law school anyone??

[holycowbanana]

hi all... i have several questions for all the ppl that are attending law school. and of course, my first question is do you enjoy law school and if not, why?? im currently majoring in civil engineering and want to attend law school. im wondering if there are ppl out there so i can relate how they feel about law school especially those with an engineering background. another question is, does the school matter whereever you go... like if i went to usc as opposed to southwestern or nyu to fordham.

any insight will be greatly appreciated! happy holidays everyone!

hopefully ill be entering law school fall 08. good luck to those who are in my boat as well

 

[FLMountainMan]

I just graduated this semester from an advocacy-focused law school in the South. Law school, for me, was completely different than my business school undergraduate and graduate degrees. You have to read a lot of material and work much, much harder.
That said, I love law school for the way it trains your mind to think and I have found it very rewarding. Do it, but prepared for a ton of work, at least until your later semesters, when you have outlines for all the classes.

 

[lawyerdad]

Originally Posted by holycowbanana

hi all... i have several questions for all the ppl that are attending law school. and of course, my first question is do you enjoy law school and if not, why?? im currently majoring in civil engineering and want to attend law school. im wondering if there are ppl out there so i can relate how they feel about law school especially those with an engineering background. another question is, does the school matter whereever you go... like if i went to usc as opposed to southwestern or nyu to fordham.

any insight will be greatly appreciated! happy holidays everyone!

hopefully ill be entering law school fall 08. good luck to those who are in my boat as well

On the margin, where you go to school can influence your ability to find a job in different localities. A degree from NYU has cachet pretty much anywhere in the country. A degree from Southwestern isn't likely to get much love outside of Southern California.
I'd say that of the schools you mentioned, NYU is probably the most "prestigious". So, everything else being equal, that probably is the best choice in terms of resume-building. In SoCal, I think most people who did not attend Southwestern would see USC as being a notch above Southwestern. On the other hand, Southwestern has some excellent faculty, and I think their focus is a bit more on practical advocacy training than the somewhat more traditionally acedemic approach you'd expect at 'SC.

 

[horton]

If you want to work in a big general practice firm, your school choice is enormously important.

No matter what, I'd still strive for the absolute best school you can get into. The return on investment (even personal enjoyment) more than warrants such.

 

[Mentos]

Originally Posted by horton

If you want to work in a big general practice firm, your school choice is enormously important.

No matter what, I'd still strive for the absolute best school you can get into. The return on investment (even personal enjoyment) more than warrants such.

In a world full of uncertainties and gray areas, one of the few truisms is that, given that you don't know what your law school grades will look like, you will have more opportunities as an average top 5 law school student than an average top 50 law school student.

But think about what more than $100k of debt looks like. It's not pretty, and it's not something that should be entered into as casually as most people take it on. Talk to a few people at firms, ask what it's all about.

 

[NoVaguy]

try to go to the best law school you can get into. go to a national school if you don't know where you want to end up. the only time a small, low ranking local school might be worth it is if you are rock solid that you want to practice in a specific area, and damn near everybody in that area went to a certain school, typically the state school.

as for debt, i'm kind of lucky. i have a job that currently pays for nearly all of my law school expenses (they pay tuition and books, i pay taxes on the tuition and books). the big negative is that i'm doing it at night, and somedays (actually, most days) i think the $110K of debt would be worth the extra time to really study and to do some extracurriculars.

 

[Renault78law]

Do you enjoy writing? I have a background in science as well. Law school was easy enough, science majors tend to do well. However, please consider at the most basic level, that the practice of law is mostly research and writing. If you don't enjoy those two things, consider other avenues.

Go to the best school you can get into.

 

[holycowbanana]

thanks alot from the feedback.

just another question, did anyone take testmasters prepcourse and if u did, did it help? and do u think it's wise to go take the lsat without knowing nothing at all just to see where u stand?

some ppl told me that the laws school average the lsat scores together and i also heard they take the highest score??? which one do i believe in?

ohh dear me... the pain of admissions!!!!

 

[FLMountainMan]

As for the cost of law school - if you are admitted to two law schools with similar credentials and one is public and the other private, I would strongly recommend public, for the cost alone. I was accepted to UF, FSU, and Stetson, but since Stetson allowed me to work full-time and still go (which is a flawed concept itself - part-time law school), I chose it. For $100,000, I received an education inferior to what I could've had for $30,000 and either state school. $100,000 in debt works out to about $560 a month under the most generous of payment plans. $100,000 is sort of the minimum for a private school law degree.

