I've always been an advocate of telling future law students never to assume or count on the ability to transfer up to a higher reputation law school.
It takes top grades/high class rank to transfer up to a higher ranked school most of the time, so you never where you'll end up in the class rankings among your peers with basically everyone gunning for the top of the class. Assume you will graduate from the school at which you start.
But Prelaw Advisor writes about a deal between a waitlisted applicant and a law school that created a creative way to almost assure a transfer up: if the student got better than a 3.0 at another law school, the highly ranked law school would accept that student as a transfer going into 2L.
Pretty nice deal for the student! Although it's too bad that schools aren't able to take chances on an applicant like this out of the gate because of the strict focus on LSAT numbers.
I don't know how prevalent offers like this are, but if you can work a deal like this with a law school at which you have been waitlisted, especially if one of your top choices, you should take it. At which point the prospects of transferring would become a much more likely.
31 Jan, 2008
5 Things Law Students Should Know About Prof. Evaluations...
As first semester grades roll in a month after finals, students are FINALLY receiving, for the most part, their first real feedback of law school. Congratulations to those of you who met or exceeded your expectations!
But unfortunately for a lot of students, with grades comes a bit of a (or a big) disappointment.
One reader sent this:
I just received my 1st semester grades at Boston College Law...I cannot believe I got a 2.55 gpa. I thought I knew my"stuff" I wasn't lost in class... What happens to the students that graduate in the bottom of
the class? Everyone told me that where you place in the beginning is
pretty much where you stay. I would love to hear from any BC graduates
that weren't in the top of the class Where are they now and how did
they get there?
It's been done several times in the past year...a legitimate news source does a write-up on law school, citing the high tuition, high student loan debt, high expectations law students have to make a lot of money (many feeling misled by law school marketing material touting high average salaries), and the disappointment of so many law students in discovering the two-tiered nature of starting salaries.
I hate to keep posting this sort of stuff, but it is important for law school applicants to fully comprehend the risks before deciding to go to certain law schools. So it is good we are seeing this sort of discussion.
But I, like Carol Elefant at Legal Blog Watch, wish there was more discussion among academic insiders.
Surprisingly, I haven't seen much discussion about this topic in the academic blogosphere. Surely, most law professors (who generally have top credentials that would qualify them for jobs at large firms) must realize that the job prospects for lower performing students are dim. Yet, I've not seen any law professors offer advice on whether to attend law school.
If you're a 1L you will soon, if you haven't already, get your first semester grades. As the blog Out of the Jungle points out...
[M]any got a shock. For the first time in your life, as a 1-L, you are running with a whole pack of the folks who were at the tops of their
class. And, law school is different from any other school you may have
had before. Even MDs, engineers and PhD holders can get a shock at
their first law school exam and grades.
Yes, the first time with a strict grading curve which is derived from a single final exam, meaning no feedback throughout the semester, can result in a big disappointment for many first year law students.
See their list of tips for law students entering their second semester in this post.
I will add that you have to take first semester grades in context, as well. While your GPA may be lower first semester 1L than you had become accustomed to in undergrad, you still might have a great GPA for your law school class, depending on how your school curves.
This is especially true for all of you former straight A students in undergrad. All A's is nearly impossible in law school. It is your standing (class rank) amongst your peers in the class that is important. And without knowing that, your GPA is really meaningless.
5 Jan, 2008
Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) + note on 3L
Law.com points us to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement. Here is the link to a .PDF roundup of the survey findings (which Law.com may have accidentally left out of their post).
I think the most interesting to future law students is the comparison of 1L's to 3L's (taken from the .pdf above).
This really highlights a problem that many note with the third year of law school (see this article as an example). Many of the best students have virtually locked up big firm jobs after graduation on the basis of their first year grades when they were hired as a summer associate in the fall of their second year. And successfully completing the summer associate position without messing up too bad in the summer between second and third year is a virtual guarantee of a job offer. So many are obviously less motivated.
Moreover, the classes are often not curved as harshly after the first year. And many students are just looking for the easiest classes to pad gpa or relax a little before going into the working world.
While searching for podcasts on iTunes last night, I found the Princeton Review's LSAT Logic in Everyday Life. They talk about logic in everyday life and supposedly help develop reasoning skills relevant to the LSAT.
The podcasts are less than 10 minutes long and are pretty interesting, whether they actually will make a difference on your LSAT or not. So they're probably worth a listen on your commute to school, at the gym, or whenever you have time. Here's the link. They are available for free on iTunes as well.
Have not done a reader question in awhile, so here it goes:
I am currently beginning a committed 2 full months into prepping for the LSAT. I originally signed up for the Blueprint LSAT full course, but was did not mesh with its classroom style. I prefer to study on my own. i have a low GPA 2.35 but went through hell (divorce, tragedy, etc.) while in school. I am 32 years ols and a single dad. I am absolutely committed to preparing and dead to the world for the next two months. i am purchasing the Powerscore Bibles to add to my study. What advice, if any can you elaborate on in preparing and what are the prospects, assuming I do well on the LSAT, of any top schools offering me admission?
Lexprep has some good advice about getting to know your law professor.
It's only human nature to treat people you know more kindly than people
you don't. The trick here is to get your law school professors to see
you as a human being rather than just another body taking notes behind
a laptop in a cavernous lecture hall class stuffed with faceless law
students.
We all have probably been told this advice as well as the reasons why it is advantageous, but many of us just don't do it.
As you enter law school, start thinking about actually implementing this advice as much as you can. Here is the link.
As a law student, your chances to do a powerpoint presentation in law school are limited. But I'm currently thinking about it as the rest of my classmates and I must present our seminar papers to each other.
Earlier I posted about cutting out uh's and um's out of presentations. If you're worried about a good presentation, a speaking habit like that is a little harder to control. But it is much easier to control your prepared presentation slides.
This slideshow was posted at Lifehacker and I think it is great advice for law students who come across the chance to present a powerpoint slideshow.
Especially pay attention to this slide when presenting a paper.
The temptation may be there to copy some long text or quotes from the paper and paste it into the slideshow. But that's really ineffective from a presentation standpoint.
16 Nov, 2007
US News Rankings Don't Jibe With What Law Students Want
Getting some mentions around the blawgosphere (see Taxprof and Law Librarian Blog) is this article in the National Jurist that points out that the US News Rankings does not necessarly accurately depict what law students want out of a law school.
Joe Hodnicki of Law Librarian Blog suggests: "Why not include a student review component along with the peer review and bench and bar review components?"
15 Nov, 2007
The Pros and Cons of Law School: CON - Bill O'Reilly Might Come After You!
If making a pros vs. cons analysis while deciding whether to attend law school remember this: a famous right-wing talk show might try to ruin you if you attend law school! Leiter points us to this article about Bill O'Reilly trying to get a University of Virginia law student kicked out of law school. Could you be next?
Well, probably not. O'Reilly is sending a letter to Virginia's dean in retaliation for the student's semi-stalker behavior toward Bill O' (maybe not necessarily smart behavior for the wannabe lawyer, but one could argue it is not undeserved).
I have seen a couple good blog posts recently from a blog called The Legal Scoop.
I like this post about balancing life and law school. The blog looks like it is written by four law students and its tagline is: "Law written from a law student's perspective." I'd definitely recommend taking a look around and subscribing to The Legal Scoop.
Lifehack.org has a great post about how to stop saying uh and um when speaking. This is a problem for me especially during public speech, as I'm sure it is a problem for lots of incoming law students.
Click to see how this might be helpful for future law students.
Inspired by a post by Law School Innovation about class partipation, but aimed more at law professors, I thought I'd share my thoughts and help explain to pre-law students how class participation generally works in law school.
I found this piece interesting over at the WSJ Law Blog. Wal-Mart sent a memo to its outside law firms trying to reduce the cost of its legal bills. Click to see more below. (More)
This opinion article seems to think so. It's written by a recent law school grad and is most interesting for its comments about the state of California's legal market as a whole.
30 Oct, 2007
WSJ on Choosing a School and For Purposes of Biglaw Employment
Amir Efrati, the Wall Street Journal writer who authored this piece on the poor legal job market especially for those at non-elite schools, writes another must read article for incoming law students about choosing a law school and increasing your chances of landing a big law job. Here's the link.
To summarize, outside of the top 20-30 schools, you can basically ignore US news rankings and pay more attention to things like debt, location, employment data, and on-campus recruiting.
Here is a link to the fancy graphs that accompany the article. I added them simply because I'd like to see some color in this post. Click more to see the rest:
Not only is it free (and the digital version is pretty slick), but it really seems to offer some credible information, advice, current news, and opinions about law school aimed at pre-law students.
I enjoyed the editor-in-chief's note at the beginning and think it conveys the right philosophy about attending law school. There are also some features online (like audio and video interviews) that you cannot get through a print magazine.
You can subscribe to get the digital version of preLaw magazine delivered to your inbox for free here. I highly recommend it.
UPDATE: Well, it looks like the Law Critic blog has died almost as quickly as it started. It must have been the avalanche of traffic sent by the Pre-Law Blog readers. My apologies to the author.
The other day, I stumbled upon a new blog that is written by a future law school applicant who will be taking the LSAT within the next year. It is called Law Critic.
The blog is billed as "a website for people trying to decide if law school is the next step" but focus as of now looks to be the LSAT with posts like "Why does the LSAT carry so much weight?" It is certainly interesting for me to see an applicant's perspective on the test before he's taken it leading up to test day. Some of you future law students in his position might want to keep up with the blog.
Good luck and welcome to the world of blogging.
