If you have any questions about law school, fire away!

^ when's the right time to start preparing for LSAT?

^ word!! and what prereqs are needed for law school...i swear my counselor is just whatever...i feel like the classes im taking are too low...but then again im just a freshmen.

is it possible to go to a good and prestigious law school if you graduated from your undergrad college in 2 years?

lol of course! Whoa, how did you manage that???

I started the summer before my senior year, because I took the October LSAT. The June exam didn't work out with my college schedule (our finals ended two days before it was administered), so that wasn't an option for me. If you take the June exam, you'd probably want to start around February, if not earlier.



If you're only a freshman, you don't really need to worry yet. Course selection isn't super-important, although they obviously like to see upper-level courses and a lot of of reading/writing-intensive classes. Getting good grades is the more important thing, though. There aren't any specific courses you need to take, in contrast to med school.



Sure, though I probably wouldn't recommend it. Some people are rejected despite their numbers because the adcom felt that they weren't "mature" enough or that they weren't ready for law school. At most schools, only a minority of students come straight from UG and even fewer come straight from an UG they finished in two years.

what are the key areas law school admissions looks at when measuring up an applicant? I go to a good undergrad school, plan on getting some great experiences after I graduate, but my undergrad grades have just been so-so. Is that gonna screw me for getting into a top law school? At least a top 10 law school.

Also, would a law school admissions like for your to earn masters first?

^Law schools are going to look primarily at your LSAT and grades. For every school, those two factors are going to mean much more than anything else, with the LSAT typically being the single most important factor. Not all schools weight your LSAT and GPA the same way, with Boalt (Berkeley) and UCLA putting considerably more emphasis on GPA, for example. Once you have those numbers, you can assess your chances with reasonable accuracy. From this page you can find both the ABA guide to law schools and LSAC's calculator (under "Data Search") to help you. You can also look at lawschoolnumbers.com to get a sense of who is getting in where.

Getting a master's generally doesn't help your chances. Plenty of people have them, so it doesn't really set you apart. It would probably just be a waste of time and money if your only purpose in getting the degree was to help your chances.

Well, if I DO get a masters, will the Admissions look at my grad school GPA instead of my undergrad GPA? Jeez, hopefully law schools take into account that some undergrad colleges are simply more difficult than others.

If I recall correctly, and I could be wrong because this wasn't an issue for me, your graduate grades won't count for your LSDAS GPA, although law schools will get a copy of your graduate transcript. But again, law schools realize that grades are kind of superfluous in graduate school and that it's not unusual to get straight-A's.

Schools do realize, at least to some extent, that different schools or programs have differing levels of difficulty. It's an open question how much they adjust for this, since they still have to report raw numbers to USNews. Boalt actually used to have a grid that adjusted GPAs based on their calculated difficulty of the institution, but they don't do this anymore. Again, a lot of schools care much more about your LSAT than your GPA, just because it's a standardized test while GPAs are affected by a ton of different variables.

Let's pin this Law School Thread

Any recommended majors which would help it in this field?

(besides the obvious prelaw)

^Actually, "prelaw," which most schools don't even offer, is probably one of the worst things to major in. Law schools don't have a lot of respect for "prelaw" or criminal justice majors. As I mentioned before, law schools don't require any specific classes to apply (again, in contrast to med schools, which require quite a number of them). Most law school students major in humanities or social sciences (polisci, history, econ, philosophy, etc.), but you can major in anything. If you want to take the patent bar exam, you need to have an undergraduate science degree. If you do major in a math/science, just be sure to have a lot of reading- and writing-intensive courses.

I was thinking about pre-law but my tutor told me that it didn't really matter and would be an absolute waste of time if I didn't get into a law school ==;

I was thinking History or English, anything to strengthen my writing/reading. Thanks for the headsup ^__^

^Either of those majors would be fine. The only things you really want to avoid are pre-law, criminal justice, and probably things like music or art. But your GPA and LSAT will be a lot more important than your major in every case.

