Freakonmics Blog (reported by Abovethelaw and Law School Innovation) discusses a study that answers the question, "What law school courses will help me pass the bar exam?" Answer in a few words: none of them.

Click for more below.

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Update: The Frugal Law Student guest blogger, Professor Phillip Schrag of Georgetown University law, explains in better detail and links to his law review article. This really does sound like great news for law students who are looking into public interest jobs.

Says Professor Bowman of The Law Career Blog:

"[P]erhaps the College Cost Reduction and Access Act might be best viewed as a great big federal LRAP program--one that is not limited to law graduates. Which is a good thing."

More details on the act, freshly passed by congress, in his post.

Sounds like good news for those who will be taking out loans to pay for law school!

I didn't check my Blogline feeds yesterday. It's just too overwhelming sometimes to see the number of feeds and blog postings I'll likely go through after taking the weekend off. Oops...

Turns out, unbeknownst to me, the Wall Street Journal dropped a page-one article on Monday regarding a topic The Pre-Law Blog has been consistently vocal about: the myth of new lawyers' job prospects.

Click below to read about the coverage around the web...

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From Legally Numb. Don't worry too much about it. It's probably a common feeling for new law students.

Professor Bowman at Law Career Blog points us to a new (to me, anyway) law student blog called The Legal Scoop: Law Students' Perspective on the Law and to its post about typing in law school. Click to see the Pre-Law Blog's thoughts on typing in law school...

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Reading this blog, you probably realize that I think the cost of getting a legal education is a pretty important factor when considering attending a law school outside of the top national schools due to the strange nature of attorney starting salaries and career paths (see here).

So besides considering the schools that give you a great scholarship package (which is probably not gauranteed, mind you) where does the cost-conscious prospective law student start in his/her quest for an affordable, quality legal education?

See more below...

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Accepted.com notes that law school applications for Fall 2007 are down for the third year in a row. Assuming this trend continues, that's pretty good news for those of you who are sure you're going to law school since competition for spots at schools overall should, theoretically, be ever so slightly weaker as a result.

Ann Levine, the admissions consultant who runs lawschoolexpert.com and the blog of the same name reminds potential law students about early decision options at some law schools and gives a list of early decision deadlines at a handful of law schools in one of her recent posts. More below...

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Don't be alarmed by the changed look of the Pre-Law Blog. The pre-law blog grew tired of the previous ugly old color scheme and gave the blog a makeover.

Law School Academic Support Blog has a list of some of the common problems that law school academic support people encounter in law students.

The first one ("They treat law school like undergraduate school or other graduate programs) and do not adjust their strategies and techniques to the new law school learning environment.") is especially important and reinforces the point that law school is not the same as undergrad.

Most people have to adjust to law school and change the way they study. I know I did. Take a look at the other common problems of law students in that list and try not to fall into one of those categories in law school.

Empirical Legal Studies Blog points us to the most recent edition of NALP's Jobs & JD's. Below is a graph charting the salary distribution the graduating law school class of 2006. Click for a bigger view.

As you can see, the graph is pretty extreme in its distributions on the far ends of the scale. It's important for those thinking about attending law school to understand this graph.

Basically, a bunch of law school graduates started at salaries somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 while another bunch started somewhere around $135,000 with very little in betweens. More below on what this means...

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