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Anonymous wrote:To your knowledge are admissions standards more difficult for women than men? A friends son at a top 10 worked in Law Schools admissions and suggested that this seems to be the case (3.9 GPA is a given for many women applicants so their LSATs need to be even higher generally....


I wonder if more women want to go right after undergrad? And it’s harder for that reason, not for gender.


Remember two facts. There are more women than men graduating from elite colleges. The differences are not small. See the report from Women in Academia: https://www.wiareport.com/2023/04/gender-differences-in-acceptance-rates-at-ivy-league-institutions/. Second, admissions officers at law schools are trying to achieve a roughly equal balance in their classes. These two factors will combine to make it a bit harder for women to gain acceptance to a top law school than for men to do so.
Anonymous wrote:Thanks for offering your expertise! Any thoughts about the role undergraduate major plays in admissions? Specifically, for STEM majors, many of the "weeder" classes (looking at you, O-chem) can take a toll on the grade point average. For an applicant who is interested in IP law, is any allowance made for a few more B's along the way in the highly challenging courses?


This is a great question. As a general matter, an enormous percent of law school applicants are political science and economics majors. Admissions deans would like to admit applicants with other types of majors. So, as a general matter, the answer is "yes," many admissions officers look at major. As to STEM, you are right. Depending on the university and the particular class, the grading can be brutal. (On a personal note, I took O-chem and I hated the class.) When I taught at Caltech I was the prelaw advisor. Caltech graded on a curve (at least at that point) and had not allowed grade inflation. Part of my job was to write letters explaining this situation and asking admissions officers to take this into account.

Do law school admissions officers take this into account? I am fairly sure the answer is something like "yes, but not as much as they would like." Why? Because neither LSDAS nor US News takes into account such considerations. Thus, in order to take this factor into account admissions officers must row against the tide. And, btw, there are a few non-STEM majors that have the same issues. Music theory and the formal logic branch of philosophy come to mind. Sorry I can't provide better news.
Anonymous wrote:Thank you for taking the time to answer questions here. Other than the GPA and LSAT score, what do T14 law schools look for in a student?


T14 schools look for approximately the same thing as other law schools, but have more market power to achieve their goals. Remember that deans of admissions report to the dean of law, who in turn (at almost all law schools other than NYU) reports to the Provost. The dean of law also has to worry about the President of the university, the Board of Trustees of the university, and usually a board of law school advisors. Those who appear to have power over the dean of law will care about the law school's ranking, its ability to raise funds, and a grab bag of other, measurables, such as the quality of the entering student body. The UGPA and LSAT of the entering students will directly affect law school rankings. But the quality of the entering student body will include other elements. Diversity targets have been part of this for the past couple of decades, at least. Deans of admissions will be pressured by the dean of law to hit these targets. In addition, the dean of law will want to have students that allow him to brag a bit to everyone listed above. Does the school have veterans of the armed forces enrolled? Does the school have patent-holders, former professional athletes, accomplished artists, famous (think Kim Kardashian?) people, volunteer aid workers, and so forth enrolled? All of this will be taken into account by the dean of admissions. Does that answer the question?
Anonymous wrote:Hi Prof, I am a lawyer and have two seniors that are twins studying for the LSAT. 3.92 and 4.00 GPAs. They really don't want to take time off but it seems all T14 de facto require it

When I went to law school in the mid nineties, about 1/3rd of my class took time off. Now at top schools it seems to be 2/3rds.

Thoughts?


[i] You are correct. Today the typical top 20 law school enrolls around 60% (perhaps a bit more) of its entering student body after at least a two-year break after finishing undergraduate education. Admissions officers have a tendency to admit applicants with experience because they think that such applicants will take law school more seriously. Maybe they are right. But you should note that 1/3 of the class (or perhaps a bit more) gets admitted right out of undergraduate school or with only a one-year break. Why do admissions officers admit such applicants? Because they have, among other things, very high UGPA and LSAT. Such students help raise the law school's medians, which helps with US News rankings. Deans and alumni care about such things. So, if your twins do well on the LSAT, they can apply and see what happens. If they don't like their results they can get a job or an internship, spend a couple of years, and apply, again.
Anonymous wrote:Is there a cut off age when you believe an adult should not go to law school? If so, what is that age?

Example - is a 40 year old paralegal, (BS) too old?



I think this is a very personal decision. Law school, attended full time, takes almost three years and a lot of money. The older one gets, the less time there may be to earn a reward on those investments. I once had an interview with a 55 year old applicant who had been quite successful and wanted to go to law school. I told him the same thing that I am telling you -- its a personal decision.
Anonymous wrote:Do the T14 look more favorably on elite undergraduate college applicants, all other things (gpa, lsat, extras) being equal?


I am not an expert on this precise question. I know that most chief admissions officers will claim to be looking for the best applicants, regardless of where they come from. But such a statement has little hard content. My guess is that there will be a tendency, other things being equal, to favor applicants from prestigious, selective undergraduate institutions. But this is true for employers, as well. If your child attends, for example, Princeton as an undergraduate and then decides to get a job, they will have an easier time than if they had attended a much less prestigious undergraduate school.
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP, your thread starting post suggested that prospective law school applicants should shadow lawyers before deciding whether or not to pursue the practice of law. I disagree.

I disagree because most lawyer activity occurs in the head of the attorney and watching a lawyer think, read and write for 9 or 10 hours a day really does not convey what lawyers do in furtherance of their clients' interests.

