad video accompanying this article on the courtTV website, as reported here by law.com blog among others, I realize how serious of an issue alcohol is among attorneys and I appreciate the efforts to curtail it a little more.

Apparently the lawyer in this video was late to court, was acting and smelled drunk, admitted to taking shots of tequila "the night before" the taped court appearance (a.k.a. 5 in the morning to most people), and had a beer during lunch the day before prior to jury selection. But he didn't think he was not jeopardizing his client's position and argued such even after being called out on it all. Like I said, very sad to watch.

I guess my obvious advice here is don't end up like this guy. I'm certainly no expert, but signs of this probably often start in the high pressure world of law school. Heed the warnings of high alcoholism rates among lawyers.

Professor Ron Eades of The Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville also spoke with Deb on the topic of "Things to Know About Torts Class Before Class Starts - Advice for a 1L." The podcast is also available at CALI Radio.

Click here to download the mp3 file.

"Professor Ron Eades has taught Torts Law for over 25 years. In this podcast Prof. Eades offers advice on preparing for class, classroom dynamics, note taking, post-class studying, outlining, ways to measure your progress, "pitfalls" to studying Torts, what students should try and get from class. He also offers general advice for 1Ls starting law school and the study of Torts."

Related Material:

• CALI's lesson by Prof. Edward Martin on Briefing a Case
• In this podcast Prof. Eades mentions a law review article by Prof. Green; it is available from HeinOnline.org, or in paper. Leon Green, Study and Teaching of Tort Law, 34 Tex. L. Rev. 1 (1955-1956).
• Previous post with related podcast for incoming students with general study advice from Professors Brown and Grohman.

Professors Joe Grohman and Ron Brown of Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center spoke about how new law students should study in law school. Deb Quentel, CALI's Director of Curriculum Development/General Counsel conducted the interview (alternatively found at CALI Radio).

Click here to download the mp3 file.

"Professors Brown and Grohman, are the authors of many CALI lessons. Additionally, both teach 1L courses. In this podcast they share their experiences and insights on time mangement issues for law school students, preparing for class, how to brief a case, research tips applicable for 1L writing assignments (and the eventual practice of law), how to develop an understanding of the law, and techniques and tips for studying and preparing for the final exam."

Links:

1. Joe Landsberger's website.

2. Cornell University's list of study resources.

3. Dennis Tonsing, 1000 Days to the Bar (Hein & Co., Inc. 2003).

4. CALI Radio.

This article has some seemingly positive news for those who will be hitting the legal job market soon.

• "On-campus recruiting for fall 2005 went up, according to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), which found that half of the law schools nationwide reported an increase of 5% or more in the number of employers on campus."

The article seems to paint a picture of many law firms expanding their on campus interviewing efforts (read lowering their standards slightly regarding whom they are willing to hire).

Sounds like good news for law students and especially those who are looking for the big firm positions through on campus interviews.

Professor Orin Kerr of the The George Washington University School of Law posted an essay entitled "How to Read a Judicial Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students" on his blog.

It's a must read for incoming law students because cases are assigned for the first day of class with the idea that you already know or will pick up the ability to properly read a case.

CALI has a "How to Brief a Case" lesson (found here, with the legal research lessons for learnthelaw users) that would be a nice supplement to this article. But you'll stop briefing cases at some point in your law school career. Knowing how to read a case and what to take from that case is much more important.

Remember this post about how I felt like I overextended myself and it likely cost me on a certain exam? I do because I remember how I felt while writing it...deflated about my future grade in that class and exhausted in the aftermath of two summer classes while working. As referenced by this quote:

• "I came out of the test feeling awful, probably worse than I have felt about any other law school exam."

That was no joke. I was pretty resigned to my fate that I would break my string of no less than average grades in law school.

I just found out that I got an A-. That's unbelievable to me. I'm almost offended and feel like I got away with something.

Why I'm Bringing This Up
You hear a lot of this stuff from students in law school after tests. Students think they were unprepared, claim to have bombed an exam, and it turns out they did fine. It can be obnoxious sometimes so I try to avoid claiming to have done poorly on an exam before I know, but I hadn't felt this bad about an exam before.

The test was clearly just a very hard test and likely designed so that students miss a lot of issues. There are a lot of tests like this in law school.

The law school curve again comes into play. I must have done OK compared to the rest of the class (although this wasn't a strict curve so maybe he gave everyone pretty good grades). Your relative performance is all that matters in law school.