17 Oct, 2007
Associates at Chapman & Cutler have choice to work less hours for less pay
Update: Abovethelaw has some more coverage of this with some potential disadvantages, as well as a list of a few other firms that offer this. Also interesting there is overwhelming positive support amongst ATL readers for the two-tier track (like, 80/20 support as good for firms, 70/30 support good for associates) in the polls they are conducting last I checked. It's obvious there is a demand for less hours for less pay.
The ABA Journal reports that the Chicago firm of Chapman and Cutler is giving associates the choice of working more hours for more money or working less hours for less money. Kind of makes sense on both ends.
I have to think there are a lot of quality law students who may want to work in a firm, but don't want the hours that go along with it. So this strategy might give this firm a competitive advantage over other firms in recruiting.
And though I don't know the salaries, I would guess that working less hours for a lower salary at a big firm would still net more in salary than a lot of governmental, small firm, or public interest opportunities with similar hours, less hours being one of the draws of such jobs. It will be interesting to see if this works out and catches on at other firms.
This time Prof. Caron offers up the schools where students study the least and where students study the most. Click below to read more analysis. (More)
Some of you, in law school or still in undergrad, may be interested in the deal that Microsoft is offering for the complete suite of Microsoft Office products.
It's a promotion called The Ultimate Steal...only $59.95 (wow, MS Office Ultimate is normally something ridiculous like $600+!) for the entire MS Office 2007 suite.
But the deal is only available to students (people with .edu email addresses taking more than .5 course load). Click below to read more and see the link.
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.
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.
"[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!
25 Sep, 2007
WSJ Legal Job Market Article Coverage (Ie, The Pre-Law Blog Doesn't Get This Kind of Linkage for Discussing This Topic?)
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...
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?
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...
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...
Some of you may want to eventually be a general counsel or in-house lawyer for a corporation or other business/organization. Many lawyers enjoy the more stable hours and the close relationship with one company that goes along with working in-house as a lawyer.
But you are not going to be able to become the general counsel of a company right out of law school. Most organizations are looking for a certain type of experienced lawyer to fill an in-house role.
So if it is a future goal of yours to work in-house for a business as a general counsel, here's an article courtesy of law.com with a list of the skills and knowledge recruiters look for when hiring a general counsel.
22 Aug, 2007
List of Law School Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAP's)
Ann over at lawschoolexpert blog compiled an extremely helpful list of Law School Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAP's).
This is really helpful for those of you planning on attending law school on loans who are thinking about going into comparatively lower paying public service jobs.
The people in charge of the latest suit against BAR/BRI claim that they are looking to fundamentally change the landscape of bar review for future law students.
"'The other case sought principally damages for those who had taken the
BAR/BRI course and paid too much over nine years,' Disner said of the
case that settled. 'This case focuses on the future and posits the view
that there are people out there, including the two who are plaintiffs,
who will take the bar review course in a few years and want to make
sure they have a competitive market in which to choose the right course
and pay the right price.'" (From Law.com)
It's still obviously pretty early in the suit, but keep an eye on it because it has the potential to impact the way you study for the bar and how much you pay to do so.
Read more about signing up for BAR/BRI during first year below...
Following up on this post's list of links for new law students from within the Pre-Law Blog, here's a roundup of advice from outside of the blog, taken from the list of advice published on this blog for last year's law school entrants.
ADVICE FROM PROFESSORS:
Previously mentioned on this blog, CALI's podcast interviews of professors here, here, and here.
Orientation has started or is about to start for many of you new law students out there.
To those who are just starting out, welcome to the world of law school! Here's are some past blog entries that you should take a look at as a new 1L...
I took the MPRE on Friday so we will find out the answer in five weeks.
What is the MPRE? The MPRE is the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination. It's a 60 question (only 50 are scored) multiple-choice test that basically covers the rules of ethics that govern lawyers.
All but 5 jurisdictions in the US jurisdictions require bar candidates to pass the MPRE before acceptance to the bar. So chances are you are going to have to take the MPRE if you want to be a lawyer.
Passing scores and other rules are state specific so search for information about MPRE that is specific to the state in which you want to practice law.
To start, here's a video reenactment of OCI, courtesy of a group of NYU law students (I think?).
For a more in depth view, law.com has an article on the way law firms recruit law students. It also gives a good idea of the on campus interview process. See more below.
Readers actually send the pre-law blog this question a lot, which backs up the theory that the pre-law blog's readership mainly consists of criminals.
Here's the latest:
I have had an interest in going to Law School and have been encouraged
by my professors to do so. However, I have a criminal record. Last
March(2007) I was arrested and plead guilty to posession of Marijuana
with intent to distribute and in April of 2003 I was arrested for a
DUI. Will this absolutely bar me from going to Law School?
I just read this article from the Houston Chronicle and it is exactly the message the pre-law blog tries to convey about starting salaries for attorneys. A summary below:
Going through my bloglines feeds today I found a bunch of link-worthy stuff around the web today.
GOOD NEWS FOR LAW GRADS LOOKING FOR ASSOCIATE POSITIONS
According to an American Lawyer survey, the good news is that
associates are generally happy with their jobs at medium to big firms; they
don't expect to make partner/don't plan to stick around too long (and the
firms could care less about this fact); and, most important of all,:
Am Law 200 firms expect to bring on roughly 10,000 associates next fall [see "Endless Summer"].
That astonishing number equals about one-quarter of all the students
who will graduate from U.S. law schools next year. To put it another
way, the top 20 law schools will only produce about 6,500 graduates.
Good news for those looking to become associates at big to medium law firms! Courtesy of Blawg's Blog.
NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT LAW SCHOOL
Links to this new documentary about law school, complaints about the bar exam and more below...
The general consensus is that change will help eliminate "gaming" of the employment statistics that some say exists in law schools in order to make the school look better in rankings.
Read more about the results below and what it means for Pre-Laws...
I wonder if these suits and subsequent settlements have the adverse effect of actually raising the price at an accelerated pace for future Bar/Bri users?
The suits thus far have not really amounted to anything that will force Bar/Bri to change the way it does business other than the company having to pay money for attorneys fees and settlements. So will Bar/Bri raise the price of its program more rapidly to help cover past suits and the more probable risk of future suits as compared to if the company were never sued?
I go on a slight rant about my personal Bar/Bri options below... (More)
26 Jul, 2007
Insidehighered.com article on financial aid and cost of tuition
Lynne Munson of insidehighered.com has a thought-provoking article on financial aid, the high cost of higher education, and the way that congress is currently trying to soften the financial blow of these two. It's an interesting read.
One of the Pre-Law Blog's female readers sent us some tips of what the ladies should wear as law school starts in response to our past posts on what to wear in law school.
Her tips on what female law students should wear in law school can be found below...
CALI is sending its annual shipment of CALI CD's to law schools by the end of the week. This year we're sending 140,000 CD's...enough for all law students, not just 1L's as in the past!
As an incoming student, or even as a current student, when school starts make sure you ask someone at your school for a free CD if one is not given to you! There should be enough to go around.
Most readers of the Pre-Law Blog hopefully have seen this because if you don't regularly read or subscribe to the Frugal Law Student Blog, you should.
But Ann Levine of lawschoolexpert blog and website is offering a free (normally $150) webinar about law school admissions for Frugal Law Student readers.
You really should take advantage of this opportunity.
We haven't talked about the LSAT in awhile. A reader gives us this comment:
I recently downloaded a practice LSAT exam. Though I have learned a
great deal about the law in Paralegal School, I saw that it had
absolutely no relevance when it come to the LSAT. What is the best way
to prepare for the LSAT?
I
defer to him on the value of this outlining software because, again, I
am too cheap to think about buying this type of software for myself and I didn't know any students who used software for notetaking other than a couple of people who used OneNote. So I really do claim
ignorance as an excuse.
His response is excellent and includes a link
to a great blog post that reviews the outlining software options available for law students:
UPDATED: JULY 14, 2007...See RESPONSE to this post from a fellow law student blogger.
This reader question is about outlining/notetaking software for law students.
Is there a legal computer software outline that would help me outline
class notes, cases and other info? Some legal bookstores, I noticed,
insist you use a certain study aid along with their outlining system
and I didn't want that.
I've often brought up the large gap in biglaw starting salaries compared to non-biglaw starting salaries as it equates to the difference in law students in top percentile/law students at elite schools compared to law students not in that group. Like in the Elite vs. Non-Elite Schools post/reader comment reply.
This is now a major topic of discussion at two of the most popular legal blogs out there...
In law school, you will almost undoubtedly supplement your studies with resources other than those assigned by your professor.
Not only can you use CALI lessons (here and free for current students, at www.learnthelaw.org for those not yet in law school), but you can use commercial supplements and outlines.
While you will inevitably hear some professors say not to use commercial outlines and study aids, I've never heard a student recommend against using commercial outlines and study aids as a resource.
In my experience as a student commercial outlines have been helpful. Especially in 1L classes when competition is at its highest because of a mandatory curve. But obviously, outlines and study aids are not to be relied on solely.
It can be pretty tough to wade through the numerous commercial outlines, study aids, and supplemental material through searching your favorite online bookstore.
Plus the campus bookstore inevitably does not carry everything and does not give helpful user reviews/decent used book options.
So learnthelaw.org has compiled a list of some of the most popular supplements in 1L courses with links to their Amazon.com pages.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has a nice summary of alternative law school ranking lists here. Of all those lists I find the lawfirmaddict (here and here) and lawclerkaddict (here) lists the most interesting.
2 Jul, 2007
New excuse for day dreaming/not paying attention in class?
Many law schools suggest or recommend certain books for incoming law students to read before law school.
Awhile back we at CALI unscientifically searched through a bunch of law schools' websites and compiled a list of books that frequently come up on law schools' suggested or recommended reading lists.
We also linked through to each book's Amazon page so you can take a look at prices, used options, reviews, etc.