Shadowing a medical professional--such as a doctor--is quite different as many functions can be appreciated simply by being present & watching.


Continuing:

Arguably there is some career insight to be gained by shadowing a litigator (trial attorney) at a deposition or at a motions hearing or during a trial. But I doubt that many attorneys or law firms want non-lawyer/non-legal related professionals observers at their depositions. With respect to trial matters heard in court, there is no need to shadow as most hearings are open to the public.

Even though I see little value in shadowing an attorney, there is value in speaking to a variety of attorneys during lunch or any other free time to discuss the profession and that attorney's duties within his or her practice.

But watching an attorney think, read, and write for 10 hours a day provides insight that could be communicated in a quick conversation.


We clearly agree on some issues, and disagree on the bottom line. Does a typical lawyer spend a lot of time, perhaps a majority of time, doing research and writing? Yes. Is it very boring to watch? Yes. Is spending a day "watching" this activity valuable? Yes. Nothing will drive home to a prospective law student how sedentary and quiet much of lawyer's life is as spending a day watching it. The prospective law student should be encouraged to bring a good book with him. No internet videos to pass the time. The quiet time spent reading will be exactly that. If the student can get permission to attend some meetings, as well, so much the better. Of course, some material in some meetings will be privileged, and thus lawyers will refuse to have anyone present who is not working for the law firm. If the prospective student has to settle for a description of what is going on, that's OK. I agree that hearings are a great idea. But if that's all a prospective student sees, they will get an unrealistic idea about the practice of law.
Anonymous wrote:Hi Professor Spitzer!


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


First, as I emphasized above, these are my opinions. The LSAT score is, in part, an indicator of cleverness. The questions are difficult, and the ability to answer them is indicative of the ability of the prospective student to solve hard questions. LSAT score correlates well with GRE scores, with SAT scores, and, perhaps more importantly, with the ability to pass the bar exam in states with very hard bar examinations (e.g. California and New York). To be clear, I should point out that the correlation data is not just my opinion, but is a set of statistical relationships.

Second, there is no doubt that there is also a cultural component to the LSAT. There is also a cultural component to legal practice. Does this disadvantage those without the "right" cultural background? In my opinion, yes.
Anonymous wrote:Why do law schools do rolling admissions? Don’t they run the risk missing great candidates who can’t apply early?


Law admissions officers are, in general, very smart people who are good at making tradeoffs. Rolling admissions has some costs and benefits. Their mission is to provide the dean, who is their boss, with the entering class that the dean requests.
Anonymous wrote:Did you practice law? What area? What type of firm or agency? How long?


I practiced for a bit less than two years at what was a large commercial firm in Los Angeles in the 1970s, about 2/3 general commercial litigation and 1/3 antitrust. I then became a professor, and worked at that for 43 years.
Hello everyone,

I am a retired professor. I taught at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, at USC Gould School of Law, and at the University of Texas (at Austin) School of Law as a tenured, full-time professor. I was also a full professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business and at the California Institute of Technology Division of Humanities and Social Science. For six years I was the Dean of the Gould School at USC. I have a lot of experience.

I have decided to join this conversation as an experiment. I have seen some people ask questions about going to law school. I can answer, or at least give my opinion about, a subset of these questions. For the most part, my postings will reflect my opinion about law school and law practice. However, many of these opinions will have a foundation in published, empirical research. When the research supports (or impeaches) what I post, I will endeavor to tell you about it.

I will start with the most basic and most frequently asked question: Should my child go to law school?

In my opinion the best reason to go to law school is that your child wants to be a lawyer. This answer immediately leads to a second question: How can your child know whether they want to be a lawyer? This question is much harder to answer, in part because there are so many different types of lawyers, and in part because the practice of law will likely change a lot over the next decade or two. On the first point consider the differences between criminal lawyers (prosecutors and defense), business litigators, real estate lawyers, bankruptcy lawyers, divorce and family lawyers, commercial lawyers (helping businesses to make routine deals), merger and acquisition lawyers (helping businesses to make existential deals), government lawyers at every level (federal, state, local), and public interest lawyers. This only scratches the surface. These lawyers often have very different lives, and sometimes different levels of stress and satisfaction. In order for your child to even start to understand whether they want to be a lawyer, they should find a way to follow around different types of lawyers to get a decent understanding of a “day in the life” of different lawyers. And your child should not be trying to shadow lawyers when they are 10 years old. Your child should be at least 18 years old before they try engaging in such an exercise. The optimal time to follow lawyers and ask questions is probably when your child is a junior in college. The worst thing is to go to law school without ever having engaged in the process of gathering this information.

What about the second issue: The practice of law will likely change a lot in the next 20 years. Everyone has been reading stories about artificial intelligence that include predictions that AI will gobble up jobs in the information sector. That might be true. We all saw how good chess programs got in the space of about 25 years. Law practice is different from chess, and I can’t really say how it will all play out. I would be shocked if you had to be good at programming computers in order to be good at law practice. Every practicing law has experience using computers in their work today. We use Lexis and Westlaw to find sources of law and legal rules. Neither of these tools requires that we be “good at computing.” So, here is my guess. AI will reduce the total number of jobs in law practice over the next 20 years. But if your child is smart and creative, there will be a place for them in the practice of law.

That’s all, for now. Feel free to ask questions. I will try to check in at least once a week.
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