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10 Reasons People Quit Law School

August 4, 2011 Law School
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There are many reasons why people quit law school – it’s a difficult and taxing time for any students, and thousands quit at the start of their first year. Let’s look at the top 10 reasons why students drop out of law school.
1. Cost – The primary reason that people leave law school is because of the cost. It is very expensive to go to law school. Law school students will amass over $100,000 of student loan debts that they will be paying back for quite some time. While it’s true that lawyers do make a lot of money, they don’t start out that way and these debts can be a little overwhelming.
2. Job competition – Finding a job after law school is very difficult and there is a lot of competition for the best jobs. Jobs at top law firms throughout the country are highly competitive for students just out of school. This is something that even first year law school students learn quickly. Coupled with the massive debt, students are all the more deflated when they find out they will likely be making under $40,000 for the first five years after they are out of school – put this up against more than $100,000 in student loans and you find many students dropping law school for cheaper schooling careers.
3. Hours – Law school takes a lot of time – not only do you have to attend classes, you have to spend hours upon hours cramming the information into your head for the examinations and, eventually, the bar. Many law school students still want to have a social life and find that they don’t have any because of the studying and homework they have to do. As a result, this cycle doesn’t end out of law school – the hours in a law firm are long and arduous too.
4. The Bar Exam – The bar is a brutal exam – two to three days of testing of questions that are hard to answer because it seems a real answer doesn’t exist. The preparation for the bar exam is intense – months of studying and cramming. Over 40 per cent of law students fail the bar on the first try which means doing it all over again in six months. Over 33 per cent of law students fail the bar on the second try.
5. Lack of Applicable Knowledge – Law school focuses on how to make you think like a lawyer, which doesn’t really translate well to the work you will be doing. Many students figure this out in the first term of law school and find out that this isn’t what they want to be doing.
6. The Need for Money – Most law school students need to have a part time job to help pay for school, and work full time during the summer. Breaks aren’t spent having fun partying with friends, rather they are spent working to improve a resume and the time off from work is spent studying and reviewing material.
7. Brutal Competition – Most law school students figure out before they even get to law school that college will be a time of buckling down to get the work done. All students know that it’s imperative to be near the top of the class – those are the students that land the high paying jobs. However, not all students can be at the top of the class so the competition in class is brutal, resulting in a lack of social scene; not to mention the long hours of working and studying that are also cramping their social life style.
8. Difficult Teaching Styles – Many law students can’t take the heat from their professors, who are arrogant and pretentious while they are trying to drill a bunch of information into their heads.
9. Final Examinations – The final exams for any semester are almost as grueling as the bar exam itself.
10. Dealing with Others – many people will ask a law student about law, trying to get lawyer information for free on an issue they are having. Law students can do nothing to stop this endless harassment – it is something they will cope with from friends and family forever. Many can’t take the constant barrage of questions and queries and thusly drop out of law school before it becomes a life long nightmare.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for reasons why law school students leave law school. If you are a law school student, you need to seriously weigh your options – school loan officers don’t care if you drop out – you’ll still have to pay those back. Is dropping out worth it?

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Law School Rankings the Biggest Bunch of Bunk Since Un-sliced Bread

August 3, 2011 Law Schools
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Although I understand that this can be very difficult to do, you must view the popular published law school rankings, skeptically. These rankings are not only untrustworthy, but mislead students into thinking they need to attend a highly ranked school or they will be second rate lawyers do to their “substandard” law school education. This is simply not true.

What is true, in my opinion unfortunately, is that going to a highly ranked law school can have an enormous financial (note: NOT educational) impact on your early legal career. That is why I wrote Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice. As I explain in that book, however, even if you do not attend a highly ranked law school, you are not absolutely doomed to suffer professionally and financially for the rest of your life. Indeed, many times you may be well-served, both educationally and financially, by attending a lower ranked law school.

But back to law school rankings. In addition to a number of studies suggesting that the data underlying the rankings is inaccurate, due to schools trying to misrepresent the true data in order to achieve a higher ranking, it is impossible for any ranking to consider all of the relevant factors, which may vary from individual to individual.

