- Blog
- Bios
- Boards
- Classifieds
- DIY
- Gallery
- Vendor Reviews
- Shop Weddingbee
Hi there! I'm a baby lawyer (just passed the bar) and here's what helped me ...
The powerscore books for the LSATS are awesome. I never did the class but I heard that one is the best one too.
Apply super early for law schools, as in, send your applications before Thanksgiving. It's rolling admission and you want your application to be among the first that schools see, not after they've already admitted a bunch of people and are looking to fill out the rest of the class with the "best of the best." Plus you'll find out earlier where you got in, which gets rid of a lot of stress.
Apply to schools widely (both in rank and geographic location) if at all possible. This website (http://lawschoolnumbers.com/) helped me figure out where I had a shot, based on GPA and LSAT score. But I applied to places where I didn't have a clear shot either, and got into some of them.
After you finish applying, read the books "Law School Confidential" and "Getting to Maybe." I transferred from a top 20 school to a top 3 school by implementing the tips in those books (and of course, a ton of hard work).
Hope that helps!
don't? jk! (kind of) My best LSAT advice is my best test-advice generally. Study a lot. Go to bed early. Get up early. Eat eggs for breakfast. Work out a little (get the blood pumping). Take water and cough drops. Pee before going into the the testing room (whether you think you have to or not--- the guy behind me at the LSAT asked to use the bathroom after entering the room and even though the test didn't start for 15 minutes they wouldn't let him go!). Lastly-- don't freak out. Know that you are prepared and you just need to take a deep breath and work calmly through it.
Easier said then done!! Funny story and sounds terrible, but two years ago I took a practice exam at my college, which was on a Saturday morning. Friday night I unfortunately drank too much and Saturday morning was pretty hungover. I took the practice exam and got a pathetic 143, but when I took the exam again a year later completely rested and sober I got a horrific 130 something. Now for the real exam I will actually study tons lol
The advice I always give people is go ahead, take the LSAT and see what happens, but before you actually go to law school make sure you 100% want to be a lawyer. A JD isn't a very versatile degree--don't get one unless you want to be a lawyer. If you aren't sure, go to business school or something. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer but really questioned my decision when I was in law school (and still do!). This is true of many of my friends as well.
If you do go to school, try to get into the best one you possibly can (obviously geography, where you want to practice later matters too, but legal employers really do care about the rank of your law school). The job market right now is REALLY tough for lawyers. I know lots of unemployed lawyers who went to top 15 schools. To get into a good school you need an awesome LSAT score and good grades. I took the Princeton Review class and I feel l ike it created discipline and a schedule I could follow for studying. And to get a good job out of school (or ANY job in this economy), you need to have great grades in law school. It's tough. I'm not trying to scare you, just want you to know all the facts before you plunk down at least $100k on a JD!!
I definitely know I want to be a lawyer so no problem there and grades are great I'm just terrified of the score I get, which I feel is a make or break factor. Yes, there are other things that are considered when they make a decision, but lsat scores weigh heavily *ekk
@kitten- i agree. i went to law school because i thought "well, a jd will help me do anything." Um.... it helped me be a lawyer! haha. I'm REALLY not sure this is what I was meant to do with my life, and I know a lot of my lawyer friends feel the same way.
Completely agree with kitten. The prospects for lawyers will go back up again, but if you're going to law school to make money, make sure you've gotten into a highly ranked school and that you're willing to work your butt off to do well there, because only very few go on to the biglaw jobs where you make the starting salaries.
Take the time to interview with lawyers who are doing what you think you want to do (litigating, etc.). Law is rarely glamourous, but for some reason many people seem to think it is. However, paying $1200 per MONTH on student loan payments for the next 10 years (about $140k in debt) is no joke, and it definitely constrains what you can do in the future.
Ok, here is my two cents. I have been a lawyer for 6 years now. My one huge piece of advice is to 100% make sure you really, REALLY REALLY want to be a lawyer. It's not glamorous, the pay is nowhere near what most people think an attorney makes and honestly, it can be very stressful depending on your environment.
I wish I could go back to my 21 yr old self, because honestly, I wouldn't have become an attorney. Now, I do like things about my job. I like being in Court, I like dealing with my clients, however the hours, stress level, low-ish pay and general vibe of the partners I have dealt with makes it a career I wish I had thought twice about.