Unfortunately, I had to disable comments on this site because of the inordinate amount of porn spam comments it was getting. This really hurts the whole discussion aspect that this blog could have, but I still love to hear feedback from readers through the "Do you have a question..." form on the right.
Here is a (very long) comment from a reader that really illustrates some of the points I try to make on this blog (though, obviously, not her original intent). I interspersed the comment with my responses for your reading ease.
Just FYI, your posting about high law firm salaries has some
inaccuracies.
Law school really can be a stressful place. I've witnessed other students having small emotional breakdowns because of law school on occasions. Think about whether you handle stress well and make sure that you are emotionally ready if you do decide to go to law school.
8 Jun, 2007
Change in Reporting of Deposits Paid at Multiple Schools
Prelaw Advisor reports that the LSAC has changed it's policy on how it reports deposits of applicants to other schools and what effect this might have on students with multiple law school deposits.
The Frugal Law Student blog is about saving money in law school and dealing with student loan debt. It's been one of my the few blogs I keep a link to over on the right. I've loved the blog from the start because, well, I need to save money because I have a lot of student loan debt.
I highly recommend keeping up with this blog before and throughout law school.
After your second year of law school, if you are lucky enough to have some combination of really good grades, connections, attending a really good school, doing well in fall interviews you might land a summer associate position.
A friend of mine who is taking a bar preparation course (threeguesseswhichone) said something to me that made me think. Something to the effect of "if torts were taught this way the first time around, I would have understood it so much better...I would have nailed the final."
I think he's right. And I think this is an argument for preparing yourself for law school prior to your first semester in law school by learning some basics. (More Below)
Detroit mercy, a fourth-tier school according to US News, is apparently placing some of its students in top law firms because of some creative work by Dean Mark C. Gordon.
Some bloggers have recently posted some random thoughts about the whole one final exam tradition in law school (here and here). It's some pretty interesting stuff.
You'll find this a lot with law school, though. People complain and complain about the system, but change is slow. Read more below...
Exams are just around the corner for those of you in law school.
Don't forget to check out our 600+ CALI lessons at cali.org, free to you if your school is a member of CALI (which it likely is since nearly all US law school are...and if it's not, bug your school's administration about it!).
CALI lessons really are a great way to reiew for exams.
Also, check out our Law School Exam Advice Post for a wide variety of law school exam podcasts, advice, and tips from around the web.
The article is a frank overview and critique of the law school structure in America that is fueled by a longing for prestige/higher rankings, financial aid, and ever-increasing tuition costs. More below...
I'm really not much of a fan of study groups. Most of the time I ended up chatting with friends. The only time I really got much help out of study groups was when the group would set time aside to do a practice exam and then discuss our answers.
Some people prefer them though. With that in mind, the blog called Lawsagna has a post on forming effective study groups here.
10 Apr, 2007
New plan for landing post-law school job: make sex tape?
Update - May 04, 2007: While the pre-law blog is not about personal achievments, a big self pat on the back for writing the number one google search hit for "law student spanking."...
Plus part of me wants to see how quickly this becomes my most read blog post since it will include terms like nudity, sex tape, and spanking. And there is an interesting angle for pre-law students (in less obvious ways). It involves the character and fitness examination the star of this video must pass in order to be admitted to the bar. More below...
It is a very well written post and there are a lot of things I like about it. His first, second, fifth and sixth points are very good ones. But, speaking as a current law student to other potential law students, I have some problems with the post. More about this below...
The 2008 U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings, to be released Friday, have supposedly been leaked. TaxProf Blog has a rundown of the biggest movers of this year's rankings.
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:
Emory University School of Law
Fordham University School of Law
Howard University School of Law
Chicago-Kent College of Law - Illinois Institute of Technology
University of Oregon School of Law
George Mason University School of Law
University of Illinois College of Law
William and Mary Law School
Vanderbilt University Law School
University of Georgia School of Law
This blog has some in depth commentary on the survey.
16 Mar, 2007
Some recent articles pre-laws might find interesting
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."
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.
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?
Here's an interesting article on a new program created at Pace Law School. The program is designed for attorneys who have been out of the legal world for awhile and who are now looking to make a comeback as an attorney. Here's the article (may require free login) and the program's website.
This isn't a specific question, but I've received several reader submitted questions in the past basically asking what the social life in law school is or can be like. Read my response below...
The National Law Journal is reporting that BAR/BRI (see previous post) has settled one of its class action suits. BAR/BRI and Kaplan (the other company accused of participating in anticompetitive behavior) agreed to pay a total of $49 million to settle the case.
Students who took the BAR/BRI over the past decade will be due $125 dollars. It's unclear how this will, if at all, affect those of us who plan on taking BAR/BRI in the near future.
Update: It looks like some of the lead plaintiffs in the BAR/BRI suit are not happy with the proposed outcome according to a law.com article...
"Within the memo and in separate interviews, [co-plaintiff Loredana] Nesci and co-plaintiff Lisa
Gintz . . . said they would do everything
in their power to get the settlement revoked. Failing that, the two
have indicated that they will ask the Central District of California to
disgorge legal fees from their attorneys for alleged breach of
fiduciary duty"
Interesting. Nesci's quote:
"'Not that money is everything, but if it's supposed to represent
something that you've been working on for like two years, that pretty
much sucks,' Nesci said."
This Wall Street Journal Law Blog post discusses how great it is to be a 2L in law school right now. Indeed, big law firm salaries for starting associates are rising and it appears that most firms are hiring more associates than ever. Combine that with the drop in law school applicants from two years and a year ago and things are looking good for a lot of 2Ls.
But I think the most interesting part of the post is the comments. A few students from second-tier schools are pointing out that they don't have a lot of opportunities.
I think that's the hardest part that I have seen at a second tier law school. The divide between the top 15% or so of students and the rest of the class is pretty obvious. Most outside of the top 15% are completely shut out of even interviewing with even one big firm during on campus interviews. Firms are very picky about how deep into the class that they are willing to reach at second tier schools.
So while law review students at average schools and even low to middle of the pack students at elite schools may have offers rolling in from OCI, everyone else is left to find a job on their own. A job that is probably not going to pay close to six figures.
Would a more accurate post title be "Good Times for 2Ls at Elite Schools and/or 2Ls at the Top of Their Class?" In my limited experience, yes. But that is a rather long title.
I think many of those comments by the shut-out 2Ls are indicative of the frustration many 2Ls at non-elite schools feel when they know several people, probably a few who are friends, who are will start out with a six-figure salaries while the ones without those opportunities may not even get an interview for that type of job.
But if you're going to a non-elite law school, you just have to understand that this is the way it is. And you need to know that before you make a decision to attend a second-tier law school. There is a good chance you will not have a $100,000/year salary waiting at the tail end of law school. There will still be other opportunities. The fact that more people, overall, have opportunities with
big firms means that there is less competition for the non-big
firm jobs.
Just understand that law school at a non-elite school is not a ticket to an automatic six-figure salary. Also know that you may have to watch on as your classmates and peers from other more highly-regarded schools will have those type of opportunities while you look on and have none.
Rick Lax, DePaul law student; law school blogger; and aspiring author, has some pretty good posts on his lawschoolblogger.com blog. Among others, I like his comments on study groups.
Once again we are witnessing a sort of bidding war between large firms in New York to see who will give incoming new associates the largest salaries. Simpson Tacher & Bartlett recently raised the starting salary of their newly hired associates to $160,000. As soon as this was announced several other firms followed suit. This brings me to a reader submitted question I've been meaning to get to:
Law School is a big investment. What's the likelihood that I will be able to find a high-paying position after graduation?
When one firm raises its associates' starting pay, like clockwork, several others follow and, again like clockwork, the media picks up on it. So we see many articles like this: here, here, here, here. I think this gives some people thinking about law school an unrealistic idea of starting salaries.
WHO PAYS THESE LARGE SALARIES? First of all, only the large firms pay salaries in the vicinity of $100k (probably those that employ at least, say 250 attorneys). Medium/small firms jobs, solo practitioners looking for help, public sector/government jobs, or other public interest jobs will not pay close to the large numbers you've seen thrown around recently ($150,000+). You'll find salary information on a lot of those big firms here.
THE PROCESS A large majority of people who graduate with these high paying jobs
actually got their foot in the door at a firm by participating in on campus
interviewing (OCI) during their second year fall semester. During OCI, firms come to
the school and interview 2l's for what is known as a summer associate
job.
Students who are hired as summer associates work in the summer between 2nd and 3rd year of
law school and get paid at basically the same rate as a full-time
associate. It's virtually a trial run from what I understand. If you
don't screw up the summer associate job, you're probably going to be
kept on as an full-time associate after your third year.
And yes, I know what you're saying...since law firms that pay the big bucks mostly interview and hire during 2l fall semester, how can they consider 2nd year and 3rd year grades? They don't for summer associates. That's why first year grades are crucial. I realize this doesn't make much sense. Welcome to law school.
HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THAT KIND OF SALARY? Secondly, it's very tough to land a large firm job. Because of the cost of law school, many students are looking to pay off their loans as quickly as possible. So many, many students are shooting for the big firm jobs during OCI or otherwise.
A person generally must have some sort of balance of the following in order to land a job that pays that sort of cash: 1) attend a highly regarded school, 2) have a high class rank, 3) have connections.
As an example, my school is in the top 70 law schols schools according to the US News and World Report. There are some big firms that don't even bother coming to my school. Very few out of town firms.
But of the ones that do interview on my campus, most will not interview students outside of the top 15%, 10%, or even 5% in terms of class rank. Sometimes law review is a requirement. And even if you meet certain criteria, you are not gauranteed to nail an interview and get a high paying job.
