Law School Musings (Part One) - Thoughts on Law School for Those Who Want to Go to Law School

Introduction

As a prospective law student, it is important that you begin to think about what law school is and what you hope to gain from law school. Understanding these principles can help you decide whether to attend law school, which law school to attend, what "success" in law school should mean to you and how you can use law school to your career and life advantage.

Very early in my law school career - perhaps sometime during the first semester of my first year - I began to formulate a theory that law school is entirely unnecessary to develop the legal skills needed to become an excellent attorney. Years later, after completing law school and practicing as an attorney in a variety of settings over the course of almost a decade, I am only more firmly convinced that the legal education you will acquire in law school will do little to prepare you to practice law.

Indeed, it was not so very long ago that many attorneys earned their legal education by acting as an apprentice for a practicing attorney in lieu of attending a law school. Many famous attorneys started their careers in this manner. In fact, some states - most notably California - still provide a mechanism whereby an attorney who has skipped law school may still practice law. If, after reading the balance of this section, you feel that law school does not offer you anything, you may wish to consider such an option.

So, am I advocating some kind of revolutionary movement to do away with law schools? Far from it! Instead, I think law school serves a number of useful purposes. Those purposes are the subject of this article.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that law schools do very little to provide the practical training young lawyers need to actually get through a day of work at their first job, and that many of them try to pretend to the contrary.

Although there is much to say about what law schools can do to improve, that is not what this article is about. Instead, I'm going to focus on the four significant benefits that I believe law school offers to students, society in general and the legal profession:

First, the requirement that new lawyers graduate from law school serves a valuable purpose as a significant barrier to entry to the already saturated legal profession;



Second, law school serves to initiate you into the legal community - especially in the region where the law school is located. You will be blessed with three years and multiple opportunities to develop important relationships with your classmates, professors, judges and attorneys;



Third, a law degree from a recognized institution can be a valuable credential that will serve you throughout your life, whatever you do;



Finally, law school gives you time to think.

[This article is will be continued in Law School Musings, Part 2 (Law School as a Barrier to Entry)]

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

The New 2008 Law School Rankings Are Out, What Do They Mean?

So its another year and we are faced with another round of law school rankings from the so-called "experts." The 2008 law school rankings are no different from any other year - they are virtually meaningless to the average student and should be largely ignored by you.

Unfortunately, if you are planning on applying to law school this year, or applying to law school anytime in the near future, I know that you will have a very hard time ignoring the law school rankings. In fact, if you are anything like me, you'll buy copies of every magazine, book, newsletter, or crayon drawing that purports to rank law schools in any way. And you'll probably pay much more attention to them than you should.

I did. At the end of the day, I wouldn't even consider applying to any law school below the second tier of the U.S. News and World Report law school rankings. I guess I got lucky, because I was admitted to every law school where I applied, but in hindsight, I wish I had considered things differently and paid less attention to the popular law school ranking publications.

As I discuss in another article about law school rankings, you have got to view the popular published law school rankings skeptically. These rankings are untrustworthy and mislead students into thinking they need to attend a highly ranked school or they will be second rate lawyers due to their "substandard" law school education. This is simply not true.

It should tell you something that many schools have now decided not to cooperate with the publishers who compile these rankings, despite the enormous pressure they have to not only participate, but to inflate their statistics in order to appear more attractive to potential students.

What you will eventually learn, whether you go to Harvard Law School, or a night law school in your local metropolis, is that the legal education you will receive will be substantially the same - regardless of which law school you attend. In addition, within five years of your graduation from law school, virtually no one - including employers, colleagues, judges, and most importantly clients - will care at all where you went to law school.

All of that being true, you should consider all sorts of things other than law school rankings when deciding where to go to law school. More important considerations include cost, attractiveness of the location, weather, where you want to live after law school, the social scene, and the programs offered. Then, if there's a tie, you might want to consider the 2008 law school rankings.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

The Second Year of Law School - 5 Things to Do!

