A warning to old hands: much of this is addressed to those just getting acquainted with the world of law school admissions. 1. The LSAT is The Entrance Exam That Determines Where You Get In Stop thinking about the LSAT as a piece of your application. While it is a piece, it’s a gargantuan piece that almost eclipses every other consideration.
But for most lawyers, their skill is not in being the most creative legal thinkers in the world. Their skill is serving up solutions perfectly tailored to their clients specific needs and desires, and then showing up to battle having put their client’s s**t together.
Yes, law schools do use a holistic process of reviewing applications. However, that only affects people on the margins. What I mean to say is, chances are close to 100% that you’ll be judged entirely on your numbers, mostly the LSAT.
That's one reason why they look for applicants who have the capacity to speak with authority and conviction in a way that inspires others. But law schools also have a more pragmatic reason to recruit students with a silver tongue: Oral advocacy is a crucial part of many legal jobs.
I receive many emails from current 1Ls and 2Ls who think they still would like to get their JD, but who feel fairly certain that being a traditional lawyer upon graduation is not for them.
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Law schools do nothing of the sort. A law school doesn’t teach you what it’s like to be a lawyer any more than having a niece teaches you what it’s like to be a parent. In both cases, YOU CAN GO HOME.
You can leave your theoretical kids or theoretical clients to someone else’s ultimate responsibility. Like an actual parent, the job of a practicing attorney involves a lot less “let’s go on an adventure,” and a lot more “oh my God, if you don’t shut up I’m going to murder you.”.
Law school is three years long. If you go to an average law school and don’t get any tuition help or scholarships, you are going to spend ~$150,000 all-in, at least. That’s three years of tuition, assorted fees, books and living expenses.
Make no mistake about it: Law school is not a bastion of intellectual discourse. It is a fucking TRADE SCHOOL. You are all there to be trained to think and act exactly the same way as everyone else in the profession, so you can then be a drone in the legal system. No one is interested in your opinion.
Beyond that, the overall legal job market has dried up, even the low paying jobs. They aren’t going to tell you any of this at law school recruitment receptions; in fact schools continue to tell prospective students the opposite, which is why more and more of them are being sued for fraud.
No one is interested in your opinion. The only one of those that matters is the one expressed, with a capital “O”, by the judge (s) in whatever case you are currently reading. Beyond that, to be genuinely good at legal “arguing,” you must be dispassionate, reasonable and smart.
That's one reason why they look for applicants who have the capacity to speak with authority and conviction in a way that inspires others .
Ittleman says practice interviews help students discover the right words to use to clearly express their thoughts. With that in mind, attorneys say that law school applicants should figure out how they'd like to answer the following questions before their admissions interviews. 1.
Again, of the two numbers, LSAT is by far the more important. Most law schools use an admissions index to make an initial determination regarding acceptance. From just that index score, you are going in one of two piles: presumptive reject or presumptive admit.
From there, your LSAT score is going to predict where you get in something close to 100% of the time, and a lot of the time, moving it up or down by just a couple points will make the difference. Yes, law schools do use a holistic process of reviewing applications. However, that only affects people on the margins.
GPA is better thought of as kind of a pass/fail sort of thing. A bad GPA might keep you out, but a good GPA won’t get you in, not without a good LSAT. However, a high LSAT score can and frequently does eclipse a low GPA. For more on this, see our post on getting in with a low GPA.