I would suggest volunteering your time at a law firm, asking a million questions and try to really get a feel for why you want to be a lawyer. I agree with Mrs. Kitten, the J.D. isn't as marketable as some people tout it to be. And the job market is tough right now. Just really step back and assess why you think you want to be an attorney.
Feel free to e-mail me if you have specific questions.
AHH I'm totally scared, but thanks I definitely like the perspectives I am getting here. I'm not exactly sure what sector I want to go in possible coporate..corporate litigation. Law is certainly my passion and I've taken a good amount of law classes for my minor, and have done an Advocacy and Persuasion class in which we did a mock trial. It was tons of work I was picked to be a defense attorney and I was stay up til 3am doing witness statements and my closing. My professor was stunned when he heard my closing on a rehearsal night, which assured me that this is what I want to do and that I have love for it. Thank you so much ladies keep it coming!
Oh, and I agree with bluebook (nice name btw, lol), I am paying about $800/month in loans for the next 25 years. That sucks. Not to mention the debt I accumulated for the living expenses while on a law student budget. I just paid all of that off thankfully, but still working on those loans.
I actually disagree with some advice above, if you know that you're not going to be the shark lawyer in a white glove firm, I'd get into the best state school you can, get the best grades you can and network your a$$ off. That will get you a solid middle of the road job. Honestly, after you pass the bar and get your first job under your belt, where you went to law school won't really matter unless you're in that upper echelon.
Are you going straight from undergrad to law school? My #1 piece of advice would be not to do that. I took 5 years off and worked random jobs (eventually ending up working for a politician and writing laws which solidified that I wanted to be lawyer) and it's the best thing I could've done.
Five years is a long time but I would recommend taking a year or two, and doing stuff related to law, perhaps even working with lawyers. It will also make you a much better applicant, and you'll likely be able to get into better schools (I know it did for me).
@chipmunk- just keep in mind that being in the courtroom is a TINY portion of what you do if you're going the civil route. I am in a 100% litigation firm (which is super rare nowadays), so we only take cases that we think will go to trial, and we still only do maybe 3-4 trials/year. I was one of those people who loved mock trials and everyone said "omg you're such a good fighter you have to be a lawyer!" Ummm yea haha. I do like the court part of my job but its about 1% of my job. Most of the time I'm researching, writing, and working on discovery.
Clover - I agree with you on that advice actually. The problem is that most people don't know where they'll fall and they also have the idea that there'll be making $160k starting salary so who cares about loans. But if you want to actually see a courtroom ever (meaning, not white collar defense that the big firms do, and definitely not corporate litigation where the whole point is not to be in a courtroom), then yes, go to a state school, try to get scholarships / end up with very very little debt, then be a prosecutor or defense lawyer locally.
In that case I would take LOTS of practice tests to get the timing right. The PR course taught me some really good techniques for maximizing my score. One example, they teach you how to classify questions and be able to identify them on the test. Some types of questions take a lot more time than others and those are the ones you want to skip, just because the timing is pretty tight on the LSAT. If you could answer 2 questions in the time it takes to answer that one question, then when you run out of time at the end there will be less random bubbles for you to fill in. Anyway, that probably sounds rambly, but I think the class was totally worth it. You should ask around in your area and see what people think of the teachers at Kaplan, PR, Powerscore, etc.
I also bought a book called the Logic Games Bible and it really helped me too. Logic Games was my worst subject, but by the end it was my best. It is a really easy one to improve on if you work at it. The biggest thing is to practice a lot. The more questions you do the more you start to recognize them. By the time I took the test I felt like every question on the test was just a slight variation of some other question I had seen before (especially the Logic Games). I did my PR homework plus extra Logic Games questions that they had in their archives. Eventually, I stopped practicing the Reading section because I was getting tired of the questions and not really improving any more, and I didn't want to get burned out. But I kept practicing the other types. I also didn't really study the day before the test and just relaxed. All this helped me get a good score.
This will sound off the wall (and I'm not a lawyer), but a friend from college went to what I thought was a no-name law school and ended up at Skadden, a fancy firm in NYC. Some schools, that aren't even tier 1, are feeder schools for firms.
I considered going to law school but after reading a lot of blogs about law students and lawyers, decided not to. I would definitely do the research before investing your time and money!