Also, there's a better calculator than the LSAC one I mentioned earlier and now it's back up online. It gives you more precise odds, although it's still really just a rough estimate.

http://chiashu.com/lsat.html

Would having a PH.d make a difference when applying to Law School? A friend is thinking about applying and he has a Ph.d in public health and wants to specialize in Environmental Law, just wondering if that would give him any advantage. Thanks for the heads up.

^Having a Ph.D. might help. That's pretty unusual, while a master's is not.

Which college has the shortest JD program? Or are all JD programs 3 years? Any schools offer 2 year programs that include summer classes?

^ The JD programs are all three years long. Most people don't take summer classes, except a small number who take classes in another country, but you still have to stay for all three years. There are some direct law programs that only require six years for a BA and JD, but they're probably not a good idea and none of the good schools offer them as far as I know.

What's your educational background ronmexico? Just wondering (:

I went to the prestigious and obscure Carleton College for undergrad and now I'm at Columbia Law School.

just a question ron.

i was planning on getting my BSW (bachelors in social work) and go to columbia for my MSW (masters in social work) and JD.

do you think it's better for me to just get my JD instead of the MSW?

AND

there's so many lawyers out in the field. will this ruin our chances of getting a job?

^It depends what you want to do. If you want to go into social work, I wouldn't bother with the JD, but if you want to be a lawyer, I wouldn't bother with the MSW. I think the general consensus is that joint degree programs generally aren't worthwhile and that you usually end up doing something you really only needed one of the degrees for. Frankly, if you're not already in a BSW program, but you want to go to law school, you'd probably be better off majoring in something else.

There may be a lot of lawyers, but most of the good schools have near-100% employment rates. There's still a lot of demand for lawyers, especially at the high end.

^how is law school?

are the rumors true where they compare it to med school?


btw.

do you think it would be better for me to major in history/poli sci/ or english lit.

which major would prepare me for the rigorous law school curriculum?

What do law schools feel about your undergraduate school experience? Like if you studied two years at a community college, transferred to USC and got great grades, would it still hurt you that you came from a community college?

And I'm doing a poli sci/music major, and I know music isn't the best way to go, but it's my other passion in life and i would like to continue my education in that field of study, and i was wondering if its possible whats a good double major combination with political science so that i can minor in music and not kill myself with the workload.

I don't think it's as tough as everyone makes it out to be, but then, it isn't exam time yet. I don't think it's as difficult as med school, but I don't really know a lot about med school. The most stressful thing is the Socratic method, because you never know when you'll be called on in class. The people are also more competitive and, obviously, more career-driven than the people at my undergrad were. There's also a lot of drinking.



Any of those majors will be fine. They're all pretty popular among law school applicants, so just pick whichever one you like best. How rigorous they are is going to vary from school to school and even from professor to professor, so it's tough to tell which would be the best preparation. Law school reading is a lot different from college reading, anyway; you won't read as much (for example, my Contracts reading for today was only 7 pages), but you're expected to read it much more closely.



Law schools might still look down on the fact that you went to a CC, but if your degree is from USC, it probably won't hurt you too badly. They might put more emphasis on the grades you got from USC, but they'll still be more concerned with your GPA than where you went.



If you major in polisci and minor in music, I don't think it's going to be a problem. You don't have to double major in anything. I would avoid majoring in music, but a minor isn't going to be a problem. Just don't take nothing but music classes outside of the polisci.

this may be a silly question.. but what are some of the things you can do (as your career), other than what an ordinary person might think (lawyer, attorney?), after graduating from law?

^Lawyers go into a lot of other fields, although most of them do practice law for at least a little while beforehand. But they'll go into any kind of corporate governance, a lot of political leadership positions or offices, real estate and some go into banking. Obviously, a few of them become law professors, although that's a pretty tough job to get.

^what are you going for and why?

just curious.

^I think I'll probably end up doing some kind of corporate transactional work. I don't think I want to do litigation, but maybe tax or real estate.

im a senior in hs, and i just wana have an idea of what my future will be.
my question: if i go to like a "regular" uc (not berkely or la) im a little too dumb for those schools. how will i get into a law school somewhere else (ex: upenn or harvard)? if it is possible...