Moral of the story: don't assume anything about your grade until you know for sure...namely, don't beat yourself up if you think you did poorly.

How I Did It:
I'm going to sound like a real company guy again, but I am dead serious about this. The course was a UCC Article Nine course on secured transactions. CALI's lesson on UCC Article Nine by Professor William Boyd is freaking amazing. It is so in depth...basically a complete casebook on secured transactions (but without cases and answerless problems to confuse you). It is in a different format than most CALI lessons but I loved it. I relied on it HEAVILY for my outline and througout the semester.

If you take a UCC Article Nine/secured transactions class in law school, remember this lesson (don't forget, you'll have free access to CALI lessons by that time if your school is a CALI member school).

Professor Boyd and John (who has put a lot of time into updating the lesson), if you see this, thank you. It's worth the effort.

A while back, Professor Paul Caron of TaxProf Blog reported the new policy regarding law schools' reporting of LSAT scores to the ABA. Whereas the ABA previously required that law schools report the average LSAT score of an applicant, the ABA now allows the schools to report the highest score of an applicant.

Some are touting this as a wonderful move. Accepted Admissions Almanac gushes, "I also agree with Daniel Solove of Concuring Opinions that this would be a "terrific policy change." I'm not so sure...

Some Thoughts
To me it's a clear rich get richer sort of deal. Because of rankings, schools are going to report the highest score of an applicant. While law schools may consider any lower test scores during the admissions decision, schools can certainly disregard lower scores with little consequence to the school itself. Therefore, a pretty big incentive exists for an applicant to take the exam three times and hope for a high score.

I can see a situation in which an incoming student with plenty of money and time to spare who is scoring, say, in the 150's on practice LSAT exams taking the exam three times and scoring, for example, 150, 155, and a outlier 170. Explain to me again how reporting, in this case, the 170 or any other possible outlier high score, is less "arbitrary" than the previous averaging policy? The end result is that test takers with the time and money to spend on retaking the test are at a huge advantage over those who lack the time or money retake the test.

Who else gets richer?
Clear incentives to take the LSAT the max amount of times?...The LSAC, administrators of the LSAT, must be thrilled. LSAT preparation companies, who are likely to sell more books and prep courses also must love this.

Protection Against "Bad Days"?
I realize this new policy was put in place to avoid the penalty for those who have a "bad test day." But I'm not sure why it's better acknowledge those in the opposite extreme, the fluke test. But let's look at what the previous policy meant for students' decisions to retake the LSAT.

Under the previous policy, if the applicant scored below what she believed to be her abilities (and test takers know this as much as they take practice tests), it was worth the time and effort to retake the LSAT because there would likely be an improvement. And if the first score was truly a bad day score, the applicant could take the LSAT two more times to get that average up. Additionally (and most importantly), under the previous policy if an applicant scored at or above what the applicant believed to be indicative of his/her abilities there was a disincentive to retake the test because a lower score would hurt the applicant.

The result with the old policy was that applicants decided whether to retake the LSAT based at least somewhat on their abilities. If an applicant scored according to what he believed was his abilities or higher, the applicant was more likely to keep that score because he had to consider the fact that a lower score would hurt him/her. So scores probably better reflected the student's abilities.

With the new policy, there is little reason not to take LSAT repeatedly no matter what, even if an applicant scores exactly what she thinks she is capable of. The result is an increased likelihood of a fluke high score on one of the three tests, thereby increasing the chance an applicant will be judged on that higher score.

As much as the previous policy may have hurt test takers' bad days, at least the bad days could be somewhat mitigated with the averaging of the scores. Not to mention, students who were hurt because of a bad LSAT day and had to attend a lesser school as a result could transfer to a better school if the higher scores were truly indicative of their abilities in law school. On the contrary, the new policy of giving more credence to fluke high scores is worse than acknowledging bad day scores because:

1) Even if the test taker knows a certain score is representative of his abilities (or even a overly representative) there is little reason not to play again and hope for an even bigger score.
2) Fluke score students could end up at a school at which they may not be able to cut it and possibly flunk out. Whereas bad test day students may end up at a school for which they are overqualified (in which case the student has a shot at transferring up and out) and bad day scores can mitigate by retaking and averaging out.
3) The people who can't afford to take the test more than once are at a distinct disadvantage because they don't have that extra shot at at the unlikely high score whereas a student who can afford it can retake and further prepare for the LSAT regardless of how indicative the first test was of his/her abilities.