So you can imagine that the lower ranked the school, the more restrictive interview requirements firms will have for that school and the less likely certain big firms are to even interview at that school.
Now if you attend, say, a top 20 school, your chances become much better. Big firms from all over are more likely to interview up on your campus and much less likely to rely on strict interview standards.
So this is what it comes down to if you want one of the big paying jobs: Do well (grade wise) at a highly reputable school, do extremely well at somewhat reputable school, or have a parent/relativ/etc. whom you know will be able to get you one of these jobs.
IN CONCLUSION I wrote this post partly because I read this person's post here. Now, I do not endorse his views and I think they are too negative in many respects (I posted my response in the comments of his post). It seems to me that this person had a good life as it was, but saw these sort of $140,000+ starting salary jobs, left that job in order to pursue law school, attended the best law school that would take him, but couldn't put full effort into law school. And now he, by his own admission, is very bitter about the whole law school process.
He didn't realize just how tough and competitive jobs in law school are. And as someone thinking about entering law school, you can't fall into the same traps he did. With so much uncertainty about where you will end up grade-wise when
matched up against many people who are of basically equal intelligence
as you, it's not very smart to enter into most law schools with the
idea that you will be one of the few who end up with a 100k salary immediately.
If you feel like your future depends on landing a high paying job right after graduation and you don't have a chance of acceptance at an elite law school, you have to know there is a huge risk that you won't get a big firm, high-paying job. It's even riskier when you consider the cost of most law schools.
It's not easy to land such a job straight out of law school. But that doesn't mean that there are not other opportunities after graduation. It also does not mean that you will never have a shot at a high paying job down the road. For those who don't get the big firm job, it's more like the real working world: start out with a lower salary and work your way up.
The preLaw Insider digital edition is also available for free. You should take a look.
Additionally, subscribe to their podcast called J.D. Confidential. They will be producing these podcasts more frequently. The podcasts can be a little goofy at times, but what they discuss is relevant to you.
29 Jan, 2007
SQ: I'm in high school, how do I get into a good law school?
This submitted question is for those students who are currently in high school. If you're past high school and would like to add something from your experiences, feel free to add your advice in the comments. Otherwise, you can probably skip this one:
Hi, my whole life I have deeply desired to become a lawyer... I understand that this is a long way away for me because I am in high school but I want to start preparing now. I currently have a 3.3 GPA and want to go to a good college. After that, I want to get into a good law school. My question is, what are good colleges that will help me get into a good law school?
I think it's great that you are thinking about law school as early as high school. Here is a general overview and some suggestions for those high schoolers with the goal of getting into law school: DURING HIGH SCHOOL Your high school GPA isn't going to be that important to getting into law school. But it will be important to getting into a good undergraduate college which makes it easier to get into a good law school. So keep your GPA as high as you can throughout high school.
Possibly just as, and in some cases more, important than grades during high school is ACT or SAT scores. Do not take these tests lightly. Take classes, get tutors, and do what you need to score high on your college admissions tests. The idea is to get into a reputable undergrad university after you graduate.
CHOICE OF UNDERGRAD SCHOOL But where you go to get your undergrad degree is probably not as important as you may think. If you get into an elite undergrad school and excel, that is definitely a plus and will help you get into law school. But it is not as if people from good state schools are shut out from law schools. And failure at a great undergraduate school would hurt your chances of getting into law school. Just try to get into the most reputable school that you can that is both within your means and fits any other needs that you have. DURING UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOL Once you are in college this is where things start to really count for law school. It's real simple; you need to keep your GPA high from the start. Be prepared for the challenges of college and don't start out in the hole with bad grades during your first semester or two of undergraduate school. The less reputable your school/less challenging your major, the higher you need to keep your GPA.
PICKING AN UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR Major in what you like. Law schools have no prerequisites other than a degree from an accredited undergrad institution. I would suggest against majoring in pre-law, justice, legal studies, etc. Law schools like diverse students and may prefer people with different undergrad backgrounds. I will note this little study, but take that for what it is worth. The bottom line, major in what you are interested in: something that you could see yourself doing in case law school does not work out for you. THE LSAT Towards the end of your undergrad career you'll need to take the LSAT. The LSAT is THE most important test you will take in terms of getting into law school. Do what you have to do in order to score as high as you can on the LSAT. Again, tutors, classes, studying well in advance.
A high LSAT and a high undergrad GPA will open up numerous doors for you in terms of getting into top law schools, no matter where you went in undergrad. But even a high LSAT and a mediocre GPA still might get you into some really good schools. The LSAT is that important to admission into law school.
IMPORTANT RESOURCES If you're interested about what LSAT/Undergrad GPA will give you a chance to get into what schools, check out the Official LSAC Guide to ABA Accredited Schools. Pay attention to the bottom 25% and higher 25% numbers. You need to have a gpa and lsat score at least within these two numbers, if not higher, to have a chance at a given school.
To get an idea of where a law school stands compared to its peers check out the US News and World Report Law School Rankings (also see tier 3 and tier 4 for complete listing). Note that the US News Rankings are not without controversy. Unfortunately though, the rankings are the best quickhand method for gauging where a school is perceived to stand amongst its peers.
WHAT ABOUT NOW? Something you can do right now is try to make contacts. If you can, do some volunteer work for people working in the realm of law you wish to work. The experience will be good for you, but most importantly it only takes one good contact to get a great job down the road. Working around lawyers increases your chances of making good contacts. Additionally, you'll better undstand the legal world which will help you make the ultimate decision to pursue a job in this field.
Again, I think it's great that you no you want to go to law school right now. That puts you ahead of probably 95% of your future law school classmates. And having that goal should keep you on track academically throughout your high school and undergrad school career.
Good luck!
---- *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.
What is BAR/BRI? Some of you may not be aware of BAR/BRI. BAR/BRI is by far the most extensive, largest, and probably highest quality bar preparation course for law students.
Basically, students pay a few thousand dollars (price varies depending on the state, I believe) to take an eight week bar preparation program that starts immediately after graduation. Virtually everyone who goes to law school takes BAR/BRI
MY EXPERIENCE WITH BAR/BRI My first year, the way people talked about it, BAR/BRI sounded like an actual part of the bar exam. I honestly thought BAR/BRI was mandatory. They tell you to sign up first year to "lock in" prices as soon as you get in school.
I did not sign up my first year on the (what turned out to be correct) assumption that even if the price were higher three years later, money would be easier to come by.
WHY IS BAR/BRI BEING SUED? BAR/BRI is being sued for anticompetitive behavior in two separate suits. Read more about that here and here. Incoming students might want to take an interest in these suits as it could affect how you prepare (or how much you pay) for the bar exam.
MY THOUGHTS While many students needn't worry about the cost of bar review because their employer (often a big law firms) will pay for the course, it's too bad that there are very few cheaper options for those of us who do not have a backer.
My guess is that the people who actually have to pay for BAR/BRI with their own money are the ones who really can't afford to tack on the extra $3,000 in loans because they do not have the promise of a six-figure job.
I will sit for the bar in Illinois next February and I hate the idea of paying $3,000 to prepare for it. I understand that BAR/BRI is very good at what it does, but more competition in the bar review market could only help matters for students.
I hope these suits pave the way for new competition in the bar review
market, hopefully leading to a reduction in price or to other less
expensive competitors.
For a lot of you, law school may be the first time you deal with school loans. Your loans for law school will probably amount to your biggest loan of your life besides a mortgage. So you need to be well-informed and knowledgeable of the loan process.
I graduated with a BA degree in political science and i took
the LSAT with a 147 score, which knocks me out of any ABA approved
schools. I am thinking of applying to a non-ABA accredited school but
am afraid that employers will not hire me after i graduate because i
went to a non-ABA law school. What is your opinion on going to a
non-ABA law school?? Do you think employers will hire non-ABA
students?? Any information is appreciated. Thank you.
First of all, I'm not 100% convinced that a
147 completely shuts you out of any ABA accredited schools. There are a
few at which you may have an outside shot. Chances are even better if
you have a good academic background or if you are a member of an
underrepresented minority group. Here is a link of the schools that
have the lowest bottom quartile scores. It's worth a shot at some of those where you have a similar score.
Second,
I know that for people in certain situations, non-ABA's have advantages
(lower cost, more relaxed admissions, possibly less time-consuming) making them very appealing. A non-ABA be the right choice for these people and maybe you.
With
that said, you must keep in mind that in most states one must attend an
ABA-accredited school in order to sit for the bar (ie, you cannot
legally practice law in that state). California is the big exception
it has several non-ABA options that are accredited by the Californian board allowing graduates from these schools to take the California bar..
As far as
employer's opinions of non-ABA it is tough for me to gauge because
Illinois, my home state, does not have any non-ABA's. I assume employers do not look at non-ABA's as favorably as most ABA schools. You
probably are not going to have a shot at a high paying big law firm job
any time soon if you go to a non-ABA. That said, I can't see how if an
employer would hire a student from a very low-tier ABA school it would
refuse to hire a non-ABA alum. Either way, it's probably an uphill
battle in terms of competing for jobs if you attend a non-ABA and the fact that you attended a non-ABA may shut you out of some options.
Also
note that some ABA schools will accept non-ABA transfers. But one
should never assume enough success first year at a lessor school to make
transferring to a better school easy.
But my advice to you: Take
the LSAT again! And again if necessary. This time work harder, take a
class, or even hire a tutor if necessary if within your means. Many
schools will look at the highest of the three scores. Get your highest
score possible and then reconsider your options.
Robert Ambrogi talks law school tution reform here. What he is says is very real. The pay discrepancy between the pay of those who take big firm jobs and those who take public interest jobs is astonishing. This means that many students cannot even consider public interest out of school because of the high cost of law school. There needs to be more serious discussion about this.
