STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

Law school/ LSAT

Alikat · Kate Spade

I considered Law school, though eventually decided it wasn't for me. I found this website very useful:

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/

As for rankings, here is a link to US News Top 100 Law schools:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/law/brief/lawrank_brief.php

tara t · Marc Jacobs

i took the LSAT. actually i'm going to brag here.. but my BF is an attorney and i did better on the LSAT than he did. that means i'm smarter than him. that means i should always win.

anyways, i decided it wasn't for me, but i bought 2 LSAT books with lots of sample tests. i think those are the way to go.

maybe do the pre law society for a semester. it's better than nothing.

law schools in CA, i have no idea; i'm an east coaster and didn't research those ones.

i thought this was a pretty cool site to help you pick a school.

http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/gradschool/law/lawlocator/

Bastet · Kate Spade

I graduated from law school in 2003. If you want to take the LSAT, take a study course through Kaplan if you have the time/money. I was lucky enough to get my hands on the Kaplan course books from a sorority sister who took it before me. I used them to study like an insane person the summer before I took the LSAT. If I recall correctly, I took it the summer between my junior and senior years in college. The key to doing well on the LSAT is practice tests! IMO the crap on the LSAT had zilch to do with actual law school.

There are no "requirements" to get into law school per se, though they like a high GPA and good LSAT scores. They look for a well rounded type, though most of the people in my law school class were humanities majors of some sort or another. History, English, Philosophy, Poli Sci, Gov't, etc. Law schools seem to like people that have taken a lot of classes that involve writing. So if you're a science major, make sure you take some electives that are writing-focused. Most people either had a double major or a major and a minor.

Extra curricular wise, I don't really think that being in a pre law society helps get into law school, you're not really missing out by not joining. A lot of colleges don't even have them. A lot of people at my law school did Model UN, debate, Int'l Relations Club, foreign language club/house. Most people played a sport of some kind or another, but I don't think it matters for admissions purposes. I don't know how much it helps, but if you can join an honor society for *anything* you do in college, join it, even if you just pay the dues and then never go to meetings. Your major subject, foreign language, anything. It sounds bad, but they're good to have on your application. IMO, study abroad looks good on any grad school application.

I'm an east coast person, so I don't know anything about CA law school, sorry.

HTH!

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

Thank you! You all gave me wonderful advice. Thanks for the sites too.

Well, I'm not in any sports, but I will look into joining an honor society. I'm also studying in Scotland next semester, so I've got that to put down. I'm an English major and a Print Journalism minor, so I've had to write many papers. I'll look into the Kaplan course books too.

Maybe you could suggest some good east coast schools as well? Besides the obvious ones, like Harvard, I mean. I'd like to go to school on the west coast or in California because I absolutely hate winter, but I wouldn't be dead-set against schools in colder areas.

Congrats tara t and Bastet! Bastet, can I ask what you focused on in law school? What type of you do you practice/want to practice?

Thank you again!

-- Edited by wetbandit42 at 18:43, 2005-11-17

Bastet · Kate Spade

I focused on Intellectual Property (copyright, trademarkes, internet law, etc) in law school. I *loved* it and dreamed of practicing it when I got out of law school. I have a computer science background, so that area of the law was ideal for me.

Unfortunately, the market was really in the crapper when I graduated in 2003 except for people at top 10 schools or schools with lots of connections to the surrouding area. I went to William and Mary, a good, first tier law school, but it was really hard for my class to get decent legal-related jobs. There isn't a lot of need for lawyers in Williamsburg, and moving to Richmond (think southern conservative city) was not an option for me. 60something percent of us were not employed at the time of graduation. I managed to get a job as a policy analyst at a federal agency and HATED it for two long, painful years. But, at the end of last month, I managed to get a job as an attorney in a different part of the same agency. I practice benefits law right now, and I like it a lot. But hopefully in a year or two, after I get some legal experience under my belt, I can swtich back to IP, since it's why I went to law school in the first place.

