Happy first day of summer!

Happy Friday and happy first day of summer! We’ve rounded up your first batch of summer reading– full of great tips and news about law school and the legal profession:

Do You Have to Be an Annoying Suck-Up to Succeed as a Summer Associate? (The Girl’s Guide To Law School)

Take some personal advice from The Girl’s Guide To Law School for how to proceed at your associateship this summer.

Consider Law Schools With In-House Firms, Incubators (U.S. News Education)

At school-based firms, attorneys may spend between one and three years honing their skills.

The Absolute Worst States for Job Hunting Law-School Grads (The Atlantic)

New research shows which corners of the country have the biggest oversupply of young lawyers.

Law Schools: Get Back to Basics (The National Law Journal)

The National Law Journal makes the case for why students should be provided with more opportunities to engage in practical legal writing.

Law Schools Are Changing, But How and Why? (part two) (Lawyerist)

How, exactly, are law schools changing? How will they change in the next 5 years or so? Lawyerist has some interesting insight.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanLSAT

June LSAT scores will come. Patience is key!

If you took the June 2013 LSAT this week, it’s now time to play the waiting game. Here are some of this week’s top articles for you to read while you pass the time.

Law Schools Shift Focus for Grads (U-T San Diego)

In the face of a grim job market, some law schools are steering students toward legal areas where careers are more promising.

Evaluate Professors to Find a Good Law School Fit (U.S. News Education)

Prospective students can get a feel for a teacher’s style by observing a class.

The Top Five Law Schools for Jobs, Cost, Clerkships, and More (Above the Law)

Here are the top five law schools based on each individual data point that composes Above the Law’s rankings formula.

The Time is Now: Start Preparing Clerkship Applications this Summer (Lawyerist)

If you just finished your 2L year, this summer is the time to start getting your clerkship applications together

LSAT Sanity: Stress Management (Part 1) (jdMission)

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanLSAT

People are often surprised to learn certain things about the Law School Admissions Test, in particular that a substantial portion of its content appears irrelevant to “being a lawyer.” A typical LSAT “game” reads something like, “If Frank lets go of his balloon first and Anna lets go of her balloon last, how many different combinations of kids could lose balloons in between?” Imagine sudoku but with words. This, and yet law schools give applicants’ LSAT scores tremendous weight in making their admissions decisions.

But they haven’t always. The test itself is only 65 years old, and the history of the LSATprovides some insight into why, exactly, it can seem to have so little to do with the field of law.

Prior to the LSAT, there wasn’t one admissions test that all law schools used–there were a couple of well-known ones, but their use wasn’t universal. In 1945 the admissions director at Columbia Law School, unsatisfied with the tests currently available, wrote to the President of the College Entrance Examination Board that he wanted to discuss the creation of a new one. When they finally met two years later, they envisioned a test intended to correlate with first year grades “on the assumption that first-year performance is highly correlated with later success in law school and in legal practice.” The key was law school performance, not bar exam passage since, they noted at the meeting, “everybody passes [bar exams] sooner or later” (quote pulled from the same article linked to above). With this goal in mind, they invited Harvard and Yale to sign on to the plan, which they did, followed by other schools.

The LSAT was never intended to measure aptitude for the practice of law; it was designed to measure potential success as a law student based on the belief that LSAT performance would correlate with law school performance, and that law school performance would correlate with one’s professional success thereafter.

So how have all these expected correlations played out?

A 2011 report by the Law School Admissions Council (which administers the LSAT) claims that the LSAT is a better predictor of law school performance than undergraduate GPA, and that GPA and LSAT score combined is a better predictor than either one, alone, concluding that “these results, combined with similar results from previous studies, support the validity of the LSAT for use in the law school admission process.” I know: shocking that an LSAC study would affirm LSAC’s continuing usefulness. But there is also, interestingly, some evidence that preparing for the test itself alters your brain–that learning LSAT-relevant reasoning can actually make you smarter. Silvia Bunge, associate professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Psychology and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute says:

“A lot of people still believe that you are either smart or you are not, and sure, you can practice for a test, but you are not fundamentally changing your brain … Our research provides a more positive message. How you perform on one of these tests is not necessarily predictive of your future success, it merely reflects your prior history of cognitive engagement, and potentially how prepared you are at this time to enter a graduate program or a law school, as opposed to how prepared you could ever be.”

But the process of studying for the text had visible effects on brain connectivity:

The structural changes were revealed by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans of the brains of 24 college students or recent graduates before and after 100 hours of LSAT training over a three-month period. When compared with brain scans of a matched control group of 23 young adults, the trained students developed increased connectivity between the frontal lobes of the brain, and between frontal and parietal lobes.

If this is true, perhaps what’s ultimately so useful about the LSAT isn’t how well it’s correlated with first-year grades, or how well it predicts overall success, but how preparing for it actually makes people better at reasoning. That may make them better at the LSAT sure, but ultimately it’s because they’ve been made better thinkers, which we can infer without getting too crazy likely means better law students and lawyers. That would make the LSAT, rather than just a weeding out tool or a litmus test, a kind of phase of legal training, itself.

As for whether doing well in law school makes you a better lawyer, well, a 2010 studydoes suggest that it’s a good predictor of your career: “the consistent theme we find throughout this analysis is that performance in law school–as measured by law school grades–is the most important predictor of career success. It is decisively more important than law school ‘eliteness.’” This should dispel some worry that what school you get into matters more than how you do once you get there (a commonly held viewamong law school applicants).