This is a common (probably not unfounded) complaint about law schools. It
is something that will affect you, but because there still haven't been broad-sweeping changes in the way that law schools function, there isn't much you can do.
To combat this you can, however, try to take practical and clinical courses as electives and get hands-on experience through internships, etc. Also, when choosing a school, try to find out what steps the school has takent to ensure that its students are ready for the real world.
A suggestion of how to handle the workload of law school is posted by Law School Academic Support Blog here. I must admit that my law school study plan is not near that scripted. Certainly looks like it would be effective though.
It's something I bring up a lot on this blog, but it's important to understand what you are getting yourself into financially should you decide to attend law school. Compelling Interests blog has a post on the cost of law school that you should read.
I try not to post too many links to commentaries and articles on US News' law school rankings because they are basically the same complaints and same arguments over and over.
"The metrics don't produce an accurate ranking"..."Students put too much credence into/misuse the rankings"..."Law schools consciously make decisions (budgetary, personnel, admissions) based on what might increase their ranking"..."Law schools game the system to get higher rankings." Of course, changes to combat these problems are rarely ever made.
But I realize that this is a blog for pre-law students so some of you may not be as familiar with these sort of commentaries and complaints about law school rankings. National Jurist has a good article on the topic available through their online edition.
As many of the you get your first grades back, it's important to understand that you cannot look at law school grades the way that you looked at undergraduate grades. Especially if, like me, you come from an undergraduate school that has pretty high grade inflation and almost all uncurved classes. Read more about law school grades below...
I checked for the third or fourth time today to see if any one of my three classes' grades were available. On a side note...this class' test was completely multiple choice and "scantron" based.
Call me a dreamer, but in the future it is my hope that engineers and scientists work together to make machines that quickly grade 200 "scantron" sheets in a matter of weeks, maybe days. (My vision of what such a machine might look like below)
As I was disappointed for the third or fourth time today, I am reminded of the overall lack of feedback in law school. You probably know that there is only one exam in most law school classes.
But you may not know that, besides the scant times you are called on/volunteer during class, the final exam is basically the only feedback you get (legal writing classes are the big exception here). Or that it can take well into spring semester for grades to be posted from fall semester.
I think about my junior year in undergrad. My management 101 class told me that high need achievers need immediate and frequent feedback. I'm guessing that a lot of people in law school are high need achievers.
The a) lack of feedback and b) waiting game that comes after finals will drive you crazy. Consider yourself warned.
19 Dec, 2006
Exams with questions that were not covered in class/reading
I've been away concentrating on finals the past week or so. As I
finished my last final this semester, I finally came to terms with this fact: Some law school exams consist of topics that you do
not go over in class.
In your first year you don't know
this and it causes panic after the exam. You come to believe that you
missed these topics in class or in the reading.
But now I am
sure that sometimes exams simply test knowledge that was outside the
scope of both class and assigned reading.
The class of which I speak had very little substance to it. It ended two weeks early and I
(being a law student who tends to make outlines too lengthy) could only
get about 25 pages for a class outline even with the help of a 2002
outline that was basically a word-for-word account of the lectures
which had remained unchanged since that time. Additionally, the only
reading in this class was four short cases.
But still, topics
on the test that were outside of the scope of what we talked about
in class. And this test being multiple choice means it is even more of a crapshoot.
So why am I comfortable with this? Because everyone else is in the
same boat (and because this professor seems to curve the grades as upward as allowable under our school's policy). There were no old exams to go over (likely because the professor uses the same questions each year as evidenced by example years in questions being all in the 1990's) so there was no way for anyone to guess what to study besides the outline and the readings. So I don't know what else I could have done.
As far as why some professors do this, I do not know. And I'm not saying this is that common or as pronounced as I feel it was in this class. But just know that sometimes you are going to encounter things on the test that were not directly covered in class or in assigned readings.
Once again, it's that time of year. If you are a 1L, you are feeling the pressure of your first law school exams. Lucky for you, I've gathered some of the advice out there.
That's a lot of advice and I know if you are a 1L that you probably don't have time to go over it all with exams fastly approaching. But hopefully you have some time to look through and/or listen to some of them.
If you don't keep up with CALIopolis, the blog administered by CALI's very own John Mayer, John has also linked to another one of Frugal Law Student's tips, in particular the post that advises students to speed up podcasts using methods described on Lifehacker.
I can backup John when he says that he has suggested this idea before. He even has demonstrated the method in some of his presentations that I have seen. Speeding up the podcasts makes sense for a law student. There are a lot of useful podcasts out there and limited time.
And I don't see the downside even if it does sound Chipmunk-esque. I had three Chipmunks records (that's right, records) growing up and I loved them: Chipmunk Christmas, the so rare that I can't find a legitimate website that lists it Chipmunks go Hollywood, and my personal favorite Urban Chipmunk.
1 Dec, 2006
Help on the way for future public defenders/prosecutors?
I've posted in the past about how the recent change in political leadership might directly affect future law students (here). I've also have several posts on the types of attorney jobs t considered lesser paying like public defense/prosecution (here and here).
The Chicago Sun-Times reports on another possible change that might come about due to the upcoming power shift in Washington. In May the Senate Judicial Committee passed a debt relief program for public defenders/prosecutors. The bill was eventually shelved by the Republican led Senate. But...
"Since 2003, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has been pushing legislation that
would grant student loan relief to public sector lawyers in the
criminal justice system. With the Democrats in control of Congress,
Durbin plans to reintroduce his bill early next year."
Why this is important to future law students The problem is that the debt of many law school graduates is becoming so astronomical that it is hard for many to even consider public defense or prosecution. That's a real problem.
Details of the bill are as such:
"[T]he Justice Department would pay up to $10,000 a
year of the law school loans of any prosecutor or public defender. To
qualify, a lawyer would have to commit to three years of service. Loan
assistance would be capped at $60,000 per lawyer and would apply only
to loans made through federal programs."
Keep an eye on this bill and see if anything comes of it.
Additional links: Frugal Law Student points us to an e-petition started by IndebtStudent.com with the goal rallying for government support for softening the blow of increasing student loan debt.
I hope you voted yesterday. And I hope you didn't stay up so late last night watching election results that you forgot to set your alarm and overslept this morning. Not that I am speaking from experience....
Anyway, you may not hear quite as much about these issues on the news, but there some changes as a result of the voting last night that could affect you from the standpoint of a person looking to continue his/her education.
Insidehighered.com has an analysis of how the apparent congressional shift in power might affect higher education.
Democrats . . . have vowed to aggressively push an
agenda that includes helping students and families better afford
college, an effort that higher education officials (and of course
student groups) very much support.
They do note the unpredictability of the power shift's future effects, but it seems at least an increase in spending on student financial aid is on the minds of a Democrat-controlled Congress.
If this is confusing, the US Supreme Court decision simply says that a school admissions are allowed to use certain factors such as race and ethnicity in the name of diversity should they choose. That Supreme Court decision, however, does not stop a state or a school from choosing to not use or forbidding the use of racial/ethnic factors in the admission process. This is the third state amendment of its kind. Are other states likely to follow? How will this affect the state law schools in Michigan?
Update from Volokh Conspiracy: University of Michigan seems none to happy about the decision of Michigan voters and is exploring legal action.
I've mentioned podcasting in the classroom by professors as a means of helping make legal education better (here and here). To me podcasting lectures is such an easy way for professors to use technology in order to better their students' learning experience.
Law Career Blog points us to The Frugal Law Student. I like this blog and the idea behind it a lot.
I know first hand about law school debt. I know what it feels like to have $100k in debt waiting to be paid back and to have no $100k/year + law firm job lined up for after law school. It can be scary, for sure.
As an incoming law student, it's important to understand what you could be getting into debt-wise. This blog helps you understand that, gives ideas of how to save money, and addresses some issues on the subject like this post on eating out vs. dining in.
Along those lines, my big tip for saving money is don't buy new textbooks from your campus bookstore. In fact, I wrote a post on it awhile back.
2 Nov, 2006
SQ: Underrepresented Minority Applying for Law School
An important part of the law school application that a law school applicant must understand, especially if the applicant is a minority, is how being an minority (URM) affects the application. Along those lines, here is a submitted question I received not too long ago:
I graduated from (very good public school in California) with a 3.72 in philosophy. I recently took the
lsat and I am very disappointed with my score. I got a 158, I was
hoping to get at least in the 160’s. I am considering taking it again,
but I really don’t want to.
I have done a lot of community service and extracurricular activities.
I am also a member of an underrepresented ethnic group. Will I even
have a shot at a top 10 school with this LSAT score? The school that I
really want to go to is Columbia.
By the way, thanks for including your actual numbers. This makes it much easier for me to assess thie situation. For future readers with questions, know that including your LSAT and GPA numbers will make it more likely that I will answer because that lets me better understand where you are.
How being a URM affects an applicant: First off, a little background. A landmark US Supreme Court decision in 2004 basically affirmed law schools are allowed to favor an applicant because of race or ethnicity. This is not affirmative action or a quota system. It is simply bumping a person's chances of acceptance up because that person would add diversity to the academic mix. The basic logic behind this is that a schools' diversity is a compelling interest that justifies using race or ethnicity in the admissions process.
It varies from school to school and most won't say exactly how, but it's no secret that your chances of acceptance if you are a member of an underrepresented minority is much better than if not . Just make sure in your application you bring to the forefront how being a minority gives you a diverse perspective and show how your status has affected you as a person. That said, being a minority doesn't write a person a ticket to any law school he/she wishes to attend.
Your chances: I'm no expert, but in your shoes this is how I would approach your situation. I'm going to be using Columbia as an example since you mentioned it, but you can go through this process with similarly situated schools to get a better idea.
