People often say that attending law school and familiarizing yourself with legal thinking is like learning a new language. One aspect of the process that makes it so unfamiliar is the prevalence of unfamiliar terms and phrases. In the interest of avoiding any potential embarrassment for incoming law students, this post is going to provide a glossary of common terms in the legal profession.
If there’s one thing that ev-ver-ry-body had an opinion on during my law school application process, it was the location where I should be going to school. Since even those outside the legal field can relate to this aspect of the law school decision, you’ll no doubt hear numerous opinions during your own application timeline. But the reasons for choosing a location can vary. Knowing the main reasons for choosing one location over another can highlight how important the location will be to your law school experience. Here are some location factors that will top any law student’s list:
A short time ago, a so-called “biglaw” firm in New York created a stir in the legal community by announcing starting salaries of $190K. Over the last week, a growing number of firms has matched the new salary scale, which is sure to catch the eye of many prospective law students. This post is going to cover (1) how to get a job offer from these types of firms and (2) what those jobs entail for new associates.
There’s a new law school ranking out this week, and it’s not the dominant and ubiquitous U.S. News & World Report Law School Rankings. Rather, Above the Law has released their own yearly law school rankings: The Above the Law Top 50 Law School Rankings of 2018.
The American Bar Association has been taking it on the chin lately, getting sued by a shuttered law schools, students from said shuttered law school, and other law schools for how it enforces its accreditation standards. This is happening as the ABA prepares to remove the standardized testing requirement for law schools and use different requirements. Whatever system it ends up using, I think this string of lawsuits makes clear that the ABA won’t be as good at keeping an applicant away from a bad law school as that applicant will be. So this post is designed to help applicants familiarize themselves with the various research tools available to assess the strengths of law schools.
Recently, after law professors and law students brought to light that some firms make summer associates sign arbitration agreements for employment-related claims, including sexual harassment claims, law students banded together and got a bunch of law schools (including all of the T14 schools) to ask that firms participating in campus recruiting disclose such policies. Hearing about this story made me start thinking about what else the collective bargaining power of law students could accomplish.
In 2012, President Obama told a group of college students: “Check this out, all right? I’m the president of the United States. We only finished paying off our student loans about eight years ago.” That means the President and First Lady were well into their careers, with a combined resume of civil rights attorney, law professor, politician, author, nonprofit director, dean of students, big-law lawyer, and more before they paid off their law school and undergrad loans in their forties. If you needed a clear picture of how law school loans could hang over you, even throughout a successful career … there you go. During my own law school application process, I was deeply concerned about how law school loans could inhibit me from pursuing a public interest law career, but I’m here to share my own success in the law school scholarship application process to encourage you to take advantage of the same programs.
Interviews — they’re a necessary part of any career, and particularly in the career of an aspiring lawyer. My own law school application adventure included numerous interviews related directly to my law school apps, and later on for scholarships. You reach a point where interviewing really does become a better experience and you learn something about what it takes to be truly effective when you have your moment to shine.
A recent study from the Harvard Business Review found that lawyers were in the loneliest profession. And while this info might make you think twice about choosing a career in the law, those of us who are determined to stick with a legal career should still be asking, where does this issue of lonely lawyers come from?
You may have heard about the scandal that is currently rocking the world of higher ed: Lindsay Lohan’s deeply head-scratching, digitally head-dressed declaration that she was admitted to Harvard Law. Nope, sorry, I’m just getting word from the editor’s desk that Linday Lohan is now just a piece of early aughts detritus, like bootcut jeans or Pete Wentz, that has left only the faintest impression on the public consciousness.