Also problematic is the fact that most of the ranking are based, at least in part, on the subjective opinions of individuals at the various schools. Of course, such subjective opinions are likely to simply reinforce the historical opinions regarding the “top tier” law schools. Indeed, if you look at these rankings historically, you will find that they really haven’t changed much over the years.

The reason that it is important that you understand the invalidity of the rankings is that you should understand that the quality of your legal education is likely to be nearly as good, and in some respects may be better, at the University of Idaho as opposed to Harvard.

Depending on who you are, you may be much better off, for a variety of reasons, attending even a very low ranked school. This may be the case even if you have the opportunity to attend a higher-ranked school.

For example, if your intent is to establish a small town practice in rural South Dakota immediately after law school, it may be unwise to attend Stanford Law School over the University of South Dakota School of Law.

Why? Let me give you three good reasons, though there are likely many more. First, you are not going to be particularly highly paid in rural South Dakota, regardless of where you attended law school. As a Stanford Law graduate you are likely to either be saddled with a high debt load or have spent a significant amount of your savings getting through school. Although few law schools are cheap, you should carefully consider whether it is worth spending and extra $100,000 to have a fancy name on your wall.

Second, as a small-town practitioner, you are going to be very reliant on relationships with other attorneys, the business community, and potential clients in general. Spending three years in Palo Alto, far away from the center of your future universe, will do very little to develop those relationships, so law school rankings are virtually meaningless.

Finally, the education isn’t going to be much better at Stanford than at USD. Believe me, in writing this I have prepared myself for the inevitable barrage of criticism that will inevitably be hurled my way. I say this with confidence, however, because I know lawyers from a wide variety of law schools and find a relatively equal distribution of idiots among alumni from top 50 and bottom 50 schools. It really depends on what you are willing to put into it – not what they give you.

There are even some law schools not approved by the American Bar Association that may be worth considering in limited situations. Depending on what you want to do, and the particular laws of the jurisdiction where you intend to practice, a non-ABA accredited school may be a worthwhile choice.

At the end of the day, you need to make a wise choice that you will be happy with for the rest of your life. Don’t put a school on your list just because it is a highly-ranked law school or fits a formula or because you think it will look good on your resume.

Even if we find a cure for cancer in the next decade, you are not likely to live much more than 90 years on this earth. Don’t spend 3.5% of it in the wrong place.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

Learn How To Write A Law School Essay

August 3, 2011 Law Schools
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Though most schools weight the numbers a little more; your LSAT score and GPA have a big impact, law school essays are definitely taken into account. Moreover, your law school essay will make or break your application if you’re a borderline applicant, and it can even make up for a weak showing in the numbers department.
If you’re applying to law school, your law school essay, along with your LSAT score and your undergraduate GPA, is going to be the most important factor in both what schools will accept you and how much to learn payday loan online they’re going to offer you.
Even if you’re a huge long shot for a particular school the admissions staff will read at least the first paragraph of your law school essay, just to see what you have to offer. On the flipside, if you’re a strong applicant to a particular school a bad law school essay can knock you out of the running if you’re too flippant or stuck-up.
Though some law schools will give a required topic for your law school essay, most will offer up a few suggestions but allow you write on anything your heart desires. When writing your law school essay, avoid repeating any information that can be found on other parts of your application.
The admissions staff can read; they know what your GPA is and what activities you’ve taken part in. Instead, fill them in on what isn’t on your application. Write on something that both defines who you are and why you stand out from the crowd.
Avoid over-used topics; writing about the most inspirational person you know or what difficulties you’ve overcome are tired topics and won’t get you much attention unless it’s something truly fresh or earth-shattering.
If the most inspirational person you know is the Unabomber or you were born without legs and can run a ten second fifty yard dash the admissions staff has probably heard it before.
The admissions staff has gone through thousands of applications, so tell them something about yourself that makes you stand out in their minds. Have you hiked the entire Appalachian Trail? Gone skydiving in a kayak? Raised your baby brother for a summer? Helped a poor family get a house?
Your activities don’t necessarily have to be related to the law (though sometimes it helps), the topic you write about just needs to have been important to you. You should also have something to say about the topic, whatever it may be. Say it, and think of the law school essay as a way for the admissions staff to get to know you better.

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