Pre-law school advice

March 9, 2010

Grasshoppers!

So you are not taking my advice! You are coming to law school. You are starting blawgs. You have “JD” in your twitter usernames (we will address that later) and you are tweeting and emailing plenty of questions.

Let me point you to a few places for your pre-law reading pleasure:

Wish I would have known: a collection of law school advice from students.
And for a taste of law school from the trenches, look at the weekly law school roundups at Legal Underground and But No Thanks. There is also a “Moms in the legal profession” roundup and plenty of others that I’m unaware of.
And ladies, it is never too early to get your law school wardrobe ready. Huma has all your law school fashion needs covered.

There are some advice posts from this site:

Happy reading. I still think you should run (avoid the debt and anguish!) but if you insist on doing this law school thing, the law school blawg clique (see links to the left) will take care of you.

unsolicited advice

For the 0Ls (Prospective Law Students)

February 20, 2010

It’s that time of year again. Law school acceptance letters have gone out and the future victims students are trolling the student blogs.

My advice? Run.

If you’re not going to run, then consider these 5 tips:

Do not go to law school just because your humanities major did not give you any marketable job skills.

That’s like signing up for the military because you won’t condescend to work retail as a B.A. The legal job market collapsed last year. If you were looking for riches and employment, then try Starbucks or business school…or the military. At least they’ll pay for school if you survive.

**When considering schools outside of the top 10 (or maybe top 20) focus on the schools in the state/market you want to practice in.**

Your New Mexico JD isn’t as powerful in Maine, even if the New Mexico school is ranked slightly higher than Maine’s Bumble School of Law.

If you are choosing between a well-ranked school and a scholarship at a less prestigious school, ask whether the scholarship is contingent on your GPA or class rank.

Most students at these schools will lose their scholarships because of the curve. And yes, your competition is as smart and motivated to keep their scholarship as you are.

Much of the prep during the summer before law school is a waste of time.

Your time is best spent working, because your scholarship or loan money may not come in until classes start. Working out also won’t hurt, because law school is the land of coffee and pizza.

If you really want to know what law school is like then read law student blogs.

An outline of my 1L fall semester is here, and an outline of 1L spring is here.

Again, I recommended that you run, so don’t batter me with nasty messages this fall about how I ruined your life because this blog convinced you that law school is all sunshine and lollipops. It is not. Run.

Tweet any questions to @dennisjansen.

0L / unsolicited advice

The spring before law school

April 7, 2009

As a senior in college, I relied on law student blogs to find out what to expect for my first year of law school. Part of the law school experience that was ignored by a lot of blawgs is the late law school application process (ie, deciding where to go, and then getting there.)

This sucked.

So, for all the 0L’s out there, here are four things that happened to me:¹

1) Applying to more law schools? Waiting for more money? When it’s time to quit:
The problem is that the law schools that have given me full tuition scholarships (Drake, Stetson, etc.), are not top tier schools, and the other schools that have given sizable scholarships (Yeshiva, Temple, DePaul, etc.) are still not in UMN’s league. (keep reading)

I applied to dozens of law schools. I realized that applying to every school that sent me a fee voucher was a waste of time, especially when the schools started harassing me for deposits. The only school I paid to apply to was UMN (my first choice school). And that’s where I’m at. The lesson? It’s good to have options, but there is a such thing as overkill.

2) Financial Aid. Patience is a virtue.

They were not kidding when they said late July. And once I accept these loans that I will supposedly receive, how long will it take for me to get the disbursement? (read more)

I go to a public law school, so financial aid is based on the FAFSA. Students who take out the full amount of loans get around $7,000 a semester for living expenses. Check with your school and don’t be afraid to ask the financial aid office, “How much do students have to live on after tuition and fees?” if that’s what you really want to know. And yes, loans came in about a week before class started.

3) Minority Followup: I am not Tyrone.

So what are law schools doing to recruit minorities? According to National Jurist, law schools are now taking “a personal approach” to admissions.

I saw this “personal approach” at work this past year. I was more aggressively recruited by law schools than when I applied to undergrad, even though I was a better applicant coming out of high school. (read more)

This included aggressive calls from deans and questionable tactics from minority organizations within law schools. The Lesson? Being an minority made me more desirable to law schools, but the best school for me was one that didn’t want me for my skin tone.

4) Housing: House me please! The apartment search was sort of a crapshoot. I spent a lot of time on rent.com, but I couldn’t really make any decisions without a financial aid award.

The lesson? Ask your financial aid department about your monthly budget (assuming you get all of the loans) and save up enough money for your first month’s rent and security deposit because you won’t get a reimbursement check until the eve of classes.

Also, check out the law school discussion forums. There are school-specific threads where upperclassmen from your school will answer your questions. This was very helpful to me because a lot of the UMN students I spoke to at campus preview weekend were local, or had rich parents…so they couldn’t help me find affordable housing.

I hope this helps.

¹ This is my experience, it may not be true for you. Please communicate with your law school and current students at your school.

² If you are applying to UMinnesota (and don’t have children or pets) you can apply to the Gamma Eta Gamma house. Gamma is a co-ed legal fraternity that is close to the school and rents rooms at $400/month.

Law School / unsolicited advice

Law School Advice

January 31, 2009

Here are some things I’ve found useful, thought I’d share:

How Book Briefing Saved My Behind

One day, she held up her casebook to point out there was almost no underlining or highlighting. However, in the margins of the book were handwritten notes. She explained that doing full briefs for cases was a waste of time. (Via Law Ingenue)

unsolicited advice

Don’t sit in.

January 30, 2009

I’ve seen this happen way too much: an (over)eager local college student visits the law school and sits in on a 1L class.

Within twenty minutes, without fail, the college student is misery personified.

I’m in Corporations right now with one such undergrad sitting to my right.

Today’s topic is the basics of incorporation. The reading was dense. It consisted of definitions in paragraph form: Public v. Closely held corporations, articles of incorporation, director liability, etc, etc, etc.

So today’s class is straight-lecture. No cases, no jokes…it’s horribly boring if you haven’t read the material and don’t know what’s going on.

And judging by the amount of Gmail chat screens… today’s class isn’t that interesting even if you HAVE read the material.

I’ve seen some college students quit on their sit-ins halfway through. I think today’s victim is going to tough it out though.

This is partially the admissions office’s fault – if you’re going to let a prospective student sit in on a class you can’t arbitrarily shove them in Civil Procedure or Corps. A safer choice is a debate and case heavy course like Criminal Law, Torts, or Constitutional Law. (and even then, this is professor specific)

And undergrads: (all you 0L’s out there) Do not sit in on law school classes before you start law school. Save the confusion and boredom for orientation. There are no magical law school insights that come from sitting in on a single, random 1L class. Torts with Professor A is different than torts with Professor B.

Professor A is a sadist, Professor B is a dull lecturer. Professors C-E are amazing, but you’ll never know, because you sat in on Prof A or B’s class and didn’t apply.

My advice? Read blawgs, attend accepted students weekend (and talk to 1Ls), and if you are interested in your undergrad’s law school then drop by the law school during lunch and talk to some students. If you’re nice and don’t linger, you probably won’t get bit.