Well, you survived your first year of law school and hopefully spent the summer gaining meaningful experience in a legal setting - be it an internship with a judge, clerking for a law firm or working as a student attorney for a legal clinic. Now it's time to embark on another year in law school. Here are 5 things to know going into your second year of law school:

1. Join Law Review. This is the most prestigious law school publication you can write for and you should definitely try to write on if you are not automatically invited based on your first year law school grades. It's amazing how many more doors will open for you simply based on having your school's law review publication on your resume - even more if you are editor! Although practicing law has nothing to do with writing a scholarly note or article (you'll be writing legal briefs and motions!), law firms have a special affinity for those who wrote for law review. But it's more than just a career-boosting opportunity; it's a chance to really develop your skills as a writer and show commitment to scholarly publication, which is definitely useful for those who eventually would like to teach or become an authority figure in a particular area of law. If you cannot join law review, see about joining another law journal publication offered at your school. While it won't carry the same prestige that law review has, it will, nevertheless, be a very beneficial experience for the reasons noted above. Plus, law firms love good writers.

2. Join Moot Court, which is a competition of appellate advocacy. Students who are invited to participate in moot court (generally through a try-out process) prepare appellate briefs and then engage in oral arguments before a panel of senior moot court members who function as appellate judges. This is a wonderful experience in terms of developing appellate brief writing and research skills and a great chance to get over any nerves you might have about public speaking. Do well enough and you can compete for your school's national moot court team and then participate in really high-level competition. While I would say that moot court ranks below law review from a law firm's point-of-view when hiring, the experience is completely different and in certain circumstances, if you had to choose between one and the other, moot court might be your better choice. For example, say you know you want to be an appellate attorney and you're gunning for a position with the appellate defender's office. If you can also do moot court, in addition to writing for law review or another law journal, all the better, though most would find this pretty overwhelming, especially when you consider that you still have your classes to study for.

3. Interview during fall recruitment. Each fall, second year law students participate in the most important recruiting time of their career. Fall recruitment is when second year law students interview for the all-important second year summer clerkship, the gateway to being offered a full-time position after graduating from law school. If you land a summer clerkship with one of the top law firms and do well, come your third year you may not have to interview at all with anyone else because you will hopefully be offered a position with the firm you clerked for. Although, it never hurts to interview with others and see what options exist for you. Remember, competition brings out the best in any situation!

4. Choose your classes wisely. Now that it's your second year of law school, for the most part you have a lot of flexibility of which elective classes you take. Some people focus on subjects that will be tested on the state bar exam (different for each state), while others will focus on an area of interest. If you want to be a litigator or not really too sure if you would like being a litigator or not, enroll in one of the trial advocacy or pre-trial advocacy classes that your law school offers. These are great ways to get litigation experience and insight. Try out a seminar, in which you will have a chance to write a note on a particular subject, which you can then add to your portfolio of writing samples. You may even want to do a judicial internship for credit, which is always a wonderful experience and a boost to your resume. Plus, it never hurts getting a reference from a judge!

5. Keep studying! Law school grades are key and will follow you throughout your entire career, unless, of course you break out on your own and hang up your own shingle. But if you have any interest in working for a law firm or a company as in-house counsel or for the government, and especially if you want to teach one day, you better make sure your grades are top notch!

Sonny Sheth is a licensed attorney with the GL Law Group, PLC and a former legal journalist that now writes on various legal subjects such as Michigan DUI Law, Michigan Car Accident Injury Law, and Race Discrimination Law

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

The First Year Of Law School - 7 Things To Know

The first year of law school is going to be a whole new experience for you. But cherish the moment. You spent countless hours studying for the LSAT, writing personal statements, arranging your college transcripts, filling out law school applications, and not to mention worked your butt off for four years to get good grades in college. You are going to meet new people and make great friendships with those who will go into the trenches of law school with you for three years, though some may drop-out of law school, some may be kicked out of law school and some may transfer to another law school after the first year.

What You Can Expect

1. Don't show up to the first day of law school unprepared. Generally, law school professors will post reading assignments prior to the first day of class. Be sure to complete the reading assignments and be prepared to answer tough questions on the first day, questions designed to get you and your law school classmates to start thinking like a lawyer.

2. You will be enrolled in the basic first year law school classes - contract law, tort law, criminal law, property law, and civil procedure - not to mention legal research and writing. These first year law school classes will lay the foundation of the rest of your law school experience. You will learn the law in each area based on analyzing court opinions

3. Be prepared to pay a costly price for your law school books. You may very well be able to find used books at a cheaper cost, but it may not be worth it if the books are already highlighted and marked up.

4. Be on the lookout for law school study groups. One of the best ways to prepare for law school exams is to create outlines for each law school subject. Law school study groups are a great way to collaborate with other law school students to create a master outline and be sure that nothing goes untouched.