As far as LSAT prep goes, make sure you take as many practice exams as possible. You'd be shocked at how many questions re-appear and it's much easier to work through things on a time restriction if you've seen them before. As far as applications go, make sure you apply early since as was mentioned they are generally on a rolling basis. Grades and LSATs are generally what the admissions office looks at first, followed by recommendation letters and your essay. From talking to the admissions people at my old law school, I was told that the essay could be used mostly to tip people one way or the other, so just try and make it original. Think of how many applications they have to read-- it gets boring after a while, so they are more likely to remember you if your essay stands out.
Good luck to you! I agree with the above posts that you should make sure this is something you want to do. I was 100% sure, and am still extremely happy with me choice to become a lawyer. That said, a lot of other people I graduated with went in because they thought it was a good option and now are either not lawyers or hate their jobs. Nothing is worse than dreading to get up and go to work every day.
Not a lawyer or in law school yet, but I have taken the LSAT 3 times! I love the powerscore books, they really break everything down. Also, I bought lots of old LSAT tests to practice on. Practice really makes perfect. By using powerscore and practicing for 3 months solid I improved my LSAT score by 10 points!
If you think you want to work for a "biglaw" firm, I think the best thing you can do is be a paralegal for one. One of my law school friends did that for a big NYC firm and she saw exactly what being a big corporate attorney was like. And for some reason she still went to law school! :) Most of the people I know that did that and went to a top school also got job offers from those firms later on, so it can be a great networking tool.
If you like being in the courtroom, be a prosecutor or work for a small law firm. The pay isn't very good, but that is the best chance you have of doing that. At biglaw firms, an associate would be lucky to get a job carrying the partner's briefcase to court--most of us don't even get that opportunity unless we are working on a pro bono case!!
I'm in law school now, and if I could do it all over, I honestly wouldn't go again. I worked the summer after my 1L year, and it absolutely sucked. Practicing law is NOTHING like how I thought it would be. I would HIGHLY recommend taking time to be a paralegal to see what it's like before you go to law school. It's such a huge investment and if you're not 100% sure then you don't want to be stuck with the debt.
As for the LSATs, I loved the powerscore books. If you don't get into a top 15 law school, I honestly wouldn't bother going. The job market is never going to get back the way it used to be. The legal profession is SOOOO over-saturated right now, and it's ridiculously hard to get a job. BigLaw firms are lowering their salaries from $160 to $120k (working 70-80 hours a week) and deferring people's start dates, so some people aren't starting working until a year, sometimes two, after they graduate. And it's very hard to get a BigLaw job if you go to schools outside the top 15 because they just aren't interviewing there anymore. If you have any connections that will definitely help though.
And make sure you take the US News stats for a grain of salt. They report average salaries, but only of the people who reported back, which are usually the people making a lot of money. Most lawyers will be lucky to make $60-80k when they graduate, if they are lucky. If you work for the state or a non-profit, be prepared to make $40-50k, which is prob what you can make coming out of undergrad. People think that being a lawyer is such a money-making profession, but it just isn't anymore because there are too many lawyers and if you don't take the job for $60k, then someone else will.
So the sum up (ha!), make sure you REALLY REALLY want to go. If you decide to apply, aim for top 15 schools, which means you'll need an LSAT above a 163, probably higher depending on your GPA. If you want to do some research on being a lawyer and the profession, read abovethelaw.com and jdundergound.com. Good luck!
I always advise people not to go to law school but no one ever listens. ;) So my advice is to take a test prep course for the LSAT (I took Kaplan and was THRILLED with my score--up 14 points from my baseline), and focus most of your energy in the week leading up to the test on anxiety management, because once you know how to handle the material, it's really just stress that will get you. My other advise is to go to the best law school that accepts you, because in this market, it's the only way to have a hope of a job when you get out. ;)
Forget top 15... don't even go if it's outside the top 10. I'm in a top 15 school and only two of my friends got Big Law offers--one has been deferred until 2012 (seriously) and the other has not even been given a start date... they just encouraged her to look for a public interst job also.
Please for the love of all that is good and holy, don't go straight from undergrad into law school. Particularly if your career aspirations involve working in Biglaw. Spend at least a year paralegaling in that environment and then reassess. It's shocking the number of new associates who arrive without a shred of an idea of what they've gotten themselves into and are miserable as a result.
