Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get into a SLAC such as Williams, Amherst, and Bowdoin, it would be best. Your child can hone individuality there. For prelaw, I would highly recommend Bowdoin where students are collaborative rather than cutthroat.

Thank you! Those are all on the list. Along with Swarthmore. It’s really great to hear some of these comments. Much appreciated.

OP, I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense. Your child does not need to attend any on of these schools to get into a good law school, and Bowdoin is not any more special than the rest of them.

Anonymous wrote:Retired law firm partner here. Your kid is only a HS sophomore and you're looking at pre-law programs? You might want to ease off the gas a little.

Rest assured that if your child continues to perform in high school as s/he is now and tests as you anticipate, plenty of doors will open up at strong colleges and any one of them and any major chosen will be fine for law school admissions purposes. All that will matter is the general reputation of the college, the GPA and the LSAT score. That's it. There's no magic formula and no particular course of study needed.

Thanks Gramps! Back to your hard copy WSJ.

Retired law firm partner here. Your kid is only a HS sophomore and you're looking at pre-law programs? You might want to ease off the gas a little.

Rest assured that if your child continues to perform in high school as s/he is now and tests as you anticipate, plenty of doors will open up at strong colleges and any one of them and any major chosen will be fine for law school admissions purposes. All that will matter is the general reputation of the college, the GPA and the LSAT score. That's it. There's no magic formula and no particular course of study needed.

The discussion about patent law is a good point. Intellectual property firms will usually want you to have a hard science background. I think the patent bar has a list of science or engineering degrees that permit you to sit for the exam.

I learned this the hard way when I was a law student in the mid-90s. I was interested in this new thing called "the Internet" and thought maybe I could work a legal career around it. That's when I learned about the IP/hard science connection. My poli-sci/history background didn't qualify.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Major is irrelevant to law school admissions, but it can help with recruitment. I graduated law school during the 2008 recession and those with a compelling story were more likely to get offers than those with an indecisive resume. You still needed a good law school GPA, but there were too many of those for everyone to get a job. It was a huge leg up to have a finance degree and to be going into securities law, a hard science or engineering degree to go into IP litigation, or an MPH to work in health law. Even the theater majors billed themselves as trial specialists. A generic English or Poly Sci degree was of absolutely no help.

If my kid wanted a law degree I'd encourage them to study and undergrad major that intersects with a legal area. There are lots of options.

classmate got a master's in chem, then went to law school and ended up in pharmaceuticals/patent law.

Patent law is a bit of its own thing. Requires a science degree (real science, not Poly Sci).

I had a literature degree from a well-known but not exactly prestigious school. Grades were OK. Got into pretty much everywhere I applied on the back of a 179 LSAT. There is no real substitute for a high LSAT.

So, I'd recommend that your kid study what she'd like where she'd like to. Concentrate on doing her best, taking part in activities of interest and then prepping for the LSAT as though nothing else in the world exists in the run up to the test.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Major is irrelevant to law school admissions, but it can help with recruitment. I graduated law school during the 2008 recession and those with a compelling story were more likely to get offers than those with an indecisive resume. You still needed a good law school GPA, but there were too many of those for everyone to get a job. It was a huge leg up to have a finance degree and to be going into securities law, a hard science or engineering degree to go into IP litigation, or an MPH to work in health law. Even the theater majors billed themselves as trial specialists. A generic English or Poly Sci degree was of absolutely no help.

If my kid wanted a law degree I'd encourage them to study and undergrad major that intersects with a legal area. There are lots of options.

+100. The people I know who had an easiest time finding jobs in firms and practice groups they wanted already knew where they slotted in when they were hired for 2L summer. Especially if your kid doesn't end up going to a top law school, already having experience or at least a degree that intersects with a practice group is very valuable. Of the friends from school I knew with the easiest paths out of school, one already was named on a patent and had a PhD and one had been an accountant at a big 4.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong writing ability is the most important criteria. He can major in anything. He has to be able to write a decent sentence, paragraph, and essay.

Law grad here. Pretty much agree with this. In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason. I’m not sure why that is really. Just anecdotal. Of the ones in my class who were Law Review (top 10% of class), we came from a mix. Private top 100(Usc, Vanderbilt, Gtown, Syracuse that I can remember), state schools like Wisconsin, UMass, W&M, and SLACS like Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Grinnell, Haverford, F&M. Those are the ones I can remember. There were 25-30 of us. PoliSci offered no real advantage. No major did that I can recall.

Sometime ago i read in here, from a law grad who said "lawyerly writing skill is different".

it is too a certain degree. It’s different from creative or narrative writing, to be sure. Especially contract and will drafting, which tends to be formalistic and stilted. But a good brief uses the same elements of good writing than any good business writing uses. Clear and concise are the hallmarks. If you can write a good history term paper, that can easily transfer to a good legal brief. A novella, not so much.

Maybe a little oddly, computer programming really helped me with my legal writing. My first job was drafting legislation for a state legislature, and that had me leaning on my rudimentary computer programming skills way more than I'd anticipated -- logic, algorithms, writing for an aggressively stupid audience. Both of them later helped my ability to write a decent brief.

writing for an aggressively stupid audience[i] #FTW!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Major is irrelevant to law school admissions, but it can help with recruitment. I graduated law school during the 2008 recession and those with a compelling story were more likely to get offers than those with an indecisive resume. You still needed a good law school GPA, but there were too many of those for everyone to get a job. It was a huge leg up to have a finance degree and to be going into securities law, a hard science or engineering degree to go into IP litigation, or an MPH to work in health law. Even the theater majors billed themselves as trial specialists. A generic English or Poly Sci degree was of absolutely no help.

