Good Advice Is Hard To Come By

You want to go to law school and we want to help! Why? Because we want you to be the next Atticus Finch! (And your mom called and asked us to give you some advice – and it’s so hard to say no to such a sweet lady). If you have a low score, we can help! But what if you’re done with the LSAT and all you got is a low score and a lousy t-shirt?

We’d love to give you a bunch of admissions advice, but we won’t. That’s not what we’re great at. MY mother said to do one thing and do that thing incredibly well, (and it better not involve gambling, professional wrestling, or reality TV). So, don’t listen to us – instead read some stuff read by people who know more than we do about Law School Admissions. Here’s Ann Levine’s take on low LSAT scores (how low is low?), as well as some ideas about transferring up. I think/hope neither of these will apply to many of you, but for those of you on the fringe of the score spectrum, these are some good ideas  – though, studying and re-taking the LSAT may also be smart!

Listen to your mother, and Ann.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) has put a new policy in place that benefits LSAT takers.  Starting with the upcoming (June 6^th ) exam, LSAT takers now have the option to withdraw their registration up until midnight (EST) the day before the exam (i.e. June 5^th).

Prior to the implementation of this new rule, students were required to decide if they wanted to withdraw from the test before the Test Date Change Deadline– which was usually about three weeks before the test date–leaving little leeway for those who remained unsure about their readiness during the last few weeks of their prep programs.This policy was especially unfair to those students who encountered unforeseen life events that hindered their ability to take the exam.Now students may withdraw their registration without the worry of having an “absence” on their future score reports, which can sometimes be interpreted negatively by admissions councilors.

It should be noted that students who wish to transfer their registration fee still need to postpone their exam registration before the Test Date Change Deadline in order to retain the money they have paid.

Rule Equivalency Questions are Meant to be Broken

The LSAT is a funny beast. On the one hand it stays very consistent – it’s still paper and pencil, still given simply four times per year, and still requires a number two pencil. But, on the other hand, it keeps throwing us small curve balls, small changes in what it asks of us. And these changes happen in every section: Logical Reasoning no longer has multiple questions about one stimulus, Reading Comprehension now has comparative passages, and Logic Games, around the year 2000, entered the Modern Era (read the intro to our Logic Game Strategy Guide to learn what that is). Excitingly, there’s a new Logic Games curve. It’s the introduction of a new question type – Rule Equivalency questions.

If you’ve taken one of the more recent LSATs, you might remember a question that asks something like “Which of the following, if substituted for the rule that . . . would have the same effect . . .” Some of these were quite easy, some were rather tricky, and they were all novel.

If you have already learned the basics of each of the games, take a look at our White Paper on this new question type.

They are letting them in to law school younger and younger these days..

Browsing the headlines of the law school related world today, I came across a very interesting report from CNN. It tells the story of a law student in Spain who took his parents to court in an attempt to force them to resume paying his allowance of $588 per month.

And you thought you really stuck it to Mom and Dad that time you came home 4 hours after curfew!

In a fortunate decision for the well being of the human race, the judge ordered the man to find a job and leave his parents house within 30 days.

Time to rethink your part time job

You might be too far  down the application highway to take advantage of this, but I wanted to tell you about some interesting gigs that may provide you with some great experience before heading to law school. These come from very different sides of the criminal law world:

1. On the DA’s side (if you somehow never watched Law and Order, “DA” = “District Attorney”, i.e. the city’s lawyer), some offices hire investigators to help prosecute cases. For the Manhattan DA, for example, try this: //manhattanda.org/careers/supportstaff/apply.shtml. For this office, it’s usually a two-year position, and you can get involved with some very interesting cases.

2. On the defense side, some Public Defenders also hire investigators. (And if you don’t know what a Public Defender is, why are you going to law school?)  A cousin of mine did this in New Orleans a couple of summers ago – //www.opdla.org/investapp.html and said it was fascinating.

If you’re aiming for law school and you’re in college now, consider trying out one of these internship/positions. You have plenty of years ahead of you, so why not take an interesting detour that could make you a more impressive applicant and give you a sense of what the legal world is like?

Don’t forget, LSAT scores are good for five years!

Let Them Eat Cake?

Oh oxymoron, how I love thee.  Your beauty lies in your simplicity and the possibility for cheekyness in your ranks is infinite:  legal brief, controlled chaos, common phenomenon, civil war, minor miracle, and of course my favorite, Microsoft Works, are all fine examples of the turns a phrase’s meaning can take when one simple word is added (Logical Reasoning, anyone?).

The need for you to pay close attention to words is not going to wane anytime soon. Why?

Because word interpretation is a central element in the comprehension and practice of law. In law school and in your law career, you will most likely be faced with situations where it will literally be your job to change the meaning (or perceived meaning) of a word or phrase. How a word or phrase is interpreted is often the deciding factor in the direction a case takes.  Take for example the lawsuit against Arianna Huffington, Founder, President, and Editor-in-Chief of HuffingtonPost.com. Ms. Huffington is currently being sued by Huffington Post “volunteer” bloggers who are arguing that they deserve to share some of the profits and value that they have created from their contributions to the site.

This case is not without precedent.  Back in the nineties two volunteer chat room monitors – from the then super popular AOL – sued AOL for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act after successfully arguing that AOL exploited their contributions to the product.  AOL ended up settling out of court for $15 million.

