Brown Boy Goes to Law School

The best thing you can do to answer the question of whether you want to become a lawyer is this: talk to a lawyer. Be a smart person, and listen to people older than you. It’ll get you far in life.

Click here and read through some of the stuff these lawyers have to say, courtesy of the Wisconsin Bar.

Suggested Reading for Future Law Students…

http://www.law.msu.edu/admissions/SuggestedReadingResources.pdf

Advice on being a lawyer, the LSAT, choosing a law school, etc…

http://www.princetonreview.com/law/research/articleIndex.asp

Application process overview…

http://www.princetonreview.com/law/apply/articles/process/overview.asp

If you’re not a lover of reading…you better become one if you want to go to law school. Because it is the most fundamental skill required to become a decent lawyer, and even a decent law school student. The better reader you are, the better LSAT score you will receive, and the better law school you will get into, and the more successful you will be.

I hope you don’t underestimate this.

Read anything. If you like politics, read the Economist, Newsweek, Time, Foreign Affairs…just to name a few. If you like science, read Scientific American. Read National Geographic. Read Reader’s Digest. You can read Rolling Stones, I don’t care. Just read, and read consistently. I’d say pick a weekly magazine like Newsweek or Time, subscribe to it, and read it consistently. You should probably read the paper every morning. Develop this habit. After each article, take 10 quick seconds to think about what the main purpose of what you just read was. If you do this…I guarantee you will increase your LSAT score.

If you don’t read regularly…you need to start now if you’re serious about going to law school and becoming a lawyer. Its never too late.

I hope that if you’re to the point where you’re reading law school blogs, you already know that you can major in anything and go to law school. Whether its business, dance, political science, philosophy, computer engineering, zoology, or kinesiology…there is no major requirement or even any course requirements (like Med Schools, which require chemistry, biology and physics courses).

Now for the important question: Will one major over the other give me an advantage during admissions?

The answer isn’t straightforward, but here are some things to consider. There certainly seems to be a trend nowadays of law schools diversifying their incoming classes…not in terms of race, but majors. A law school has an instant heightened curiosity when it sees a kid with an Engineering degree or a Science degree or a Business degree or whatever, versus a traditional run-of-the-mill Poly Sci degree or Philosophy degree. They like to see this. A 3.5 Economics guy may very well have a SLIGHT advantage over a 3.5 Poly Sci guy. But the advantage is marginal. Its very small. It goes without saying that you should never in a million years major in Economics for the sake of impressing a law school. That’s stupid. Because what’s a billion times more important is your gpa…period.

You need to major in something you are interested in. Something you have a passion for, and hence, can perform well in.

Also, on double majors…. It can help, but again, only marginally. I will give this advice from personal experience: if you think you can add another major or degree without compromising your gpa….go for it. If you have any doubt as to whether you can maintain the same gpa with that second major…don’t do it. If you, a Poly Sci guy, can maintain a 3.5+ even by adding a second Economics degree….go for it. If you can’t, you might not want to double major.

Are you curious which majors lead to the highest scores on the LSAT? Check out this link.

Again, the most important factors on your law school application: GPA and LSAT. Period. As far as GPA goes….if you’re serious about going to a top law school, you gotta keep your GPA above a 3.5. Simple. If you’re below a 3.5, there are still plenty of decent law schools out there. Even then, if you score well on the LSAT, you can offset your low GPA. But really, if you drop below a 3.0, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot, and eliminating your chances at a top law school. Of course, if you can manage a 170+ on the LSAT, you could offset a sub 3.0 GPA.

Did you bomb your freshman year of college? Don’t worry…it doesn’t mean that you’ve automatically disqualified yourself from a competitive law school.

Here’s what an admissions rep from Boston College had to say about shaky GPAs….

“While we initially consider your undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and LSAT score, several other factors influence our evaluation of your application. These include:

The college attended and the academic rigor of the program of study.

The pattern of your academic performance. For example, a poor start in college may be offset by substantially improved academic performance.”

