LawSchool.Life

Where do you want to practice? Does it matter to you? Where do you have ties? Are any of these schools that are located somewhere you know you wouldn't be happy for three years? Are any of them located somewhere you'd really like to live and work? I have a hard time seeing an argument for keeping y...

You're definitely too early in the cycle to call it a success or failure, but you're already accepted at two schools with excellent employment prospects (and both of them do well in the federal clerkships game). 2/3 of your apps are still undecided at this stage. Hold steady and see where the accept...

Where do you want to practice? Does it matter to you? Where do you have ties? Are any of these schools that are located somewhere you know you wouldn't be happy for three years? Are any of them located somewhere you'd really like to live and work? I have a hard time seeing an argument for keeping yo...

I don't think you even have the median data point, but you can guess it's likely on the upper end of the range given for first-year courses. Based on how my own class's distribution looked after one semester, our median was 2/3 of the way from the middle of the distribution for individual classes to...

I echo what others have said. The fact that you took the LSAT cold is further evidence that you should retake. A 161 is a pretty good score if you didn’t study. You could probably get to at least a 165 with just a few weeks of study, and you could almost certainly get a 170 if you’re willing to put...

Well, you're going to be a splitter no matter how you cut it, but absolutely get that gpa above a 3.0. As someone else who applied in my mid-30s with a 173/2.52, I can absolutely say a gpa that low will be an albatross that a stellar LSAT can mitigate, but not cover up. Plenty of law schools will be...

Yeah, an addendum is really more for explaining why one semester is an outlier (mom died, terrible grades that semester reflect that emotionally difficult time), or why your terrible undergrad performance (like my sub-3.0 GPA) won't happen in law school. An overall good GPA doesn't need any explanat...

The other "good" news is that the people doing well on writing assignments in humanities programs often struggle to adjust to legal writing, so to the extent that you do have a legal writing course (and you will, at least in 1L), you won't be at quite the disadvantage you may imagine. And like Nony ...

Figure out why you want to be a lawyer. The kinds of law you talk about wanting to practice, where you really get to help people, aren't going to pay much, especially in Alabama. Yes, there are some great organizations in Alabama, but the ones that can afford decent salaries draw attention from youn...

Never for NYC transactional work. Agreed. NYC transactional biglaw is the reason why it's coherent to talk about the "T13" grouping in the first place. They're all great for it. Even the weakest of them (Berkeley and Yale) in terms of actual biglaw placement make up for it in other areas (clerkship...

There are way more senior non lawyer jobs at F500s than there are lawyer jobs so if your goal is just to end up at the top of a big org chart b school is the way to go even if you have to wait a few years to get there. Doing corporate at a cravath or wachtell is no guarantee of the outcome you want...

Whichever t13 gives you a full ride. NY transactional biglaw isn't the sort of unicorn job where it's worth the extra expense (debt) for fairly similar outcomes in terms of odds of getting the job. I mean, if it's all debt free, sure, pick based on location/profs/class size/preftige.

It's particularly hard to estimate URM odds, but what data that's out there looks okay but not great for you. HYS is probably a waste of your application fee. CCN isn't much better. The rest of the t13/t19 looks unlikely for any given school, but with enough chance overall you could probably expect ...

Additionally, have you gone to your career services people and asked them to review your materials? There might be some flaw that you are missing that is moving you to the discard pile. Did you apply to those 150 judges with the same generic cover letter or did you customize each one? If generic, t...

You start reaching "maybe" territory for GW/Emory/Fordham around 161. That crosses into coin toss territory at 162. By 164, you might be looking at a modest scholarship. 165 is where GW and Emory actually *want* you, and start flashing better than 50% scholarships to make it happen. You can do your ...

With those numbers, you're probably not getting into Emory, GW, Fordham, or Florida (barring a waitlist miracle). FSU, Miami, and South Carolina are likely to take you, but not with the kind of scholarship money to make those good life choices (unless maybe if you're getting in-state tuition at Sout...

FedGov folks, I just got two interviews for DOJ Honors. All will be remote this year. Any advice for interviewing in the time of covid? Both want writing samples now. One specifies a 15 page limit, while the other doesn't specify. Should I assume a 10 page limit for the mystery one, or consider subm...

This scattershot application strategy is likely to give you a decent number of admissions, but after the top of the list, they get increasingly regional. If you're okay with the luck of the draw dictating which secondary cities you target post grad, that's fine, but you'll need to be prepared to con...

Even if you feel the need to dip below Georgetown for a safety (Georgetown is kinda a safety for you), there's very little sense dipping below the Texas/UCLA/USC/Vanderbilt/WashU set unless you have a very specific reason to want to be in a particular city or study with a particular professor. UVA2...

Even if you feel the need to dip below Georgetown for a safety (Georgetown is kinda a safety for you), there's very little sense dipping below the Texas/UCLA/USC/Vanderbilt/WashU set unless you have a very specific reason to want to be in a particular city or study with a particular professor. UVA2...

Even if you feel the need to dip below Georgetown for a safety (Georgetown is kinda a safety for you), there's very little sense dipping below the Texas/UCLA/USC/Vanderbilt/WashU set unless you have a very specific reason to want to be in a particular city or study with a particular professor. UVA2...

Even if you feel the need to dip below Georgetown for a safety (Georgetown is kinda a safety for you), there's very little sense dipping below the Texas/UCLA/USC/Vanderbilt/WashU set unless you have a very specific reason to want to be in a particular city or study with a particular professor. UVA2...

Even if you feel the need to dip below Georgetown for a safety (Georgetown is kinda a safety for you), there's very little sense dipping below the Texas/UCLA/USC/Vanderbilt/WashU set unless you have a very specific reason to want to be in a particular city or study with a particular professor. UVA2B...

If scores are released mid-September, there’s no need to apply before that. Any time before Halloween is early, and I’m not even sure apps open up much before September first. Mid-September will still be really early. (stay cool!) Mid-September is so early, some schools won't even have their apps o...

You'll be fine. I don't think MyLSN is letting me make images of the search results anymore, but here's a tight cluster around your stats: https://mylsn.info/iolp50/ You're probably not getting into HYS without a killer PS, but that's okay. You've got a good chance of going to a T13 with a scholarsh...