^Law schools generally don't care too much where you went to undergrad. Of course, the best law schools are generally full of students from the best undergrads, but that probably has a lot more to do with the fact that they tend to have better grads and LSAT scores. If you get good grades and do well on the LSAT, it won't matter where you went.

so if u went to columbia for undergrad, is it kind of guaranteed that you will get into the graduate program for columbia?

how important are extracurriculars and/or internships in the application process? will people without extracurriculars/internships still be able to get into the top 5 law schools (granted their grades/LSAT scores are high enough)? thank you :]

you know how ther's a huge influx of students going to law school... and becoming lawyers...

does that mean it'll get harder and harder to find a job after i graduate?

Not at all. I don't know if your chances would even be any better, but you're not going to get in with subpar numbers. It's not a graduate "program" it's a separate school; it's not like there's an undergraduate law program.



They're not important. Your grades and LSAT will make a much bigger difference than your ECs or jobs.



Like I said, I don't think it'll be a problem. The number of students going to school has been pretty steady over the last few years. It actually looks like the numbers are going to drop a little bit. Employment rates for the top schools are still near 100%. And at most of the better schools, a large majority of students get jobs through on-campus recruiting, so it's not like you'll need to go out and find a job yourself.

what are you all going to do after u graduate from law school?
like job options n stuff...
there are soo many different kinds of lawyers

I know lawyers have a broad choice of careers ahead of them after graduating, but...a teacher of mine suggested International Law. Do you have any insights on that? Maybe a web where I can gather more information on it if possible. Thanks

^Is your teacher a lawyer? Because generally, when people (even law students) talk about "international law," they don't have a really clear idea of what they mean. If you're talking about international civil rights law, then you might be interested in some kind of international NGO, or the UN or another government position. If you mean international transactional law, which is to say, transactions involving a foreign firm or an American firm in a foreign country, I'm not sure how it really differs from transactional work involving domestic firms.

whats a good LSAT score to get into one of the top14? and gpa i guess.

^A 170 would probably guarantee you at least one of the top 14, although it can depend on what your GPA is. Anything less than a 3.2 or so would be tough without a very high LSAT, while anything below a 165 wouldn't give you very good chances, regardless of your GPA (unless your GPA was really high, in which case you could still get into Boalt). But you can look at the chiashu calculator I posted to get a better idea of what your chances would be at different schools given your numbers.

I should also point out that this can depend on the strength of the applicant pool, which can vary significantly from year to year. Since the LSAT is graded on a curve, fewer people taking the test means that there are fewer 170+ scores, but the class sizes at the top schools remains pretty much constant.

I am sure that I will be going to law school. I'm a 4th year senior right now. I'll be graduating in 4.5 years. I plan on working for a few years before I go to law school. I know that LSAT scores are only good for 3 years. When should I take it??

Thanks!

^I'm pretty sure the LSAT is actually good for five years, not three. They'll report scores that far back, anyway; I don't know if any schools have a policy that they'll only take scores from the last three years, so you could look into that. But in any event, I would say to take the LSAT sometime next year, depending what your schedule is. Probably, it would be tough to work full-time and study for the test, so I would suggest taking it before you start the job. When Bill Bergen (a UVa law admissions officer) came to Carleton, he mentioned something about a study showing that applicants generally did worse on the LSAT the longer after college they waited to take it. I would suggest taking it sooner rather than later.

I'll keep that in mind. Thank you very much!

Are you in law school right now??

^Yes, like I think I mentioned, I'm at Columbia.

ronmexico, do you have time to be on soompi?

Not that it's bad....I think it's great you're helping out future law schoolers.

curious about how u make ur money right now?... ^ i think its great too that hes taking the time to help out clueless people like me

I don't make any money right now.

ronmexico, did you go to law school straight out of college?

and why do you (everyone) want to study law?

^Yes, I went to law school straight out of undergrad. Most people here didn't, though.