Here is some advice on the Wisconsin Bar’s website from a small-firm business lawyer:

“My law firm has six attorneys, two certified paralegals, and a total of 14 employees.  As we embark upon building a new office building to house the firm, it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that the one thing law school did not prepare me for was the “business” of law.  With the human resources demands, cash flow needs, technology needs, and increasing competitive pressures from other lawyers and law firms, law school alone is not enough.  You need some business sense or business background, particularly if you are going to strike out alone or work with a small law firm.”

http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Life_After_Law_School&CONTENTID=69966&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

For those of you who are not very attracted to working for a big law firm, here is some helpful information from Indiana Law’s website…

Solo Law Practice
Solo practice offers the possibility of flexibility and independence. Some of the advantages are the ability to be one’s own boss; to set one’s own working hours; and freedom from hierarchical structures which many feel interfere with legal practice. Solo practice has disadvantages as well: the inability to rely on other attorneys to help with a heavy caseload; the restriction on free time when business is good or frustrated boredom when business is bad; and the lack of a support system such as is present in the hierarchical structure of a law firm. Many solo practitioners could easily be partners in prestigious firms but choose to practice law where they are the sole decision-makers. Solo practice attracts people who are self-starters, self-motivated, self-disciplined, and enjoy controlling their future.

Solo practice is often difficult to enter directly from law school. There are large start-up expenses and the need for enough clients to pay the bills until the practice can really get established and earn a reputation in the community. Since referrals from other lawyers are extremely important in most solo practices, most lawyers who go this route wait until they have some experience as an associate before venturing out on their own. This strategy gives the attorney the basic legal skills and familiarity with the business elements of law practice that are necessary in any practice, as well as the initial contacts necessary to survive. Some solo practitioners band together in what are called “space sharing arrangements”. In these situations, a group of solo practitioners will jointly take office space and share the costs of libraries, support staff, computer, word processing and photocopying equipment. Many find that this type of arrangement is very cost effective and combines some of the benefits of working in a small firm with the independence of being a solo practitioner. For the recent graduate considering a solo practice, affiliation with lawyers in a space sharing arrangement would be the most highly recommended route to go.

The Small Firm
Small firms, generally defined as a firm of less than ten people, vary from large city to rural or suburban area and from general to specialized areas of practice. Most small firms engage in the general practice of law, but some firms, particularly in metropolitan areas, specialize in a particular practice area (some of these firms are formed by the defection of a segment, or even an entire specialty department from a larger established firm). These break-off firms who specialize in one or two areas are known as “boutiques”.

The small-firm attorney may find him/herself specializing in a particular area after the first few years of practice, but may not be strictly limited to that area. A general practitioner must remain flexible and willing to learn. In comparison to a large firm, a smaller firm will have the greater number of individual and small business clients. Thus, the attorney in a smaller firm will have the opportunity to deal with more “human” problems, and to deal more with everyday issues. Additionally, the small firm will typically be involved with the client in all phases of his or her business or personal dealings and will often be asked for advice even in areas outside the firm’s expertise. In most smaller law firms, the ability to generate business or, at the very least, the potential to develop that ability is extremely important to the firm.

There are a wide variety of ways in which new associates are brought into the smaller firm. In some cases, an associate may start for an initial trial period. This may involve a small initial salary, with raises gained on merit, skill, personal potential, and/or firm resources. Some firms provide incentives for bringing business into the firm or a percentage of the collected total billings of the associate. Nationally, for the Class of 1994, graduates taking positions in small firms (2-10 attys) earned a median salary of $32,000 and a mean salary of $33,851. The above mentioned “boutique” firms will represent the people earning the higher end of the spectrum. It is important that students understand that small law firms are businesses. The concepts of “cash flow” and overhead are important ones for students interested in smaller firms to grasp. Most smaller firms prefer to keep their set monthly expenses (overhead) as low as possible because the flow of money coming into the firm may be sporadic, especially if the firm is a litigation firm specializing in cases that are taken on contingency. It is very important that students have an understanding of the type of business that a firm has, what percent is hourly and what percent of revenue is based on percentage of settlements in cases in order to evaluate the salary offer being made.

The job search for smaller law firms can be a frustrating experience since most smaller firms have trouble projecting their needs. There is no good time to contact them – the decision to hire could be made at any time in the year. Although firm requirement concerning academic performance vary, the academic record is often given secondary importance to the overall competency and personality of the applicant. In evaluating various firms, remember that personality is extremely important. In a small work setting, it is essential that all parties get along; personality conflicts are one of the key causes of dissatisfaction at a smaller firm.

While some firms do let the Career Services Office know of available job openings, very few conduct on-campus interviews. The applicant needs to plan on an organized, targeted, letter writing and contact-making campaign to gather the majority of his/her leads. Small law firms tend to be very disorganized in their hiring process. Since they generally only hire every few years, they do not have an organized structure for hiring like larger firms. Most smaller firms are interested in people with some experience – judicial clerkship, prior practice or summer clerking/clinical experience. One of the best doors into a smaller firm is through a summer or part-time job. These firms tend to look to “hometown” students or students with ties to the area to fill these positions. These positions frequently lead to permanent positions at graduation time.

