Law School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People should know that private practice can be a very difficult path to take. Constant stress, threat of malpractice claims, billing pressure.

and ??? how does it relate to something in the thread? genuinely curious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. Recognize, folks, that it takes a different type of person to be a good trial lawyer. I’ve practiced for over 20 years, and I have seen graduates of lower-ranked law schools run circles around lawyers from top 20 schools.

OT, but true. But not everyone wants to be a trial attorney. Awkwardness can arise when litigators who very seldom go to trial then have a case that just won't settle and then have to go to trial for the first time in 5-10 years bc their client wants to. They will be rusty and not necessarily engaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like taking years off benefits wealthy, connected applicants. Mommy and daddy can call in favors on internships and shell out for another “prep course.”

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should know that private practice can be a very difficult path to take. Constant stress, threat of malpractice claims, billing pressure.

and ??? how does it relate to something in the thread? genuinely curious

Raises the question as to why you are reading & commenting on a thread about law school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People should know that private practice can be a very difficult path to take. Constant stress, threat of malpractice claims, billing pressure.

and ??? how does it relate to something in the thread? genuinely curious

Raises the question as to why you are reading & commenting on a thread about law school.

Both are non sequiturs

[Exlawdean]

Having taught at a reasonable collection of law schools (Northwestern, Univ of Texas Austin, USC, NYU, Chicago, Stanford) I can attest to their being substantial differences between law schools. Most of these differences are not captured in any ranking. Instead, the schools differ in terms of how demanding they are, how tolerant they are of non-mainstream political views, the emphasis they put on getting public interest jobs rather than big law jobs, and in many other ways. I have seen the shows that most (all?) of these law schools put on for admitted students, and it would be, in my opinion, very difficult to figure out what is really going on in the school just by attending the admitted students events. Still, other things being equal, it would be good to to figure out the differences between the schools. Your child's satisfaction with their legal education will depend partly on some of the differences.

I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

[Anonymous]

[I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

I would also be really interested in hearing this. Is it necessary/useful to visit law schools before you apply?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

I would also be really interested in hearing this. Is it necessary/useful to visit law schools before you apply?

No, it's not. OP Dean is writing a book and s crowdsourcing here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

I would also be really interested in hearing this. Is it necessary/useful to visit law schools before you apply?

No, it's not. OP Dean is writing a book and s crowdsourcing here

OP Dean mocked the dog and pony show of admitted students day so I’m interested too. How do you really know what they’re like?

[Exlawdean]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

I would also be really interested in hearing this. Is it necessary/useful to visit law schools before you apply?

No, it's not. OP Dean is writing a book and s crowdsourcing here

I am not writing a book on law school, or getting into law school, or which law schools best prepare students for particular jobs, or anything related to these threads.

[Exlawdean]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[I would be interested to know if any of you have developed effective techniques (short of spending a year teaching in a law school) to understand and measure the differences between various law schools. If so, please share.

I would also be really interested in hearing this. Is it necessary/useful to visit law schools before you apply?

No, it's not. OP Dean is writing a book and s crowdsourcing here

OP Dean mocked the dog and pony show of admitted students day so I’m interested too. How do you really know what they’re like?

I certainly did not intend to mock the admitted students events. I was, however, attempting to claim that they were not informative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like taking years off benefits wealthy, connected applicants. Mommy and daddy can call in favors on internships and shell out for another “prep course.”

+1

My kid has to use the GI bill and it expires too soon for him to delay. So three years off would cost us $250,000. So some lucky school gets to pull up their average lsat with his admission but he’s disappointed. Sorry we’re not rich.

[Exlawdean]

In the aftermath of the Students for Fair Admissions decision, I thought it might help if I made some comments that put it into context.

First, although the opinion is literally about undergraduate admissions (at Harvard and at UNC) I don't know anyone who thinks this decision does not apply to law school admissions programs.

Second, this decision has been anticipated, at a general level, by most law school admissions offices, ever since the Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

Third, at the very end of his opinion, Justice Roberts laid out what the majority wants. Race can be taken into account at an individual level, if it directly connects to character traits and abilities in the individual that the school values. It is worth quoting this short section:

"nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. . . . A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race."

Fourth, the majority claimed to be irked by the inability to measure the benefits from diversity, the central rationale for the predominant system that the majority struck down. No one that I have talked to will hazard a guess whether the new, retail approach to considering race that Roberts' opinion describes in the quoted language above, will need to produce measurable benefits in order to survive.

Fifth, I have heard suggestions that admissions offices can just move to using wholesale proxies for race -- think of preferring people from certain zip codes -- and avoid the thrust of the majority opinion. I think that is wrong. Such a wholesale approach will likely fall quickly if challenged in court. The quoted language, and other language from section VI of the majority opinion, rejects such an attempted work-around, IMO.

Sixth, re-configuring the admissions process to conform to Roberts' opinion can be done, but it will be expensive. Producing the tailoring that Roberts demands will likely mean hiring additional admissions officers. There are other possible responses, but I won't go into them here.

That's all, for now. Have a great 4th.

[Anonymous]

Exlawdean wrote:In the aftermath of the Students for Fair Admissions decision, I thought it might help if I made some comments that put it into context.

First, although the opinion is literally about undergraduate admissions (at Harvard and at UNC) I don't know anyone who thinks this decision does not apply to law school admissions programs.

Second, this decision has been anticipated, at a general level, by most law school admissions offices, ever since the Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

Third, at the very end of his opinion, Justice Roberts laid out what the majority wants. Race can be taken into account at an individual level, if it directly connects to character traits and abilities in the individual that the school values. It is worth quoting this short section:

"nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. . . . A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination. Or a benefit to a student whose heritage or culture motivated him or her to assume a leadership role or attain a particular goal must be tied to that student’s unique ability to contribute to the university. In other words, the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race."

Fourth, the majority claimed to be irked by the inability to measure the benefits from diversity, the central rationale for the predominant system that the majority struck down. No one that I have talked to will hazard a guess whether the new, retail approach to considering race that Roberts' opinion describes in the quoted language above, will need to produce measurable benefits in order to survive.

Fifth, I have heard suggestions that admissions offices can just move to using wholesale proxies for race -- think of preferring people from certain zip codes -- and avoid the thrust of the majority opinion. I think that is wrong. Such a wholesale approach will likely fall quickly if challenged in court. The quoted language, and other language from section VI of the majority opinion, rejects such an attempted work-around, IMO.

Sixth, re-configuring the admissions process to conform to Roberts' opinion can be done, but it will be expensive. Producing the tailoring that Roberts demands will likely mean hiring additional admissions officers. There are other possible responses, but I won't go into them here.

That's all, for now. Have a great 4th.

Thinking out loud, if an applicant's race is stated in the application in passing (e.g., in an essay, EC, or scholarship), how does admissions avoid considering it? Obviously, admission officers (AOs) would not explicitly mention it in their notes, but AOs can't unsee it. Wondering how the mechanics of that would work, as a practical matter, as well as which way a decision might go if AOs are trying to avoid even the slightest appearance of favoring (or disfavoring) an applicant based on race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really think a LSAT score tells you anything about a prospective lawyer?

Not OP, but a lawyer. I think the LSAT tells you a lot about how well someone might do in law school, which is not the same necessarily the thing as how well they will do as a lawyer. But law school is all about teaching you how to "think like a lawyer," and that is basically logic/critical thinking/reading comprehension, which is what the LSAT tests.