Logic and Games

* 5 logical fallacies that make you more wrong than you think. [Cracked]

* Justin Bieber may be considered a victim of statutory rape. [Boston Globe]

* Judge beats disabled daughter on video for downloading games and music. [Gawker]

* Court rules Janet Jackson nipplegate fine was unfair to CBS. [Ars Technica]

* Think your high school teachers were awesome? A new iPhone game has turned them into superheroes. [NYTimes]

LSAT Diary: Becoming Obsessed With The LSAT

This installment of LSAT Diaries comes from Rebecca, who studied for the LSAT while dieting to fit into a size 2 dress for her sister's wedding. She took the October 2011 LSAT.

In this LSAT Diary, she talks about becoming obsessed with the LSAT while using one of my LSAT study schedules.

If you want to be in LSAT Diaries, please email me at LSATUnplugged@gmail.com. (You can be in LSAT Diaries whether you've taken the exam already or not.)

Thanks to Rebeccara for sharing her experience and advice, and please leave your questions for her below in the comments!

Rebecca's LSAT Diary:

Studying for the LSAT changed me. It was life-consuming, perhaps to a slightly unhealthy degree. But instead of trying in vain to fight it and bring balance to my life, I decided to fully embrace my LSAT obsession by integrating it into my daily life as much as possible. These revelations did not come immediately. At first, I started studying casually. Then, when my score wasn’t breaking 170 as soon as I had originally thought, I began to panic. I pushed back my LSAT date from June to October and decided to dedicate my entire summer to the LSAT.

It was important to me to do this by myself, without a class. This was a personal choice and one that is really difficult to tangibly justify. I wanted to prove that I could do well without help; kind of like how some smokers want to quit smoking cold turkey. There is an obvious risk to this and one that should not be considered lightly. I’m not knocking LSAT tutors or the classes. I think they are great resources. I guess my parents’ Midwestern-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ideology somehow rubbed off on me. I used Steve’s LSAT study schedules, which gave me the structure and guidance I needed, and I also bought an overwhelming yet necessary amount of LSAT books and PrepTest PDFs from this site.

I treated studying like a job. I would get up about 6 am every morning and be at the library by 8:30 (the time of the actual LSAT… thanks Steve for the article about how long it takes to actually get awake…). Then, at the beginning of July, I had to play bridesmaid in my sister’s southern belle wedding. In order to fit into an insane size 2 dress, I was dieting pretty hard near the end there. Apparently, logic games are much harder when you are about to pass out from hunger. Who knew?

My advice for studying for the LSAT is to be fat, healthy, and happy. Hungry people don’t meet their LSAT goals. Before the wedding, I struggled through and broke 170 (on the LSAT, not the scale…) and was pretty pumped. After the wedding, I spent 2 weeks, 3 including the wedding festivities, doing NOTHING. And low and behold, my score was back down to the low 160s. 160 is still a good score, but a 10 point drop is pretty disheartening and I started freaking out.

Then came the logic dreams…

If you have seen the movie The Labyrinth, you might remember, aside from Bowie in spandex, Jennifer Connelly standing in front of two twin guys blocking the way through the maze. They explain that one of them always lies and one of them always tells the truth (if you pay attention they mess this up but that’s not important). I haven’t seen this movie since childhood but doing Logic Games all day prompted a dream of this riddle. I had never understood the riddle, but then, in a dream, I figured it out. I woke up, diagrammed the solution and felt like I was crazy. LSAT logic was consuming my life, but I began to realize that this might not be such a bad thing after all.

I started looking for real (or fantasy) examples of conditional and formal logic. One day while taking practice tests in the library, I realized that my study carrel was next to the aisle on formal logic. While lightly perusing the books, I struck gold: Formal Logic in Alice in Wonderland. While this is way more in depth than anything that the LSAT was going to throw at me, it sent me on an extremely beneficial tangent. I re-read all of Lewis Carroll and some Oscar Wilde. When I wasn’t studying for the LSAT, I was finding a way to enjoy logic. I felt a little burst of nerdy excitement every time I recognized conditional reasoning or some form of complex logic in books that I loved.

I let the LSAT take over my life. Acceptance is the first step. However, I think my obsession, helped me in several ways. First, when I went into the LSAT (even after the stress of the proctor trying to turn me away because he thought my photo was too dark, and then getting the pleasure of successfully arguing my way back in) I saw it as a game. I told myself that I wasn’t going to beat the LSAT. I said that I was going to rock the LSAT. I know that’s corny, but seeing the LSAT as a tool instead of an obstacle really helped me. Also, my obsession helped me keep studying, even when I wasn’t actually looking at LSAT books. Everything was unconsciously LSAT. It’s pretty easy to study when you don’t realize that you are. I was putting almost all of my thoughts into conditional statements.

Most importantly, I am smarter and better at studying because of the way I studied for the LSAT. Professors have told me that my work has greatly improved, even while I was studying for the LSAT for 3-5 hours a day instead of reading for my classes. Even if I don’t go to law school (I’m still on the fence), I am better able to understand things and pick apart ideas because of the LSAT. Even if I don’t get the score that I want, I know that there is no possible way that I could have studied harder (or at least this is what I told myself during the 3 weeks of waiting for LSAC to run scantrons… seriously??? 3 weeks???).