Original link:http://www.law.indiana.edu/careers/guides/career_options_private.shtml

Calculate your GPA. Get your LSAT score (use a practice exam as a ballpark estimate). Then go to this website:

http://officialguide.lsac.org/

Click on “LSAT Data Search”. Here, you will enter in your gpa and lsat score, and it’ll give you a rough estimation of your chances of getting into every participating law school. It’s a good place to start from.

Apply to about ten schools. Probably less. With the above tool, you should have a pretty good idea of where you’re a competitive applicant, so don’t waste your money by applying to Harvard, Yale and Stanford if you have a 3.2/160 unless your last name is Bush. Ok? Don’t apply to 20 law schools. It is incredibly expensive, and its a waste of time. The only reason you should be applying to more schools is if you have a serious disparity between your gpa/lsat/work experience/etc….  I mean, if you have a 4.0 and a 150, that’s a big disparity. If you have a poor gpa but a great score on the lsat, that’s a big disparity. It means it’s harder for you to gauge exactly where you’re a competitive applicant. In this case (which was my case)….apply to more schools.

So when it comes time to decide on where to go to school, where do you go? We’re talking about location. Here’s my advice. When we’re talking about a top 14 law school, location is irrelevant. I don’t care if you live in California. If you get into Yale, go to Yale. This sounds shallow, but assuming that you’re looking to compete for the top firms after graduation, you go to the most prestigious and reputable school you can get into. Use rankings as a rough guide. Emphasis on rough.

HOWEVER….if we’re talking about any school outside the first tier (anything after top 50), location needs to become a bigger factor in your decision. I think that accredited law schools outside the top 50 (I should say top 100 probably) are really the same. One doesn’t give you a significant advantage over the other. And so, if you’re looking at schools outside the top 100, you have to start thinking about location. If you live in California, and you get into #140 ranked school in California, and #102 ranked school in Maine….you won’t be benefiting significantly enough to merit going to Maine. Further, when it comes to applying to law schools outside the top 14 or so….if you know you’ll never want to practice in North Carolina ever in your life or live there, don’t apply to Wake Forest. Please tell me this makes sense to you. Word? Word.

So the application process is miserable. The best advice I can give someone is to make sure you start your applications waaaaaaaaay early. Don’t take it lightly when I say this. I mean, you gotta focus on studying for the LSAT, and you don’t need to be worrying about being pushy to the professor writing you a recommendation letter just because you waited till the last minute. In fact, I had one recommender who didn’t even send in my letter, despite having tons of time to write it, and despite telling me that he/she had sent it in. If you do it early enough, you’ll have enough time when this happens.
Start your application earlier than you’ve ever started an application. Get it?

Just some advice and thoughts on the LSAT….

Let’s be real here. The LSAT is an exam that will have the single biggest impact on your life that an exam could have. Answer a few more questions correctly, and you qualify for a good law school. Answer a few more questions incorrectly, and you don’t qualify for a good law school. It’s so simple. And don’t believe all the nonsense….law schools look at two things. Your LSAT score, and your GPA. Period. Assuming you haven’t cured cancer, the fact is that things like work experience, your major, and how you think you’ll be the greatest lawyer ever have an incredibly minimal impact on the ultimate decision you’ll receive in the mail. Maybe if your LSAT is a 160 and you need a 162 to get in, those aforementioned things might matter. Or if your GPA is a 3.0 and you probably need a 3.2 to get in. See my point?

The LSAT is one of those exams where, if you had all the time in the world, you could score a 180; a perfect score. Like seriously. On exam day, most people won’t get the chance to get to every question. Time is the biggest thing, and so when you’re practicing for the exam, and you have 35 minutes in the section, give yourself only 30. Because I guarantee that no matter how much of a baller you are, you will fail the LSAT if you don’t have the time mastered.

If you’re looking for things to do to improve your brain’s ability to handle the LSAT, I’ve got some advice. Do Sodoku. DGet those Brain Games from the magazine section. This will give your brain exposure to how it’ll have to function when you do the logic games section. Also, here’s a hint: People who read a lot tend to do better on the LSAT. That goes for newspapers, books, whatever. Read, and pay attention to what you’re reading.

If you’re wondering whether or not to take a prep course….here’s what I’ll say about that. If you are so busy where you cannot force yourself to sit down once a day for a few hours, on a consistent basis, several months in advance of the exam, to study for this thing….then take the course. I think that those of you who have the ability and the maturity to make yourself study, you should buy any decent LSAT study book (nobody cares which one you get, they’re all just fine), and I promise that you’ll score as well as you would have by taking the prep course.

And if you think the LSAT is tough….wait till you get to law school. What a joke.