So if the LSAT is a reasonably reliable predictor of law school performance, and if law school performance is a reliable predictor of career success, can we say that the LSAT can predict if you’re going to be a good lawyer? I’ll leave that one for you to reason out, for your own sake.

Good luck to all taking the June 2013 LSAT this coming Monday! Relax and mentally prepare your self this weekend and when you need a break, read up on some the latest law school news:

Law Schools with the Highest Median LSAT (U.S. News Education)

Check out U.S. News’ latest list of law schools with the highest median LSAT for full-time students

About Two-Thirds of Parents Want Their Kids to Be Lawyers (Above the Law)

According to a recent survey from Lawyers.com that polled 1,001 people, 64 percent of parents still “hope their children will grow up to pursue legal careers.”

5 Things to Do the Summer Before 1L Year! (Ms. JD)

If you’re set to begin your first year of law school in the fall, you’re probably wondering the best way to pass time while waiting to start.

JD News: Which States Have Too Many Lawyers (JD Mission)

According to new research, location may be everything for recent or soon-to-be law school graduates.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanLSAT

The June LSAT is just over one week away! Take a quick study break to catch up on some of this week’s top law school links:

The Mental Fortitude Necessary to Practice Law (Lawyerist)

Being a lawyer takes thick skin. That’s because your job, in serving your client, is to tune out the bluster, stay cool, and make good decisions under fire.

Should You Drop Out of Law School (The Girl’s Guide to Law School)

As the school year winds down, a whispered question is floating in on the wind: “Should I drop out of law school?”

New Lawyer Tip of the Week—How Books Can Inspire & Improve your Legal Career (Green Horn Legal)

This list of legal books can inspire you, re-energize you and deliver to you a few wise lessons that you can use to improve your career.

Law Students Should Be Able to Work For Free, Says ABA (Wall Street Journal Law Blog)

The ABA is stepping into the fray over whether law firms should have to pay law students to help out on pro bono cases.

Toobin: The Legal Job Crisis Doesn’t Exist For Harvard Law Grads (Business Insider)

Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin spoke at Harvard Law’s “Class Day” on Wednesday, telling grads not to worry about the “oversupply of lawyers” that’s been in the news.

Did we miss your favorite article from the week? Let us know what you have been reading in the comments or tweet @ManhattanLSAT

The June 2013 LSAT is quickly approaching! When you need a break from studying, check out some of our favorite links from the past week:

Build Your Own Law School Rankings (Lawyerist)

If you just want to know which law school will do the best job preparing you to go solo or work at a small or medium-sized firm, try this new ranking tool.

Firms Want Lawyers with Emotional Intelligence –Huh? (The Careerist)

Partners often say that hiring those with emotional intelligence—that is, people with interpersonal skills—is a priority.
Read more

Just one month until the June 2013 LSAT! When you need a break from studying, check out a handful of our favorite law school related articles from the week:

The Biggest Problem in Legal Education: The Mismatch Between How Law Schools Teach Their Students and What Lawyers Do in Practice (Legal Skills Prof Blog)

Many wonder whether the current legal education system is adequate for the future lawyers of American, or do law schools need to take a different approach to legal education?

The Best Online Law Schools: JD and LLM Programs (Above the Law)

Set on getting an online law degree? Above the Law picks a couple of the best.

The Best Law Schools in the World (Above the Law)

Can’t get enough rankings? Neither can we! Here’s the best law schools in the world.
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Finals coming up? Take a break with some light(er) reading

Happy Friday everyone! Here’s our roundup of news articles and helpful law school tips from the week:

Can’t Keep Up? 10 Easy Life Hacks That Will Save You Time During Finals Season (Ms. JD)

Here are 10 simple life hacks that will save you time during finals season and give you more freedom to focus on studying during the final stretch.

5 Ways New Attorneys Can Add Value (Lawyerist)

Working in a legal setting this coming summer? Here are five great ways to add value as a new lawyer and get the most out of your job.

Top 3 High Paying Legal Careers (The Law Street Journal)

From lowest to highest, this list takes a look at some of the highest paying legal professions and outlines what they entail.
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Happy Friday! Set your LSAT prep work aside for a moment and catch up on some of this week’s top law school tips and legal news:

5 Top Tips for Networking in Large Groups (Ms. JD)

Networking is an extremely important part of your law school career. In part one of this two part series, Ms. JD shares five top tips for how to successfully network in a group.

The Most Influential Lawyers in the World: Meet the Attorneys on the Time 100 (Above The Law)

Last week, Time Magazine released its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Above The Law has the details on the top lawyers who made the list.

Take 2? Answering Your Top LSAT Retake Questions (Law School Podcaster)

Wondering if you should cancel your LSAT score or retake it? Or how law schools will view multiple test scores? Take a minute to listen to this week’s podcast featuring Manhattan LSAT’s Norah Teitelbaum.
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Happy Friday! Time to catch up on some useful law school tips and news from the week:

Are Lawyers Destined to Either be Miserable or Broke? (The Girl’s Guide To Law School)

This week The Girl’s Guide to Law School encourages you to share your thoughts about how to create a new vision for the legal profession.

Who’s Smarter? Law or Biz Students? (Poets & Quants)

Poets & Quants explores the provocative and tongue-in-check question of whether law students are smarter than business students or vice versa.

Question Authority: Law Students Have An Important Role to Play in the Future of Legal Education (The Legal Whiteboard)

Law professor at Indiana Law urges law students to ask law professors tougher questions about the current state of legal education, albeit with respect.
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