5. Law school exams generally consist of one final exam at the end of the semester. This can be quite different than what you were used to in college. Your entire grade will be based on this final exam, which will generally consist of the entire matter covered during the course of the semester. These law school exams are generally essay-based and require you to take a complex factual story and identify legal issues and defenses.

6. Think you did well on an exam, but still only managed a B plus? Well, in law school, most professors will only hand out so many A's and so many B's. So essentially, you are competing against your fellow law school classmates.

7. Don't worry about your first summer legal working experience. Spend the first semester studying, studying and studying and trying to maximize your grades. Generally, employers will start interviewing and accepting resumes from first-year law students for internships or clerkships in winter semester, and will offer interviews based on your first semester law school grades.

Sonny Sheth is a licensed Michigan attorney with the GL Law Group, PLC and a former legal journalist that now writes on various legal subjects and maintains a learn Spanish website. If you need a Michigan DUI Attorney or a Michigan Car Accident Lawyer, contact the GL Law Group, PLC to set up a free case review. The GL Law Group offers free attorney referrals based on years of research and experience in various areas of law and has identified the best of the best in several legal fields of specialization. The best way to find a lawyer is to be recommended one by a legal expert that understands what a client should look for in a good attorney.

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

What You Need to Know About Law School

Law school is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences a student can have. The popularity and demand on law schools has grown at a rapid pace. If you've ever seen the "Devil's Advocate", Al Pacino (during his dramatic closing monologue) says that there are more people in law school than there are actual lawyers. I've done some research and I haven't been able to verify whether or not this is true, but it wouldn't be a total shock if it was valid. Television programs like "Law & Order", "Boston Legal" and "Shark" have glamorized the practice of law making it more attractive to young adults. Furthermore, the potential big salary one can obtain through a law career makes it even more enticing. In fact, the average starting salary for an associate at a mid-sized law firm is $93,000. But keep in mind, a career in law is usually not centered around high-drama court cases and big paychecks. In reality, it requires discipline, a lot of research, and strong written/oral skills. Let me explain...

This may shock you, but most lawyers never step foot in a courtroom. This is due to the fact that less than 10% of all motions and cases actually make it to trial. So, if you dream about being the new Denny Crane (Boston Legal) or Samantha Cabbot (Law & Order) you have to specifically focus on trial law during your tenture at law school. On the subject of salary, yes, a lawyer can make a lot of money. But keep in mind that the big-salary jobs are predominantly in the private sector working with corporate clients. Furthermore, associates and partners at law firms work, on average, 60 hours a week. So, you'll earn that phat paycheck as a lawyer.

Here are some basic facts and guidelines that you'll need to know if you're serious about attending law school:

(1.) In order to get accepted to a quality law school, you must have a high GPA and a high LSAT score. Most law schools have a formula as to how they determine who they accept. Yes, your essay and letters of recommendation are important, but the combination of a high GPA and LSAT score are essential if you want applicant reviewers to even consider you. To get into a top 25 law school, you'll need at least a 3.0 GPA (at least a 3.5 for top-10 schools) and an LSAT score of at least 152 out of 180, but much higher for a top-10, at least 165 out of 180.

(2.) Law school is expensive. Most law schools charge $20,000+ a year just in tuition and fees. Private law schools charge even more. For example, Harvard Law School charges $53,000 a year for tution...just tuition! That's not including books, a laptop, housing, and miscellaneous expenses. So, if you're serious about law school, you'll probably need to obtain a good student loan. Or, try your hardest to win a scholarship or grant. Here's a helpful resource for loans, scholarships, and grants...

(3.) Law School is 3-years in length and you'll be working non-stop during that period. Law School is a time consuming and difficult endeavor, especially in the first year. Some law school graduates and professors have even said that the first year is specifically designed to be extremely challenging so those not truly committed will be weeded out. So, understand that if you attend law school it will not be a cakewalk. You'll have to read hundreds of cases, write lengthy papers, do copious amounts of legal research, and argue in front of a judge in a mock trial. So if you don't like to write or speak in public, law school is not for you.

(4.) Even after you graduate law school, you'll still not a lawyer! That's right, even after 3 years of hard work, you're still not technically a lawyer. You must pass the bar exam and obtain your license in order to legally be a lawyer (nice play on words, ey).

