Vault.com surveyed recruiting professionals and came up with a list of the most underrated law schools both nationally and regionally. Here's the top ten:

1. Emory University School of Law
2. Fordham University School of Law
3. Howard University School of Law
4. Chicago-Kent College of Law - Illinois Institute of Technology
5. University of Oregon School of Law
6. George Mason University School of Law
7. University of Illinois College of Law
8. William and Mary Law School
9. Vanderbilt University Law School
10. University of Georgia School of Law

This blog has some in depth commentary on the survey.

Law School Academic Support Blog posts some of the myths that law school students harbor regarding exam preparation.

I agree with the list for the most part. I would challenge some of the wording of number 5 as it pertains to open book exams that include open notes (not the part about studying as hard...that's correct).

Here is number 5.

• You do not have to study as hard for an open-book exam. Open-book exams are usually a trap. Students who do not learn the material as they would for a closed-book exam often have to look everything up. Only a general, surface knowledge of the material is often the result of believing this myth. And, we all know that you rarely have spare time in an exam to look much up in your materials.

In my experience the last sentence is wrong if the professor allows open notes for the exam. While I may feel rushed and hurried at first I've only had one exam where I was really rushed. In fact, with a large majority of my exams I have time to go over my exam and spell-check and proofread somewhat. This is one of the huge advantages of using computers for exams.

One thing many professors tell you is to not just dive into writing your answer. Take a few minutes before you start writing to make to organize or make an outline of where you want your answer to go. While agree there is not going to be time to look much up at all in a bulky casebook, if there is time to organize, there is time to look things up in your notes in order to better organize.

And don't get me wrong, it's not that you should spend less time in preparation of on open book/open notes exams in relation to closed, but for me it's a different type of study and preparation.

Open book law school exams are about perfecting an outline for me. Using tabs and a table of contents or index to create an outline of the class in which I can move quickly and find what I need.

And I'm not afraid to go on the longish side on class outline lenghth for open note exams because, while you still need to understand the material, memorization is not as important. You'll find that just the process of making a more detailed outline and structuring it goes a long way to learning the material, itself.

Making an outline like this for open book/open notes exams takes a lot of time in preparation of the exam, but it is a different type of studying than closed book. Closed book is more about making a shorter class outline and (while most law professors hate to admit it) memorizing that outline.

So while I agree that you will have to spend just as much time preparing and studying for closed book exams as for open book with open notes, I think it's wrong to not adjust your preparation approach somewhat for each.

Freakonomics Blog reports that anyone with a .edu email address can now create a free New York Times Select account for free, giving access to all online content at the site.

Inside Higher Ed has a couple of good articles. One about college textbooks and bookstores and another about financial aid lenders. I've written about the cost of law school casebooks, and how I get around that cost as a law student, in the past.

Law.com has another article about the increase in summer associate hires at big law firms.

Law.com links to this blog:

• "Arnie Herz of Legal Sanity is providing a tremendous service to law students by talking to them about how work can be rewarding and meaningful.

Carolyn Elefant, a blogger at Law.com, likes what she sees:

• "In my view, what Herz is doing is significant. So many new graduates have heard about the downside of law firm life. As a result, they resign themselves to unhappiness, figuring that they'll work as indentured servants for a couple of years to pay off debt and then look for greener pastures."

SOCIAL NETWORKING DANGERS
Top Law Student blog (here and here) has posted about the dangers of posting personal content online via social networking sites such as Myspace. Many employers now google an applicant in search of unprofessional pictures, comments, and/or other reasons to disqualify that applicant from the list of potential hires.

His advice, and I agree, is that law students should set their Myspace pages to private if there is anything that could be perceived as unprofessional or too personal in order to protect themselves from the employer knowing too much.

CONTENT OUT OF YOUR CONTROL
But this article in the Washington Post (as posted at Law School Innovation) tells the story of a few students who feel they have been hurt in their job search by comments and pictures posted by others.

You can't help but feel bad for the young lady who was on the other end of these actions if it really did result in her being unable to procure a job. But is there anything other students can do to prevent this sort of thing from happening to them? What can we learn from this?

SEE WHAT IS OUT THERE
Students need to do google search maintenance every so often. Google yourself (don't forget the image search) and see what comes up. If anything comes up that could in anyway be taken as unprofessional or too personal, then take steps to try to get that content taken down. Some of the hits that come up will be within your control and you can simply take them down yourself.

WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR CONTENT YOU CAN'T CONTROL?
Now, I realize the woman in the article tried to get the content about her taken down and was unsuccessful because the forum she was dealing with is nearly completely uncensored.

But I have known people who were successful in getting content taken down. I knew people who had letters to the editor or articles about affiliation/activity with certain political groups in college or hometown newspapers that kept coming up on Google searches. It wasn't necessarily damning content, but it was stuff that you wouldn't want an employer to know about during the application process. Employers are literally looking for reasons not to hire you as an applicant.

Just through friendly email exchanges asking for help, these people managed to get old content taken down by website administrators who were more than willing to help. If there is something online out of your control, it's always worth a shot to just ask.

Also, keep in mind that any picture found of you online can easily be copied and used elsewhere for whatever reason. So use discretion when posting pictures of yourself anywhere, even if you see the pictures as professional and even if you're posting to a website that you trust completely. Even with a private Myspace, it's easy for someone else to copy the pictures and post it somewhere elsewhere.

I wonder in all of this if there is a business opportunity out there for search optimization of individual job applicants? That is, pay someone to not only get rid of bad Google search hits, but also to make positive Google search hits (maybe video resumes on youtube? profesional writing samples or articles? other things aimed specifically at employers) and try to float the positives to the top of a Google search for the applicant's name?

Like most people applying to multiple law schools, I was waitlisted at some schools. Of course, I didn't research enough at the time to know that once you are waitlisted at a school you should follow-up with that school in certain ways in an attempt to get to the top of the waitlist if you still want to attend that law school school.

I wrote about this topic because I saw that accepted.com is offering its ebook called The Nine Mistakes You Don't Want to Make on a Law School Waitlist for 20% off right now. I've never read it so I can't give an endorsement, but it's out there, it's on sale, and it's written by a private admissions counselor (Linda Abraham) who has been helping law school applicants professionally since 1994.

I also found several links with advice on how to get off the dreaded waitlist.

Advice on Vault.com from another admissions professional and author, Anna Ivey.

More on law school waitlists from ivyleagueadmissions.com.

University of Virginia's Career Services' advice.

Western Illinois University's Pre-Law Advisor site has an online article that talks about being waitlisted for law school towards the end.

Career Center at Berkley offers this online article.

This article taken from The American Lawyer asks "Is Raising Salaries the Best Way to Retain Associates?" The article hints that with this raise will come increased pressures on new associates to bill more hours. So a possible decrease in overall happiness of associates may occur.

But I wonder if retaining associates is even the end goal of big firms; this as opposed simply attracting potential associates with the most prestigious credentials whether the associates stick around or not?

Robert Ambrogi shows us this video: an overview of what a lawyer does for those of you thinking about pursuing a legal career.