Before applying do your research. The legal market is contracting at the moment and it's important that you review a school's placement statistics carefully. Be aware, too, that law schools are very region specific. The top insitutions have national reach, but most of the time you should expect to practice in the area where you attended school. That is, don't go to Alabama if your dream is to practice in New York,
This has been mentioned a lot, but I have to echo the others who said to think about whether you really want to be a lawyer. Having a passion for the law is one thing. Being a lawyer is another.
I loved law school (seriously). I found the issues and discussions to be really interesting. Being a lawyer? Hated it. I'm currently not working and even considering going back to school (ugh more loans!).
FI hated the law school but really likes being a lawyer.
You definitely should go to law school if you are sure you want to be a lawyer. However, I really wish I had thought more about what being a lawyer actually entailed.
I love how every time someone asks a law school admissions question we always try to convince them not to go. :) I wish someone would have told me all this stuff though--even though the market was a lot better when I started in 2006. I think the people who are happiest about their decision are people like bluebook (great name!) who waited a few years before going. Those people are usually more sure about their decisions.
I am deferred right now (start my biglaw job in March), but right now I am working at a firm that pays me less than what my little brother (B- student, undergrad degree only) makes working in the insurance industry. I work WAY longer hours than he does. And I spent $100k on law school!
re: top 10 or top 15 law school.
If you want to go BigLaw in a big city--- this is absolutely the truth. Probably more top 10 than top 15. However if you want to stay in the city that you go plan to go to school in or you don't want to go into BigLaw, that might not be the best advice. I can only tell you what I did but...
I was accepted to every law school I applied to, including U Chicago (which the year I was accepted was tied for 4th I believe). I SERIOUSLY considered going bc... come on... its CHICAGO. But, I knew 100% that I did not want a BigLaw job (I never wanted to work 90 hours/week) and so I just couldn't justify the price tag that came with the amazing school. 35K/year for tuition alone... yikes! The only way to dig out of that mess efficiently is to do the big job with the big money and have no life.
So, I went to a still top-tier but muuuuuuuuuch more reasonably priced state school (Ohio State University, also where I went to undergrad) that cost less than half of what Chicago did. OSU is not top 15 but it is the top school in Ohio and it is top tier. It is more than sufficient if you want to work anywhere in Ohio (even most of the big law firms because the partners there are osu grads and there is a lot of loyalty). So I limited my options by choosing a lower-ranked school but I also lowered my debt and got an education appropriate for my goals. Just something to think about.
Thank you so much ladies for all of the great advice. It's funny how some of you sound like my fav. professor and law advisor. I should finish my undergrad next yr round December and will or should be taking 3 online classes, which are electives for my last sem. This could allow me to work at a small firm as a paralegal or clerical just to be around the legal office setting. I was also thinking of doing some volunteer work at my local municipal and/or superior county court, which I think would look good on my application. So far I only have three schools that I want to apply to. Rutgers and Seton Hall, and my third my dream school would be Duke. I have the median gpa for Duke, but would need the lsat score oh and did I mention need money for it too ha. I was considering taking a year off as some of you said to work as a paralegal, but with the job market so weary I am put off by that idea.
I've said this before and stand by it. If you want to figure out if the practice of law is for you, work as a paralegal first. Or start law school and find a part time paralegal position. I suggest working as a paralegal before law school though. It will give you a reality check for sure. Law school is expensive. Very expensive. If you are not absolutely 100% sure you want to practice law, I would suggest you take a year or two off and work in a firm as a paralegal. I think it's a good idea for you to start interning now or over the summer in a law firm.
@chipmunk: if your LSAT scores are high enough and you put together a good application (and I think it doesn't hurt if you're a minority applicant), Duke has some VERY generous scholarships.
You must log in to post.
| Visit our sister sites | eHarmony Online Dating |
eHarmony Advice Dating Advice |
Project Wedding Wedding Songs |
JustMommies Pregnancy Calendar |

| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| ellisrobertson | 22 |
| MsPanda | 14 |
| aduarte3201 | 14 |
| pengoala | 11 |
| ShellVee | 10 |
| londonchick | 9 |
| londonpeach84 | 8 |
KimKimmieKim |
8 |
| ladyartichoke | 6 |
| MrsBlueSeptember | 6 |
| User | Posts Today |
|---|---|
| MissAsB | 1 |
| likelimeade | 1 |
| fishbone | 1 |
I'm going to be studying this summer for my LSATS and starting applications over the summer as well any tips, tricks or pointers? Thanks!