The first thing to do is find Columbia's data page from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools. A comparison of your GPA to that of last year's acceptances at Columbia shows that you are right near the top 25th percentile. And your GPA is from a pretty reputable/recognizable school. You're certainly not going to get rejected because of your GPA. In fact, your past scholarly success will surely help your chances.
For further guidance, some schools give more detailed applicant statistics at the bottom of the "Law School Description" sheet. Columbia, like a lot of top schools, chooses not to disclose applicant data in that kind of detail though (here's an example of what some schools do provide though).
Next compare the LSAT scores. As you can see, your 158 LSAT score does not surpass the lower 25 percentile for Columbia's accepted students last year. This is not good news for most applicants, but could being a URM put you over the edge?
Use Law School Numbers: To break this down a little further, I would use one of my favorite websites for law school applicants: lawschoolnumbers.com. You can really play around with their search function and get a basic idea of how things shakeout for Columbia. You can even use the search tool so that only other URM applicants are included in the search.
Just remember two things about LSN: 1) these are self-reported numbers so they undoubtedly contain mistakes and accounts that have not been updated and 2) as you narrow down searches, the sample sizes are going to be too small and may not be a very accurate representation.
Based on what I know, with your URM status and great undergrad GPA, receiving an LSAT score that is average for Columbia would likely get you into Columbia 7 or 8 times out of 10. Doing a search on lawschoolnumbers of last year's minority Columbia applicants who scored between a 168 and 171 (50% of all Columbia acceptances LSAT scores fell into this category) helps confirm this by showing a pretty good majority of candidates fitting this criteria reporting themselves as accepted to Columbia (as opposed to rejected or waitlisted, you can assume the pending ones just didn't update their accounts).
Now a lawschoolnumbers search for last year's Columbia minority applicants with an LSAT score between 155 and 163, similar to yours, doesn't garner a lot of results so be weary of the small sample size problem. But most report either a rejection or a waitlist (can probably assume that most waitlist candidates eventually choose another school or were never accepted at Columbia). And the ones reporting being accepted in this group were generally 160 or better with a sparkling GPA.
My Advice: I would have guessed your 158 LSAT score puts you at a less than 50% chance of acceptance at Columbia. The lawschoolnumbers search helps confirm this guess and maybe even paints a bleaker picture for your chances than I expected.
If you want a halfway decent shot at a school as reputable as Columbia, you're going to have to do better than a 158. You can take your shot with what you scored, but I wouldn't recommend it. I certainly wouldn't want to go through the LSAT twice, but you have to do what you have to do.
Not to be overly dramatic, but the LSAT is an extremely important test and can pretty much indirectly determine what career opportunities you might have or might not have. Do you really want to spend your life thinking "I could have done well on the LSAT and gotten into Columbia had I studied for and taken the LSAT again."
Based on my limited knowledge, I think you need to shoot for 165 or higher. Take a course or a tutor if you have to in order to get it.
Links: This a description of how law schools use diversity on applications decisions as viewed from a person who is paid to help minority applicants through the application process. Website looks out of date but it still seems like a good description.
LSAC's (administrator of the LSAT) "Minority Perspectives" homepage with links to FAQ's for minority applicants and some relevant articles.
Blog written by a group of black professors called blackprof. It tackles a lot of relevant issues for minorities. Wish they posted more often though!
---- *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 have close relationships. I hope that you seek others'
opinions and insights in addition to mine in order to make an informed
decision.
CALI has created a pretty fun and easy-to-play game to help you learn the names and a little bit about the voting tendencies of the Supreme Court Justices.
There are actually two types of games within the game. In one match the Justices' names with the Justices' likenesses. In the other choose from a list of thee cases the one for which a given Justice wrote the opinion.
Accepted Admissions Almanac reports on the upcoming changes that will take place starting on the June 2007 LSAT exam. Here's some nice analysis on the upcoming.
Some good analysis in this article on insidehighered.com. I find it interesting that two of the major LSAT prep companies are offering opposite advice. These quotes are taken from the above article:
"[I]f they are taking it in the next year or so, they should, if they have
time to prepare, take it in December or February. Anytime there is
uncertainty in the exam, regardless of the magnitude, it should be
avoided if you have the opportunity,†said Steven Marietti, director of
pre-law programs at Kaplan."
“I think June is a better time to take the exam, in terms of how it
fits into the admissions cycle,†Meanza added. “I don’t think that it’s
ultimately that big of a deal — I don’t think we need to scare students
into doing something just because of two minor changes.â€
Kaplan's advice makes a lot of sense to me. In a test that you are (hopefully) going to prepare for extensively and where the cost of a single wrong answer is fairly high, it makes sense to avoid as much uncertainty as possible. But then again, it doesn't make much sense to rearrange a plan you've had in place based on what looks like a very minor change.
I guess it depends on how flexible you are and how comfortable you are with bumping up your LSAT test date to an earlier date.
This could be really helpful if you only want search results from schools' official websites. Especially for pre-law students looking to compare a number of law schools in some way. For example, if you wish to compare the clinical offerings of various law schools and do not want a bunch of irrelevent links that a normal Google search would likely give, using this search would be a great place to start. Give it a try!
19 Oct, 2006
Tips for letters of recommendation/personal statements
A couple of blogs have recently posted some good tips for specific parts of a law school application.
University of Chicago's "A Day in the Life" blog has a two part post (here and here) on letters of recommendation. I remember when I was applying to law school I looked at the letters of rec as more of a formality. I just gave the forms and nothing else to the three professors I knew the most and asked them to write a letter of recommendation. That was the extent of it. I read this and realized that was a bad way to go about it. I highly recommend reading those two posts before you start asking for letters of recommendation.
Also, Accepted.com's blog has some tips on writing a personal statement to accompany your law school application. Mostly basic grammatical suggestions, but the post is still a good reminder.
If Harvard Law School has its way, law school curriculum may no longer be older than the substance pictured to the left. Here is an article on Harvard Law School's change in 1L curriculum.
Harvard is cutting down on the amount of time first year students spend on the traditional 1L classes. Instead it is focusing on what it considers some more up-to-date and practical aspects of law.
"The new curriculum [will] . . . place more emphasis on
international and comparative law, since most aspects of modern legal
practice have a global dimension. It also will introduce two first-year
classes, one designed to teach students about the universe of laws
created by entities other than courts, and one that will focus on
complex problem-solving."
But the old curriculum was only 130 years old. At least give it some time to sink in, guys...
But even though the traditional law school curriculum was developed by
Harvard a mere 130 year ago, the change is overdue in my clearly nonexpert opinion. One of the knocks on legal education is that its antiquated teaching methods are not practical enough and do not prepare students well enough in becoming lawyers. So maybe this move helps with that.
What does this mean for you? You're probably not going to Harvard (if you are, congratulations!). But this move by Harvard might be important to you as a pre-law student. You may or may not know that Harvard is considered the most prestigious
law school in the country. And law schools love to follow the leader.
This move by Harvard
may push a number of other schools in the same direction. It should be interesting to see if Harvard's change in the 1L curriculum causes a domino
effect.
And while it likely won't be as well-publicized as Harvard's changes, keep an eye on your potential schools and see if they adopt similar curricular changes in the future, especially if you're still more than a year or two away from law school.
You'll notice that no really elite law schools are in this list. This reinforces last week's answer to the reader submitted question where a reader asked about going to a lower reputational school with the idea of transferring. My thought is that lower reputational schools can be the most competitive because the difference in opportunities for people in the top of the class are so much better in terms of transferring and getting a job out of school. So with so much fighting to get to the top, you just can't go to a school with the idea that you'll have high enough grades to transfer upward.
Also I find it interesting that Baylor issued a press release touting their top ranking. I'm not sure that that top ranking in this category is necessarily a good thing. The rankings probably scares a some potential Baylor students bringing to mind horror stories with students at each other's throats, sabotaging others' work, unwilling to share notes, hiding important research books others will need in the library, etc.
I doubt that kind of competition happens much anywhere. But to me, law schools are competitive by nature for other reasons and I can't imagine that much differentiation between two student bodies of any given similarly positioned schools. Plus, again, who knows if these rankings really mean anything anyway.
I realize that a lot of the readership of this blog comes from hoodlums, hooligans, or general ne'erdowells. So I found this week's reader question especially appropriate:
Can i get into any law school if i have a criminal record? Does
it depend on how bad the crime was or am i just ineligible? If so, then is there anything that i can do to help myself and get
into law school?
The University of Chicago Law School Admissions Department is maintaining a blog for law school applicants called "A Day in the Life."
Even if University of Chicago is not on your radar in terms of potential schools, I suggest keeping up with this blog. Especially the upcoming posts in the "Tips and Tricks" series (first post is on the personal statement).
The material in this lesson is basic, but the law school you attend may expect you to intrinsically pick up these concepts along the way if you don't already know them coming into law school.
Every future law student should run through this lesson at some point before law school in order to brush up on these concepts.
Another great question submitted by one of our readers.
I'm in a similar situation as the chemical engineering student from Northwestern, but my university isn't nearly as prestigious, nor is my major as difficult (Political Science with an emphasis in Public Relations). Due to an incredibly bad sophomore year, I have a low gpa . . . but I do not want to give up on my dream of going to law school . . . . Another option that may be feasible is to apply to a lower ranked (but still accredited ) law school, do well during the first year, and then transfer to a higher ranked school the following year. Should I just forget that I once dreamed of attending Harvard(completely out of the question at this point) and Duke? I still have time to improve my GPA and prepare for the LSAT, as I have two majors, my graduation date (2007) has been delayed by a year, but I would like to give myself peace of mind regarding my situation. Thanks.
There are several good questions in here, but let me address the most general question that is probably applicable to many law student hopefuls who cannot get into a big name school...