 

[NoVaguy]

Originally Posted by FLMountainMan

As for the cost of law school - if you are admitted to two law schools with similar credentials and one is public and the other private, I would strongly recommend public, for the cost alone. I was accepted to UF, FSU, and Stetson, but since Stetson allowed me to work full-time and still go (which is a flawed concept itself - part-time law school), I chose it. For $100,000, I received an education inferior to what I could've had for $30,000 and either state school. $100,000 in debt works out to about $560 a month under the most generous of payment plans. $100,000 is sort of the minimum for a private school law degree.

yeah, sure. had i gotten into UVA (I'm a VA resident, obviously), I would have gone there over any of the other schools in the 6-20 slot by virtue of the in-state tuition discount.

yeah, i agree. the part time concept is somewhat flawed. a lot of times you end up getting a law degree, but nothing else. there's just no time for law review, journals, moot court or mock trial competitions or the various clinicals. i've still got a few more years, and haven't decided how i'm going to handle this. i might try to do something like a clinic over the summer.

 

[NoVaguy]

Originally Posted by holycowbanana

thanks alot from the feedback.

just another question, did anyone take testmasters prepcourse and if u did, did it help? and do u think it's wise to go take the lsat without knowing nothing at all just to see where u stand?

some ppl told me that the laws school average the lsat scores together and i also heard they take the highest score??? which one do i believe in?

ohh dear me... the pain of admissions!!!!

take a real lsat (one from the past year or two) under real conditions and see where you stand. i took kaplan, mainly to force myself to practice and stay sharp - i was/am working full-time, and if i didn't drop the cash for the course, i probably would have done half the work.

it didn't really do much, but i did take the test in 1998 without a test prep course and then again in 2004 with a test prep and scored 4 points higher. and I think my raw score went up by 11 or 12 points (I think the competition got a lot tougher during the intervening 6 years)

yeah, they average all of your scores in the past 5 years. not really a factor in my case, as i ended up waiting 6 years, so my old score was erased.

 

[nerdykarim]

Originally Posted by NoVaguy

take a real lsat (one from the past year or two) under real conditions and see where you stand. i took kaplan, mainly to force myself to practice and stay sharp - i was/am working full-time, and if i didn't drop the cash for the course, i probably would have done half the work.

it didn't really do much, but i did take the test in 1998 without a test prep course and then again in 2004 with a test prep and scored 4 points higher. and I think my raw score went up by 11 or 12 points (I think the competition got a lot tougher during the intervening 6 years)

yeah, they average all of your scores in the past 5 years. not really a factor in my case, as i ended up waiting 6 years, so my old score was erased.

I'm currently applying to schools and there are a couple things I'll add. First, the ABA now requires schools to only report the highest score so many schools are not averaging the scores anymore.

Second, I believe the LSAT will undergo a fairly drastic change in June of next year, but I haven't paid much attention to that news since I took it last October. Double check on that. Nova's right, though, to take a recent test to study. My prep scores varied pretty dramatically based on test date (June '97 is an easy one...take it the week before the test to give yourself some confidence

)

www.lawschooldiscussion.org has quite a few obsessive-compulsive pre-law students who are usually down with whatever's going on. I'd check there. Stay away from www.lawschoolnumbers.com...that one will steal your soul.

I didn't take a prep course, but I used the testmaster/powerscore "method" (If you're not already aware, there's some controversy about stolen method, copyright infringements, etc. there but they're basically the same method) as described in the Logical Reasoning Bible and the Logic Games bible. If you finish both those books and you're not scoring where you want to be on your diagnostics, then I'd recommend a class (but those two should get you where you need to be). I paid over retail for those books bc they were in short supply but they were well worth it...I attribute my score entirely to them.

Other than that, though, I'm still applying (though I should have had my apps finished months ago) so I don't have a lot of experience to share. Best of luck with the LSAT, though...it can actually be sort of fun.

 

[Renault78law]

Unless money is exceedingly tight, you should take a lsat prep course. Law school admissions are extremely competitive. The better you do on the lsat, the more likely you're to get admitted, and get some scholarships (which are relatively common). Like any standardized test, practice is key. A prep course will ensure that you practice a lot.

 

[SartorialSheepdog]

1.) Dont' go to law school unless you absolutely know for an absolute fact that you want to go to law school. The only thing worse than realizing you spent 3 years doing something you don't like is realizing you also spent $150K to find out.
2.) Don't go unless you are absolutely sure, see above.
3.) Don't listen to the B.S. that engineers and scientists do well, at least not at the top law schools. As an engineer (i'm a ChE and BCh) your only papers in undergrad were the 2 you wrote in psych for future teachers, were you were trying to bone the perpetually cold blonde who loved kids. This doesn't compare to the poly sci major from Yale who wrote 4 papers a week but can't tell you **** about thermodynamics.
4.)Go to the best school possible, unless you are 1) prepared to work your ass off and 2) plan to stay in the region of the law school.
5.) Kick the LSAT's ass. Then negotiate your financial aid packages with the schools. Take a class if necessary.
6.) Consider patent law with your back ground, great pay, good hours, lower stress.

 

[holycowbanana]

wat exactly do u do for patent law?? i heard a lot of science and engineering majors that go onto law school pursuing a career in patent law after law school.