25 Things We Wish We'd Known Before Going to Law School | Excerpt

The following excerpt is from What the L? 25 Things We Wish We'd Known Before Going to Law School by Samantha Roberts and Kelsey May.

Excerpt:

When selecting a law school, you will be bombarded with all kinds of information and advice. People will tell you to apply to safety schools and reach schools, and you’ll be given tons of advice on how to write the perfect personal statement. While this is helpful, it’s not the whole story.

I wish I had known how important it is to apply early. I had elaborate plans of getting everything ready and applying to schools in early fall (to enroll for the next year) so that my application would be on the top of the pile. This, unfortunately, did not happen. Between plan and execution, I had two major holdups, both of my own doing.

First, I didn’t take the LSAT during the summer or fall examination period, which would have been tremendously beneficial in assessing my chances of acceptance and getting my application packet ready early. Second, although I contacted my references in what I thought was enough time, it took much longer than expected for their letters of recommendation to appear on the LSAC website, and consequently, to use as part of my application materials.

To make matters worse, almost all of the schools to which I applied accepted students on a rolling basis. Even though I got my applications in before the actual deadlines, the school admissions offices still received them almost three months after most other students’ applications, which was about two and a half months later than I would have liked. Being at the end of the application line means fewer spots in 1L classes, and less scholarship money to go around. The later your application is reviewed means the more impressive it will need to be, which won’t always (or ever) work to your advantage.

Starting law school, I didn’t have a very good idea of what I wanted to do with my degree. Everyone told me that the school I chose wouldn’t matter much unless I got into one of the top five. I assumed the most important thing was that, in the end, I would have a law degree, and would thus be a more marketable candidate for any future job.

My strategy was to pick cities where I wanted to live and apply to law schools there. I applied to schools based on their location because I wanted to live in a particular city for three years. What I did not realize is that the school’s location entails much more than just three years of pleasant scenery. There are important real life consequences that arise from the very basic decision of where to attend school, geography included.

Going to law school in one state and then picking up and trying to start a legal career in another state is difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. Unless you have good contacts already established, no one in your new town will know you or have a vested interest in helping you find a job.

There is also the added complication of the bar exam. Different states have different timing and application requirements, but at some point during your law school career, maybe even as early as your 1L year, you will have to choose the state in which you want to be licensed and apply to take its bar exam. Right out of school you really only get one shot, as all bar exams will most likely be administered at the same time during the summer after your 3L year (and all bar reviews certainly will be). This won’t pose a problem if you know where you want to end up. But if you don’t, the default is to apply for the bar exam in the state where you attended school. And in that case, make sure you at least somewhat like the area where you attend law school, because you might end up staying ... out of convenience.

That was my experience with the bar application. Without a job lined up before graduation, and without a clear idea of where I wanted to work, I applied for admission to the bar in the state where I attended law school (by, you guessed it, default). Although it remains to be seen whether another state would have been a better choice, I imagine passing one bar exam is better than passing none at all.

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Read Law School Diaries for some other takes on the law school experience.