So while the intended outcome of this lawsuit is to prevent exploitative behaviors on the part of business owners, the effect it will have on the perceived meaning of words will certainly be a part of its legal fall out. Will the word “volunteer” no longer mean “to do for free” in the context of the law? These are the kind of questions that you – the future lawyers of America – will be helping to resolve someday soon.

Deep breath. It’s not the end of the world, but it is surprising: LSAT testing center security has increased. Red Alert LSAT Geeks! LSAC now requires a full-body scan of anyone who enters the testing site. They will use the same equipment used in airports and all images will be reviewed by T14 law school graduates. Those who refuse the scan will be subjected to a hearty frisking. Not surprisingly, students are pretty angry; all of the test-takers from UC Berkeley have announced they will arrive in kilts and opt for the frisk.

No, no – it’s not that bad. But, it is slightly more inconvenient: you now need to bring a photo of yourself (along with your approved photo ID, your ticket, etc. – read about all of it on LSAC’s website). The picture must be of you within the last 6 months, and if right before test day you dye your hair, put your beard into dreadlocks, or pierce your forehead with a horseshoe, be sure to have  a picture of you with your new look. The photo needs to be no larger than 2 x 2 and no smaller than 1 x 1. Basically, get a passport photo. It’s definitely annoying – and what irks me most is that I now have to wonder whether people have actually gotten away with sending in an LSAT geek-double to take the test for them (or is the question, how many have gotten away with it?). Apparently, the usual photo ID and the affidavit that LSAC has you write in cursive were not enough to scare away evil-doers. (In case you’re wondering about the cursive requirement, studies prove that writing in cursive legitimizes a statement more than any other type of writing except for using Comic Sans.)

On a related ridiculous note, back in the 70s, a guy traveled the world using a passport in which he had replaced his photo with that of his dog. This speaks volumes for one of several things: the sense of security that existed in the world in the 70s despite the cold war, the theory that people look like their dogs, or the general state of that guy’s face or his dog’s.

So, off to your local drugstore for the picture. Say something witty as the camera clicks to bring a smile to your face as you prepare to destroy the LSAT on test day.

Ahh, Friday!   Even if your weekend is chock full of errands and preptests, you cannot tell me that the Friday air doesn’t smell a little fresher than that of its weekday brethren.

In that spirit, we wanted to share some more law school themed hilarity from the web:

Check out this music video titled “Law School State of Mind” set to the tune of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”.  Perhaps a cautionary tale?!

Even if you’re still an undergrad, these two videos from the hilarious and talented GW Law Revue might resonate with you.

The first is a “preview” about the horror of class without laptops .  This is right on the money. I once saw one of my ‘Psychology of Addiction’ classmates lose $750 in one lecture on pokerstars.com…

Ever shotgun a can of red bull in order to maintain your all night study session?  You’ll definitely appreciate where these guys are coming from.

Happy Friday!

Don't Get Left Out of the Admissions Equation

Remember the good old days of the SAT exam, when there was no such thing as taking the test too many times?  Didn’t do so hot the first time?  No worries, you could buy books, prep courses, private tutoring and acupuncture until you were where you needed to be score wise. In terms of the LSAT, though, students often ask: “Should I take the LSAT more than once?”

In the LSAT world, the policies of admissions offices are not nearly so cut and dry.  Some schools will indeed take your highest score, while others will take the average of all the LSATs you’ve sat for.  Other admissions offices we called claim to take a “Holistic” approach to reviewing your application (my guess is that this involves lots of yoga and meditation, but perhaps there is a different interpretation!).

Check out today’s post on JD Mission’s blog for a list of the top 15 schools and what their policies are.  JDMission is a law school admissions counseling firm that offers end to end admissions consulting services from a team of accomplished legal professionals and law school experts.

Apparently, everybody is writing a book these days. John Beer, our Chicago teacher-poet penned an award-winning collection of poems. And LSAC released another book of LSATs. These are the most current ones out there (I guess I could be referring to John’s poems, but I’m talking about the LSATs now). The nice thing about this is that all of these tests included a comparative passage in the reading comprehension section. It’s good to get more practice with this passage type. LSAC started using those in June 2007, so there aren’t  too many examples out there.

The other good news is that this is another way to study on the cheap! Since so many LSAT preppers are ramen-noodle fueled college students, let me outline a cheapo method for prepping for the LSAT on your own:

1. Buy some LSATs: 10 More… The Next 10… and, introducing…. 10 New Actual LSAT PrepTests w/Comparative Reading. (Only a lawyer could appreciate these gripping titles.) By the way, you can no doubt get most of these on Amazon for cheaper. Also, you can buy some pretty cool collections of questions from Cambridge LSAT – (if you go this route, you probably you won’t need the first book above, 10 More…)

2. Buy our guides. (And hey, go right ahead and save a few bucks and buy them on Amazon – let’s be real.)

3. Download our syllabus (you get free access to a syllabus and a bunch of online resources when you buy our books). Follow the directions. Stir frequently over medium-high flame.

All in all, this should cost you about $120. Then, if you need to, you can buy recordings of our classes for a couple of hundred. Boom, you’ve got quite an arsenal.

Anyway, congrats, LSAC! I will say that the covers are getting increasingly depressing, but let’s face it, this is the LSAT, not The Master and Margarita (my favorite book).