Summation: I don't want this article to sound pessimistic about the law school experience. It can be one of the most fulfilling ventures of your life. You'll be learning, and mastering, something that is involved in all aspects of our lives: the law. Once you graduate, people will look to you for advice and counsel on important matters. And the possibility of handling a high-profile case and/or making boatloads of cash is certainly possible. But just remember, you must have a genuine interest in law, or have the inherent skills to handle the workload in order to succeed in law school.

Check Out the Best College Information Site on the Net

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Law School Requirements - What it Takes, in a Nutshell, to Apply to Law School

Every law school has a set of requirements, what I have referred to as the law school requirements, that are the bare minimum standards that all students - no matter how "special their situation" - must meet. For the most part, every law school shares the same objective and subjective requirements, though the quality of these requirements may vary from school to school.

The first law school requirement for essentially all law students is that they obtain an undergraduate bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university before attending law school. In connection with obtaining this degree, the graduate must submit a transcript to his or her prospective law school so that the school can evaluate the student's grade point average ("GPA").

Next, every prospective law student must take the Law School Admission Test ("LSAT"). As with the GPA, different schools may have different standards when it comes to their minimum required LSAT score, but every school requires that a score be submitted.

The above factors constitute the objective factors that every law school will use to evaluate law school candidates. Fortunately, most law schools do not make law school admission decisions based solely on objective criteria unless your GPA and LSAT scores are exceptionally high.

Many of the subjective factors are not requirements, but two generally are. These are the personal statement and recommendation letters. The law school application personal statement gives prospective law students the opportunity to demonstrate their individuality, address deficiencies or other problems in his or her application and, of course, demonstrate writing ability.

Similarly, letters of recommendation give the law school admissions committee the opportunity to gather extrinsic information regarding the law school candidate from someone besides the prospective candidate.

There are other subjective requirements that may be considered by a law school in making an admissions decision, such as diversity issues and familial relationships with the school, but such matters are not required to be considered for admission.

The above items are the law school requirements, but the greatest success goes to the law school applicants who go above and beyond the law school requirements and give the law school admissions committee something extra. The greatest rewards in life go to the outstanding, and when it comes to getting into law school its no different.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com.

H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States.

To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Michigan Law Schools - How to Find & Get Into a Great Law School in Michigan

There are six great law schools in the State of Michigan. These include the Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor, the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in Detroit, the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, the Michigan State University College of Law in East Lansing, the Thomas M. Cooley School of Law in Lansing, and Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

Of course, not all Michigan law schools are alike, and in choosing a Michigan law school - as you would with any school - you should make sure that you are making the correct choice for YOU. Unfortunately, far to many prospective law students fall into the trap of letting magazines and artificial law school rankings make the choice for them. If you were to do that, you might focus on the University of Michigan Law School, which admittedly enjoys an outstanding national reputation, to the exclusion of several other excellent law schools in Michigan or elsewhere.

One of the things I try and emphasize to students trying to select a law school is that you get a very similar education no matter where you go. The "elite" schools will never admit that, but its true. Moreover, having been a practicing lawyer now for almost 10 years, I assure you that where you went to law school will very quickly become virtually meaningless to your employers and colleagues. I've known great lawyers and terrible lawyers who went to great schools - and I've known great lawyers and terrible lawyers who went to no-name night schools.

Therefore, if you've decided you want to go to law school in Michigan, you should carefully analyze which of the excellent choices will be the best law school for you. If your aim to get a high-paying job in Manhattan immediately after graduation, the University of Michigan Law School is probably a place you should target. On the other hand, if you're looking to set up a local practice on of the smaller local schools may be your best choice.

Although the substance of what you will learn is largely the same at every school, the environment is definitely not. That's why, if you've decided you want to go to a Michigan Law School, you should visit every school you're considering to get a feel for the campus and physical surroundings. You should also speak with some students to see what they have to say about the atmosphere. Some law schools are definitely more friendly that others.

No two Michigan law schools are created alike, just as no two law students are created alike. Finding a good match should be your top priority. You're going to spend three years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars - regardless of which Michigan law school you select - and you should do everything possible to make sure its not a miserable investment.

When I was choosing which law school to attend I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars researching and in many cases visiting the eleven schools that made my final list. In the end, I didn't choose the highest ranked or most prestigious school I got into, but I did choose the best law school for me. And I made the right choice.

This is just one of the many topics I discuss in my ebook Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice and in the Covert Tactics Law School Newsletter, both of which are available at my website.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.