If my kid wanted a law degree I'd encourage them to study and undergrad major that intersects with a legal area. There are lots of options.

classmate got a master's in chem, then went to law school and ended up in pharmaceuticals/patent law.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong writing ability is the most important criteria. He can major in anything. He has to be able to write a decent sentence, paragraph, and essay.

Law grad here. Pretty much agree with this. In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason. I’m not sure why that is really. Just anecdotal. Of the ones in my class who were Law Review (top 10% of class), we came from a mix. Private top 100(Usc, Vanderbilt, Gtown, Syracuse that I can remember), state schools like Wisconsin, UMass, W&M, and SLACS like Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Grinnell, Haverford, F&M. Those are the ones I can remember. There were 25-30 of us. PoliSci offered no real advantage. No major did that I can recall.

Sometime ago i read in here, from a law grad who said "lawyerly writing skill is different".

it is too a certain degree. It’s different from creative or narrative writing, to be sure. Especially contract and will drafting, which tends to be formalistic and stilted. But a good brief uses the same elements of good writing than any good business writing uses. Clear and concise are the hallmarks. If you can write a good history term paper, that can easily transfer to a good legal brief. A novella, not so much.

Maybe a little oddly, computer programming really helped me with my legal writing. My first job was drafting legislation for a state legislature, and that had me leaning on my rudimentary computer programming skills way more than I'd anticipated -- logic, algorithms, writing for an aggressively stupid audience. Both of them later helped my ability to write a decent brief.

That makes sense. I think symbolic logic was the most helpful for me. Legal writing a lot of having to build and argument with every element needing to be supported by citation. I've heard the aggressively stupid audience part before. I think the best advice that I got was that nobody cares about your great idea unless you can find a court that has already agreed with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the highest undergraduate GPA possible. Major is totally irrelevant. In fact, a Theatre major would stand out in a sea of polisci majors applying to law school

Supplement the high GPA with some kind of relevant interest that connects to law school. Like volunteer for a drama program that works with incarcerated people or with at-risk kids. Then write a personal statement about how this experience has been the inspiration for a career using the law to address societal iniquity

Get a 170+ on the LSAT

This

Exactyl this.

Went to a top 10 law school and the editor in chief of our law review went to Montana State. Go where you like, just be sure to get good grades. Law school teaches a new way of thinking, so IMO there’s very little “prep” work other than finding an area you may like to focus on and helping establish that expertise (finance, environmental, etc)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong writing ability is the most important criteria. He can major in anything. He has to be able to write a decent sentence, paragraph, and essay.

Law grad here. Pretty much agree with this. In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason. I’m not sure why that is really. Just anecdotal. Of the ones in my class who were Law Review (top 10% of class), we came from a mix. Private top 100(Usc, Vanderbilt, Gtown, Syracuse that I can remember), state schools like Wisconsin, UMass, W&M, and SLACS like Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Grinnell, Haverford, F&M. Those are the ones I can remember. There were 25-30 of us. PoliSci offered no real advantage. No major did that I can recall.

Sometime ago i read in here, from a law grad who said "lawyerly writing skill is different".

it is too a certain degree. It’s different from creative or narrative writing, to be sure. Especially contract and will drafting, which tends to be formalistic and stilted. But a good brief uses the same elements of good writing than any good business writing uses. Clear and concise are the hallmarks. If you can write a good history term paper, that can easily transfer to a good legal brief. A novella, not so much.

Maybe a little oddly, computer programming really helped me with my legal writing. My first job was drafting legislation for a state legislature, and that had me leaning on my rudimentary computer programming skills way more than I'd anticipated -- logic, algorithms, writing for an aggressively stupid audience. Both of them later helped my ability to write a decent brief.

Anonymous wrote: In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason.

I think it has to do with a very literal way of thinking without a lot of lateral thinking. I've had cases with engineers as witnesses and clients, and it took me a while to figure out that, while they would answer my questions very directly and thoroughly, they weren't adept at realizing when maybe I wasn't quite understanding enough to ask the right questions. I recall a case where I'd been all over the problem with my engineer witnesses. And, almost in passing, I said, "we could settle this thing if only we could do X." And they pretty immediately told me, "Oh, doing X is easy...." and then started diagramming how it could be accomplished. I hadn't thought to ask directly about X and they hadn't thought to volunteer it as an alternate solution. (I can't even remember exactly what X was -- something about emergency overflow routing.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strong writing ability is the most important criteria. He can major in anything. He has to be able to write a decent sentence, paragraph, and essay.

Law grad here. Pretty much agree with this. In my experience engineers struggled in law school, but math, econ, and hard science majors did not, for whatever reason. I’m not sure why that is really. Just anecdotal. Of the ones in my class who were Law Review (top 10% of class), we came from a mix. Private top 100(Usc, Vanderbilt, Gtown, Syracuse that I can remember), state schools like Wisconsin, UMass, W&M, and SLACS like Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Grinnell, Haverford, F&M. Those are the ones I can remember. There were 25-30 of us. PoliSci offered no real advantage. No major did that I can recall.

Sometime ago i read in here, from a law grad who said "lawyerly writing skill is different".

it is too a certain degree. It’s different from creative or narrative writing, to be sure. Especially contract and will drafting, which tends to be formalistic and stilted. But a good brief uses the same elements of good writing than any good business writing uses. Clear and concise are the hallmarks. If you can write a good history term paper, that can easily transfer to a good legal brief. A novella, not so much.

Anonymous wrote:If you can get into a SLAC such as Williams, Amherst, and Bowdoin, it would be best. Your child can hone individuality there. For prelaw, I would highly recommend Bowdoin where students are collaborative rather than cutthroat.

Thank you! Those are all on the list. Along with Swarthmore. It’s really great to hear some of these comments. Much appreciated.