Should I apply to a less reputable school with the plan of transferring out after first year? Unfortunately it is a very poor strategy to go to one law school and counting on transferring to another between your first and second years (generally the only point at which a law student can transfer).
Look at it this way, to transfer to a big time school you have to prove that you are far and away a better student than the students at your current lower reputation school. To transfer upward, you probably need to be in lower than top 25% and the highest reputation law schools to which you wish to transfer will require you be in the very, very top of your class.
Most of the students at the school you attend your first year are going to be, assumedly, of similar intelligence as you. Afterall, your LSAT's will likely be within the same range. And obviously, almost all law students are going to try to achieve elite status academically during their first year; whether their motivation is transfering, scoring a biglaw job, law review, etc.
So in your first year you'll have all of these students of similar intelligence vying for a top spot in the class. Because of this you just don't know whether you will be at the top of your class at the lower ranked schooll, which will be the major factor to ability to transfer upward.
In general to anyone thinking about the transfer up idea, I highly advise against taking this strategy. If you go to a certain law school, you need to be comfortable with the idea of finishing your JD at that school. After the first semester if your grades and rank are high, then you can think about transferring upward.
Should I rule out going to law school? I don't think you should rule out law school until you know what your capabilities are on the LSAT. I can't stress enough that the law school you attend is highly dependant on LSAT.
Your major or undergrad school alone is not a big enough strike against you. But if your GPA is as low as you lead on, there is a chance that it will hurt, maybe completely eliminate, your chances at some elite schools. The LSAT, though, can mask that low GPA and still get you into some pretty good schools.
For now you should concentrate on getting that LSAT score as high as possible to make up for your GPA. In addition keep improving the GPA to show an upward trend. Take plenty of practice tests and have an idea of your potential score on the LSAT.
As mentioned in the previous post, map out scenarios using information provided by lawschoolnumbers.com and LSAC's Official Guide to ABA Law Schools. Come to a conclusion on what you think it would take, LSAT-wise, to get into your target schools and go from there. Estimating what schools you have a chance of getting into becomes easier when you have done plenty of practice LSAT exams and know where your score could fall.
At that point you will have the ability to make an informed decision about law school and, if need be, the ability to rule out attending law school altogether if your target schools are completely out of reach. But as of right now, you just can't do that. It might cost you some time and effort to prepare for the LSAT, but I think you have to keep up the dream for now.
One more note on a low GPA Also, you need to make sure that your grades are continuing to rise. But I have to be honest, if you have trouble keeping up grades in undergrad with a less than difficult major at a less than competitive undergrad school to the point where you feel you are underperforming, you may need to seriously think about whether you are up for law school.
Succeeding in law school is much more effort and requires better study habits than undergrad. Unless you have a legitimate reason for your poor performance (and if you do, note it on your personal statements to law schools), you will have to be willing to change the way you do things in terms of school work.
I'm not assuming anything about the reader, but for people out there who know they have the ability but don't apply themselves in undergrad, just changing as soon as you step into the halls of law school might be harder than you think. The same temptations and distractions that might have kept you from doing well in the past in undergrad also exist in law school.
---- *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.
John has a great post on podcasting law school class lectures here.
There is no doubt that digitally recording professor lectures and posting them for the entire class has numerous advantages for the students in that class (ability to review a lecture from earlier in the year, supplement notes with things you missed, listen after emergency situations that caused you to miss class).
He alsom mentions a student who decided to take the podcasting into his own hands:
We had a student
(link to interview with the law student) volunteer to record and post
all of his instructor's lectures and we provided him with a digital
recorder to do so (after he got permission from the instructors, of
course) and I have blogged on the idea that students would probably be
more than willing to handle the small amount of work necessary to
create and post the podcasts. With CALI providing the blog, disk space
and bandwidth via Classcaster, there is almost no cost to law faculty who want to make their classroom lectures available to their students and others.
I think this is a great idea because some professors are too busy/just don't want to deal with the hassle of learning how to post a digital recording to a blog.
In fact, I tried to get the professors teaching my two traditional classes this semester to participate. I asked them if I could record and podcast their lectures by setting up a classcaster blog for them (I got one to agree but I ended up dropping the class so another student took over the reigns).
So if any of the more technologically inclined law students at CALI member law schools with digital recording devices think that being able to go back and listen to a lecture at will is a good idea, approach your professor and let him/her know that you are willing to do the work for them using our classcaster blogging system.
Professors who happen to be reading this who wish to participate but don't want to deal with the posting and recording part will likely easily get a volunteer to do the work by simply asking the class for one.
Setting up a blog on classcaster is free, simple, and a service to your fellow students. Feel free to contact me with any questions.
Note: Do not record classes and especially do not post them publicly without the professor's admission! They may have to go through other steps in order to conform with your school's policy on recording (for example, asking everyone in the class for permission to record).
Edit: Also see this post by a professor on the topic of recording classroom lectures. Also a good discussion in the comments section.
15 Sep, 2006
Reader Question: How long is law school?...basic curriculum
With the number of complex questions I've been getting for the reader submitted questions, I thought I'd take on a truly simple one this week:
How many years does it take to finish law school?
Generally it takes a law student three years to finish a full-time law school program and four years to finish a part-time evening program. Do not forget that you must complete a degree from a four year university before that.
That was easy. But that simple question has left me so unfulfilled for the reader submitted question this week. So I'll delve a little deeper into the basics of law school curriculum at an extremely basic level for those of you just starting to research law school.
This is going to be very, very basic stuff for a lot of you so feel free to skip this posting.
Law school curriculum Generally the core courses taken in the first year are all required. A student cannot choose his or her classes during the first year. In fact most of the time first year law students have a schedule that they have no control over whatsoever. A wholly set schedule.
Some law schools break a certain course topic into two semester and some
schools will push a required basic course or two into your second year. Here are the core classes at most law:
Torts: Basically you study civil harms done by one person to another. The person who commits a tort (tortfeasor...yeah, that's what it's called) may have to pay or fix the harmed person in some way, but the tortfeasor won't go to jail under tort law.
Another basic difference between a tort and crime, it's easier to convict a person of a tort (need proof beyond a preponderance of the evidence) than a crime (need proof beyond a reasonable doubt). This is why OJ Simpson still had to pay a lot of money but didn't have to go to jail for the murder of his wife.
Contracts: The study of agreements made between people. Criminal Law: This is probably the side of law you are used to seeing depicted (pretty inaccurately) on TV and movies; that is, things people do that can get them sent to jail. Study of issues involving the law that surrounds crimes like homicide and rape.
Property: Legal issues relating to personal and real property.
Constitutional Law: Study of issues that fall within the scope of our Constitution. Lots of monumental Supreme Court decisions.
Civil Procedure: A study of the rules that govern the processes leading up to a civil trial, during a civil trial, and after a civil trial. All the technical stuff regarding how civil actions work. For example, how the decision is made that certain courts can hear certain suits (jurisdiction).
Legal Writing/Research: You'll learn how to do research by book and by using Westlaw or Lexis (online tools for legal research). And you'll learn to write like a lawyer.
2nd and 3rd year of law schoolThe second and third year of law schools is basically a time when you can choose to take whatever classes you want, though there are still may be certain requirements like an ethics course. Just depends on the school. There are different techniques for choosing classes (discussed here).
Most people will agree that the first year is the toughest year. After that law school becomes easier and less stressful.
In Conclusion If you're interested in learning more substance of the first year
courses CALI offers a subscription plan for pre-law students that gives
access to our first year CALI lessons through learnthelaw.org.
I realize I answered more than what the reader asked. But I think the contents are something of interest to many who will find this post in a search because the original question is a very basic one that a person just starting to research law school might ask. Because of that I tried to keep the descriptions in very simple terms.
---- *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.
14 Sep, 2006
Podcast series with professors at California Western
California Western is producing a series of podcasts called Law in 10 with some of its law school professors. The podcasts are about 10 minutes long and topics covered involve the legal aspects of current events.
I would recommend the podcasts as an easy way to start thinking about the legal aspects of current events.
12 Sep, 2006
How much money can I make doing public interest law?
Following up on this post about public interest law programs amongst the law schools, Law.com reports on an NALP study done to help determine how much lawyers in the public interest arena are currently making.
Unsurprisingly, public interest lawyers' salaries are, on average much less than first year associate's salaries.
Nationwide average salaries listed for attorneys less than a year out of college range from $36,000 for civil service organization attorneys to $50,000 for deputy attorney generals. Somewhere in the middle are local prosecuters and public defenders making in the mid-$40,000 range.
Obviously, those who enter into public interest law aren't in it for the money and there are many advantages to going into public interest law over other types of law.
What is public interest law? For those of you who do not know, I answered the question "what is public interest law" earlier on the Pre-Law Blog in the previously mentioned post with help from the eguide referred to in that same post...
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.
8 Sep, 2006
Reader Question: Take a year off before law school?
I am trying to decide whether I should apply straight to law school or
take a year off. I am Chemical Engineering major @ Northwestern U. Due
to my hard major, my gpa is not that attractive for freshmen and
sophomore year. But very strong my junior year. My LSAT score is very
high. Should I wait to apply after my senior year or risk it? I would
like to go to Top 20-50 schools.
To be clear for our other readers, our reader with the question would need to apply to law schools right now during his senior year (fall '06) in order to have a good chance at attending law school next fall (fall '07). But doing so means the law schools will initially only see his undergrad grades up to his junior year.
He is considering taking a year off of school before attending law school, if I understand this correctly, and counting on his senior year grades making a difference in his GPA in order to get him into a better school.
My Take: Honestly I don't see how sitting out a year before law school will help that much. For one, you hopefully can update your potential schools of your academic progress after the fall semester of your senior year by sending an updated transcript before they make a decision on your application.