East coast law schools that are good besides the obvious. I'm a Virginia resident, so most of my applications were in that area. In DC: Georgetown is excellent, as is George Washington University. American University is a first tier school, though not as high up there as Geo'tn and GW. In Virginia: UVA is in the top 10 and it's a public school so the tuition would be less than Geo'tn and GW, even for a non VA resident; William and Mary is a fabulous law school and public as well, but I'm biased because I went there. :P, Washington and Lee has a good reputation, but is super expensive, in the middle of no where, and very conservative. Non-republicans go nuts there, from what one of my friends who went there tells me. New York University is in the top 10. There's Tulane in New Orleans, but I don't know how that school is faring since Katrina hit.

Climate wise, UVA and W&M are in south-ish Virginia, it's *hot* there in the summer, but it also doesn't get very cold until winter, at which point it gets very cold, but (at least at W&M) it rarely snows. I used to wear tank tops and jeans to class until November. HTH!

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

Thank you again Bastet! That really helps.

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

i went to law school in cali--USC Law. went to ucla for undergrad. both USC and UCLA law are ranked in the top twenty. loyola is another local school but i know it's not top tier, i think second tier? top tier is top fifty law schools in the country and second tier is the next fifty.

i'd contact the LSDAC to get the logistics about when you should take the test/how much it costs, etc. i know there's always a end of sept/early october test and a beginning of december test. you can take either and still have your apps done by Feb, which is when they're due, i believe.

oh as for clubs/activities, i wouldn't worry about those, to tell you the truth law schools focus primarily on numbers--your gpa and your lsat score, or at least that was my experience. so take a really good prep class for your lsat (i recommend kaplan) and make sure your grades stay up.

good luck!

uesgirl · BCBG

I graduated from law school in 2004. I took the LSAT in October 2003, which was the fall of my senior year of college, but if you have time to prepare for it I would recommend taking it early (maybe in June). I didn't leave myself any time to retake it if it hadn't gone well, and basically right when I got my results back I had to send out applications. It made the process harder because I didn't know what schools were realistic for me until late November or so.

I would recommend taking a course like Testmasters or Kaplan if you have the time to be in a class, but there are also plenty of books you can buy to prepare. It is something that you want to take very seriously though because the LSAT is very, very important to law schools (it is much more important in deciding where you go than the SAT was for college) and it is better to only take it once and ace it instead of taking it over and over again (schools tend to average your scores).

You can research law schools at usnews.com or review.com or lsac.org. There are 180 or so schools in the country and it would be really hard for us to recommend schools for you without more information (and without knowing your LSAT score). What school you want to go to will also depend on what you want to do when you get out.

Good luck!

wetbandit42 · Marc Jacobs

Thank you esquiress and uesgirl! I will definitely make sure to look into your advice.

esquiress, did you like USC? I am thinking about applying there for law.

I'm going to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to look at their selection of books. My dad's business partner's wife used to be a lawyer, and she said that when she was applying she had this book that had a grid of your lsat score and your gpa and what your chances would be of getting into a certain school. Granted, she's about 45, but hopefully they still make a book like that.

How much did you study for the LSAT? I am quite a procrastinator, so I am going to start NOW. I could swear that I read somewhere that you need to study 500 hours? Or it could have been 50, I can't quite remember. Does that sound about right?

Thanks again to everyone! I wasn't expecting this many responses, so I'm blown away by how helpful everyone is being!

uesgirl · BCBG

When I applied to law school in 2001, that book still existed. It was the "Official Guide to US Law Schools" that the Law School Admissions Council puts out. If you go to lsac.org and click on "Offical Guide to Aba Approved Law Schools" and then "LSAC Data Search" you can get information like what was on the grid-- plug in your GPA and your LSAT score (or a target LSAT score) and you can see what your approximate chances are at all the schools. Unlike college admissions, most of law school admissions is based only on LSAT and GPA so it is easier to predict sometimes whether you'd get in. That's why the LSAT is so important (probably more important than GPA even at most schools).

I studied a lot for the LSAT. Not 500 hours, but I think more than 50 by far. It is very different from the SAT or GRE in that you don't need specific knowledge that will be tested-- you don't need to know how to calculate the length of a side of a triangle, or know difficult vocabulary. It is mostly a logic and reading comprehension test (I lucked out a little bit because I had studied logic as part of my major in college). If you pick up the skills easily, you may not need much prep. But the logic part gets a lot of people, so you definitely will want to do a good amount of studying. I'd get some practice tests, see how you do, and then plan your studying from there.

Again, good luck!