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.

Legal bloggers are talking about a recent state university that punished a student for an extremely inflammatory teacher evaluation.

Problem is, of course, most schools promise anonymity with regard to student evaluations of teachers.

So what should this tell you, as a student, about student evalutions?

See the list below...

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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?

Click below to see the response...

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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.

Professor Caron posts a useful roundup of the latest reactions to another one of those articles.

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.

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.

This is why many call for a more practical, skills-based upper level classes and some even call for the elimination of 3L entirely.

Hope everyone enjoyed their time off from work and/or school! After a brief hiatus, the Pre-Law Blog will resume posting...

The Frugal Law Student (last day to vote for FLS at the ABA Blawg 100, so go do that real quick) student points us to a relevant new site. AlreadyBored.com looks to be a great and free new tool for future law firm associates

Click below to learn more...

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Here is WSJ Law Blog post on students suing law schools. As always, it elicits some interesting comments from the WSJ law blog readers.

NLJ.com is a great news resource for future and current law students, alike.

Here are some recent articles of interest:

- Law students suing their schools

- Ave Maria Univ. Law School naming rights for sale

- UT law students petitioning the Supreme Court

- Advice for getting a 1L summer job

Subscribe to NLJ's RSS feed here.

US News has this short article, comparing the current mortgage crisis to a potential student loan crisis.

Build A Solo Practice Blog adds its two cents here.

Once again, I give a shoutout to my employer and the the non-profit organization that makes this blog possible.

If you're in law school right now, you're surely preparing for exams.

Don't forget about CALI lessons. There are over 700 free, interactive, computer-based tutorials in over 32 areas of law.

More Below...

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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.

I've always been fascinated with the law school world's love/hate obsession with rankings.

Click below to see more...

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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?

Click below to see my answer...

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Here are a couple of links about the day before and the day of the LSAT here and here.

For more links, below is our original post about the day before the LSAT:

This weekend is an LSAT weekend! Hopefully you're well prepared for and not too stressed out over the exam.

Compelling Interests blog (from the people behind LexPrep Law School Preparation Course) gives some last minute advice.

Here you can find some good advice for the day before and the day of the test.

Here is some more advice for the day of the test.

Good luck!

The ABA reports a survey that says women lawyers at top firms make "significantly less" than men.

Leiter has a couple lists measuring law schools' placement in Federal Appellate Clerkships.

Law and More has some advice for law grads who have lots of debt can't find the job they want.

Ms. JD on job interview etiquette.

Legal Sanity opinion on some of the perks being offered to big firm associates.

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.

Happy Thanksgiving from The Pre-Law Blog!

Click below to see our links to advice posted last year about Thanksgiving break during law school.

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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.

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?"

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.

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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.

See more below..

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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.

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:

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Here's a nice article from law.com on the topic of midsize firms, often overlooked in all of the big firm salary hype.

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.

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.

TaxProf Blog posted some more good stuff based on the Princeton Review data.

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)

Paul Caron at TaxProf Blog points us toward Princeton Review's Best 170 Law Schools with a few interesting lists such as Most Competitive Students, Most Friendly to Older Students, Best Quality of Life, and a few 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.

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The Prelaw Advisor Blog has a good post about the importance of the LSAT.

He makes a good point about the counterintuitiveness of the LSAT's importance, especially to applicants and parents.

Click below to read more.

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Accepted Admissions Almanac has the details and the link to the law.com article.

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

Click for more below.

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

Says Professor Bowman of The Law Career Blog:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See more below...

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

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

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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,