I don't know that the marginal difference in your GPA from after fall to after spring is likely to make a difference at most schools.
Your one year worth of experience is probably not going to increase your chances at any school and it may be tough to find meaningful employment for just that year.
Not to mention one year off means you graduate a year later than you could have. I know this feeling. I had a year off before law school. Man it was boring. Nearly impossible to find a meaningful job where I could just quit within a year. Plus I wouldn't be in school right now if I hadn't waited to attend law school.
Some other things to consider when applying in your situation.
How high is your LSAT?: Something you must know: LSAT is king in terms of getting you into law school. GPA is a distant second. You characterize LSAT as "very high." Is it high relative to the other applicants at your target schools or just high relative to other LSAT takers? This makes a big difference.
That is to say, if your LSAT is very high compared to other applicants at your target law schools, it can mask a lot of problems including mediocre and even low GPA. If it's on par with many applicants, your GPA becomes more of a factor.
How low is your GPA? With that in mind, if your GPA is really low, below merely mediocre, it could lead to rejection at some of these schools even in the face of a high LSAT.
But if I had to guess, your GPA will likely not be looked upon as unfavorably as you may think for a number of reasons.
Northwestern is a very reputable undergrad university.
Your major is a very challenging one.
It sounds like your grades are trending upward.
These are factors you may want to bring up in your personal statement.
Besides the less helpful LSAT and GPA medians and percentiles on the "ABA Law School Data" sheet (example: upper right corner of second sheet), many schools provide a detailed grid of applicant data based on LSAT and GPA on the "Law School Description" sheet (example: bottom of second sheet). You can gauge your chances pretty well with this grid, as well as estimate what kind of difference a slightly increased GPA would make.
Also, take a look at lawschoolnumbers.com. Find people with similar attributes to yours and see where they applied and where they were accepted. Check your target law schools and to see if people how the people with similar attributes to yours were received at that school. Of course lawschoolnumbers is all user generated content, but I think a vast majority of user accounts on lawschoolnumbers are legit.
In the end, I just don't see that much of a risk to applying to law school now or that much of a reward for waiting.Good luck with your decision!
Anyone else want to weigh in on this in the comments? Any other readers with questions about law school can submit them here.
---- *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.
Do you have questions about law school? Fill out, anonymously if you like, and submit the form below.
I'll answer honestly and the best I can from a current law student's point of view. If I can't answer it, I'll try to find someone who can...hey, we have connections here at CALI. Click here to see previous reader submitted posts.
About.com has a nice timeline for future law school applicants. It's a good idea to keep up with this or another checklist/timeline to see where you should be in your application process.
Prospective Fall '08 Applicants If you you want to start law school in Fall '07 (2 years out from law school) you need to start seriously thinking about the LSAT and researching different law schools. More importantly now is the time to research the LSAT and different schools even if you are not 100% sure you will be attending law school.
I know 2 years from now sounds like a long time. But you'll end up in a better position if you start the process in motion now than you would if you wait too long to start the process.Waiting too long to start the process can hurt you in a number.
Prospective Fall '07 Applicants For those of you looking to start law school in Fall '07 (next year), hopefully you've started the whole application process and taken the LSAT or at least plan on taking the October LSAT by now. If not, you're in a tough position and have to take the December LSAT to get in next year.
To be honest, it is possible though as I did take the December LSAT the year before I entered law school. I decided very late in the application cycle to go to law school. But I would not recommend doing this because I had only one shot at the LSAT and I'll never know if my late application and LSAT score hurt my chances of being accepted at some schools.
In reality here are the things the About.com timeline says that you should be doing in the September, a year before you start law school:
Order the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) catalog and application or complete an electronic version.
This article reports that 2006 applications to law schools are expected to continue their decline from the previous year for the third year in a row.
Why are law school applications down? The theory is that as that the pool of law school applicants reduces as the economy gains more upward momentum. In other words, an improving economy equals more people receiving jobs out of college and not as many experienced workers being let go from their jobs. In turn, there are less people applying for law school as a "last resort" sort of option.
What this means for applicants? Less applications to compete with is good news in the short-term for those of you applying to law schools because it means a better likelihood of acceptance at a more competitive law school.
So if the economy continues to improve, assuming the theory is correct, you are going to see less and less law school applicants. This reduces the competitiveness of the application process a little bit in the years which applications to law schools are down making it easier for you to get into the school of your choice.
I try to be realistic in this blog by mentioning both the good and bad aspects of law school. I'm not trying to scare anyone who is heading into law school.
But reading this article (thanks to JD2B for the link), I think it's important to inform you that law schools sometimes do ask students to leave when those students' performances are unsatisfactory grade-wise. Read more about flunking out of law school...
This is part II of this reader submitted question (part I here):
I am 36 yrs old and have never been to college...(see previous post)...Should I begin with a degree in Criminal Justice or is there another
route I should take? I may not be able to attend full time because I
work full time. I am also a single mom. Will this be a problem?
What undergraduate major should I choose? There's an easy answer to this. It doesn't matter.
To add a litte more, there are no major requirements for getting into law school
other than you must have a four year degree. Law school admissions look
to admit a wide array of all majors into law school as to increase diversity.
Find a major in which you are interested and/or one that could lead you to a career field in which you could see yourself
working should your law school plans become derailed. I would go as
far to say do not choose something like criminal justice or pre-law unless they fit those criteria.
As an aside, I cited this study
a while back. It says economics majors who attend law school tend to
earn more money in the long run. But clearly, that shouldn't factor
into your decision unless you were already interested in an economics
degree.
Can I achieve a law school degree as a single mother/ full-time worker? You certainly can get a law degree in that position. But undergraduate and law school will be a significant time commitment. Since you already have one full-time job it will often seem like you have two full-time jobs with the additional school work throughout this time.
Also consider the length of time it will take to finish everything. You're looking at around 10 years (maybe 5-6 for undergrad + 4 for law) or so if you go part-time the whole way through. Bottom line, it's going to be a personal choice dependent on a lot of things personal to you.
OVERALL ADVICE: I highly suggest right now you just concentrate on getting your undergraduate degree in a major that would be useful or interesting to you even without the law school degree. Pretend as if law school is not ultimate goal at this point.
I say this because the undergraduate college you attend is of little significance in terms of getting you into a law school and your major is of even less significance. The only thing you should worry about for the first few years of undergrad is doing well grade-wise.
This way if situations change in the years to come and law school isn't an option for whatever reason, simply finishing your undergrad degree can become the ultimate goal. A goal that could open many doors career-wise for you with the possibility of a law being one of those many doors.
Start seriously considering law school and the LSAT once you're two years or so from graduating. Study very hard for the LSAT and take the test between 1 and 2 years before you graduate. But for now, just get your undergraduate degree because that is the only hard requirement for law school besides an LSAT score.
---- *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.
1 Sep, 2006
Reader Question I: Community vs. 4 Year College, more...
This week's reader submission has several questions so I'm going to break this up into two parts...
I am 36 yrs old and have never been to college. I am now ready to
finish my dream. I want to make sure I take the correct steps. Should I
begin with a community college or should I begin at a 4 yr university? ...(see next post for the rest of the question)
It's great that you are ready to take the steps and finish a dream. Here are my thoughts on your questions.
Am I too old for Law School? I tackled the age question a couple of weeks ago here. Make sure to read Dave's comments to that post as he adds some great perspective. You should not let your age stop you from taking the steps to pursuing a law school degree.
Will attending a community college hurt my chances at a law school? I don't think it really matters where you begin prior to law school as long as you finish with a four year degree.
From a law school admissions perspective, a community college likely won't hurt you at all. LSAT score is THE most important factor for getting into law school. GPA is a distant second. And then it seems pretty much every other factor (except something exclusionary, say past criminal record) is just a slight bump up or down in admissions' eyes.
When law school admissions judge GPA, some credence is put into the reputation/difficulty of your undergraduate school and major. But as long as your GPA is relatively good everywhere you've been before law school, you're going to be fine. Just try to make sure you have a high GPA throughout. But even a low or mediocre GPA can be masked by a high LSAT.
In all, I just can't see an admissions decision-maker bumping you down for attending a
community college. Especially since your age and situation (single
mother wanting to turn your life around) will be be taken as
a positive. Advantages of a Community College? Community college sounds like a great start for you in your situation. It will be a good way for you to ease back into school as it will
likely be a little less challenging and time consuming than a four year university. In addition, community college is probably going to be cheaper.
Once you finish a two year community college degree you can transfer into a four-year university. In some states, like in Illinois where I'm from, transferring from community to bacaccalaureate college is very easy. But from what I understand, elsewhere it can be complicated.
But in my experience, a lot of good universities are very willing to accept community college transfers. The community college you want to attend may even have a program that sets you on track to transfer to certain universities. So talk to someone at your prospective school.
More on transferring from a community to four year here. So I guess the decision comes down to the ease with which you would be able to transfer from the community college to a four year university. I can see a lot of advantages to starting out at a community college for someone in your situation.
---- *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.
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...
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.
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.
---- *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.
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.
23 Aug, 2006
Learning about law school through current students
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.
21 Aug, 2006
Can I get by with older edition casebooks in 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.
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.
----
*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...
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.
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.
15 Aug, 2006
What Legal Dictionary Should I Buy For Law School?
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...
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.
"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."
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.
10 Aug, 2006
Podcast: Study Advice from Professors for Incoming 1L's
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).
"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."
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.
4 Aug, 2006
Law school messes with you (sometimes in a good way)...
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 stu
But now I am
sure that sometimes exams simply test knowledge that was outside the
scope of both class and assigned reading. 
About.com has a nice 
Remember