Advice for LSAT takers
No matter what you are scoring in practice or scored previously, unless you know your score will get you accepted at a top school of your choice, take the LSAT the max amount of times and hope to hit the lottery one time if you can afford to.

Unless someone has an argument against this that I am missing, I don't see the disadvantage. Schools are now less likely to be deterred by low LSAT scores. If you don't have the money or time to take the LSAT repeatedly, then I guess you are out of luck.

You are probably aware that after your first year of law school which is set in stone, you can generally pick and choose what courses you want to take without limitations. An excerpt (free registration required...don't know if this particular excerpt will be past next week) from the book The Practice of Law School: Getting in and Making the Most of Your Legal Education as posted on New York Lawyer explains how law students choose elective courses.

It lists several methods by which students choose electives after the first year: 1) The "liberal arts approach" which says a student should choose what courses interests him/her and worry about specialization after graduation, 2) the "preprofessional approach" where the student concentrates on the narrow field in which wish to work, and 3) the bar exam approach whereby the student takes classes in subjects that will appear on the bar.

What it leaves out:
Now, that link is only Part I of an elective courses discussion, so maybe it goes on to discuss other strategies subsequently. I doubt that it will mention this though.

I am referring to the large amount of "gaming the system" law students do when choosing classes in order to pad GPA's or reduce amount of work. For example, at Kent an elective class must be curved only if certain amount of people are in that class. So many students will look for a class with small numbers of students when they need an elective in order to avoid the curve.

Other times the reputation of the professor and how much workload the professor assigns is a large consideration.

This sort of thing probably went on in undergrad and I can assure you it continues in law school. Obviously, you shouldn't base your whole schedule on how you can reduce work/get a better grade. But those factors warrant considerstion in combination with the other reasons for picking courses mentioned in the article.

This article from American Lawyer about a survey on the satisfaction level of associates at law firms is pretty interesting. The conclusion is that associates have been unsatisfied for the past 20 years and continue to be so.

Nothing you probably didn't know, but just consider that a lot of people are unhappy taking this career path. Doesn't mean it's not for you, but make sure you can handle it if you go down that path.

More Information on the survey can be found at these links (requires free registration):
National satisfaction rankings
Satisfaction rankings by size
Local satisfaction rankings
Firm-by-firm results
Methodology

CALI Lessons As Preparation

Alright, I promise this is my last post on law school preparation and a continuation of the posts here and here. If you are reading this blog, I hope you are aware of our new subscription plan for prelaws that gives access to CALI Lessons (What are CALI Lessons?) through learnthelaw.org...

We at CALI decided to offer CALI lessons to prelaws because: 1) prelaw students always contact us looking for access to the lessons, 2) we understand the value the lessons could offer prelaws, and 3) the $250 individual membership was way too steep for a incoming students who only need a limited amount of lessons coming into law school.

Why use CALI lessons?
I realize I'm biased because I work for CALI. But if you are going to prepare for law school by pre-learning some of the law in the different 1L subjects, I truly believe CALI lessons would be helpful and valuable to prelaws.

The volume of faculty authored material in all areas of law is pretty high. 200 lessons at about an hour a lesson amounts to around 200 hours worth of material.

But look at it in terms of value. $50 gets you all of the CALI lessons in every 1L subject (admittedly though, our Constitutional Law collection is a little lacking...hard to write good Conlaw lessons). Now, try to put together a comprehensive collection of professor authored material in all 1L subjects for under $50 using other options...say using commercial outlines in each 1L subject, an audio lecture series, explanatory supplements in each 1L subject, or an expensive prelaw preparation course.

I think the chart above (not meant to be scientific or exact) is a good illustration. Add to all that, CALI lessons include legal writing and research lessons. The prices just aren't comparable (it's nice being a non-profit organization).

What does this mean?
I'm not saying that CALI lessons can replace all potential law school preparation materials. But I'm saying that the value is tremendous, especially compared to what for-profit companies charge for professor authored material.

So when compiling your list of preparation material consider the unique format (computer based with feedback depending on how you answer a question), value, and quality of CALI lessons to help you prepare for law school.

Links:Learnthelaw.org: 1) Free registration 2) List of CALI lessons, and 3) Subscription info.

Sample CALI lesson