In addition to developing a strange love for Alice in Wonderland, wooden Ticonderoga pencils, logic games, and the dance patterns of bees, I am actually smarter because I studied for the LSAT.

Photo by Paul Watson

Law School: Case Briefs

The below excerpt about briefing cases is from Professor David Hricik's Law School Basics (Amazon).

Briefing Cases

“Briefing cases” is something you will hear a lot about even before your first day of class. Everyone will be talking about how it is important to “brief” the cases you are assigned to read before the class begins. What is a case brief?

It is not what lawyers call “briefs,” which are documents written to file in a court to persuade a judge on a particular issue. Instead, a “case brief” is a way for you to break down each case you read for class into useful, categorized information.

There is no One True Way to write a case brief. Their purposes, in my view, are two: to make it so that (a) I never had to re-read the case again, and (b) so that if I were called on in class, I could answer likely questions without having to pour over the case. (Cases can be very long, and the ones chosen for inclusion in law school casebooks seemed to be deliberately longer and more opaquely written than they are in “real life.”) To meet these two purposes, my case briefs typically followed this format:

Name of case (court/year)

Facts:
Issue:
Holding:
Rationale:
Dissent:
Class Notes:

We will discuss each part in detail.

In the name of the case, I included information which let me know who was the plaintiff. So, for example, in the “name” section, I might have written:

“Smith (∆) v. Jones (π) (Tex. S.Ct. 1987).”

“π” means plaintiff; “∆” means defendant. You can’t tell from the name of an appellate case who sued whom. On appeal, the loser in the trial court will be listed first in the caption of the case, even if that party was the defendant (the party who was sued) in the trial court, because it is the party which is appealing—the party listed first is the party who lost in the court below and is the one appealing to a higher court. Professors often asked basic questions such as who won below. In addition, understanding the basic facts of cases made them a lot easier to understand. (You will be amazed, though, at how difficult it can be to figure out who sued whom about what.)

The “Facts” section was usually a chronological, short explanation (three or four sentences, or less) of what seemed to be the relevant facts. (You can know which facts are relevant only after you have read the whole case.) I might have written, for example, “π went to ∆-doctor to get nose job. ∆ allegedly made the nose worse. π then sued ∆, and jury found for π, awarding damages equal to the difference between the value of the nose as promised and the value of the nose actually delivered.”

The “Issue” section would lay out the primary legal issue in the case. For example, “Was the proper measure of damages the difference between the nose as delivered and the nose as promised, or should it have been the difference between the nose as delivered and the nose as it had been before surgery?”

The “Holding” would be what the court held the answer to the primary legal question was. For example, “The correct measure of damages was expectancy damages—the difference in value between as delivered and as promised.” This was, in essence, the “rule” from the case.

The “Rationale” section could be quite long. Again, my goals were not to re-read the case and to have something I could rely on were I called on in class. I learned a lot by “outlining” the rationale of the court in some detail, usually following the court’s own structure. Look at the outlines in the appendices to see how I did this. Some are quite elaborate and detailed. It varied a lot, depending primarily upon my mood.

Next, if a judge dissented from the case, I would summarize what he said.

Photo by davidortez

Logic and Games

* A foreclosure firm holds a homeless-themed Halloween party. [Gawker]

* University of Chicago academics hold a conference on "Jersey Shore Studies." [NYTimes]

* Blockbuster uses the "first sale doctrine" to get around studios' delay tactics. Too bad no one uses Blockbuster anymore. [Ars Technica]

* It's been a bad year to graduate from college. [Washington Post]

* In which a fellow blogger overcomes depression, in comic form. [Hyperbole and a Half]

LSAT PrepTest 64 (October 2011 LSAT) Available For PDF Download

Just wanted to let everyone know that the October 2011 LSAT (LSAT PrepTest 64) is now available on Amazon.com!

See this list of all LSAT PrepTests.

It's the most recently released LSAT exam and necessary for anyone studying for December 2011 LSAT and beyond.

Law School Application Weaknesses: Addendum or Personal Statement?

The below excerpt about handling weaknesses in your law school application is from A Comprehensive Guide to the Law School Personal Statement.

***

Weaknesses should sometimes be addressed in an addendum to the application, sometimes in the personal statement, and sometimes not at all. You should decide where to address the weakness in your application based on its degree of severity.


Addendum
If the weakness in your application is moderate, and you think your explanation will help your cause, you should address it in the addendum. Your discussion in the addendum should be brief and to the point. It's not a second essay.

Examples of moderate weakness include: a semester in which your grades dropped steeply, a year or two away from college, or lower than expected LSAT scores.

Now remember, you have to think that explaining the weakness will help your cause. If your grades dropped after a major personal setback or because you were working 30 hours a week, write about it in the addendum. If you took time away from college to have an important experience, include it. If you think your LSAT scores were low because you have a learning disability, it might be good to include. However, if your grades were low because you were drinking heavily, if you took time off of college and wasted it, or if your LSAT scores were low because you didn’t study, leave it out!


Personal Statement
If the weakness in your application is severe in degree, you have to address it in your personal statement. As they say in politics, you want to get ahead of the story, to put your spin on it.

You have to put it in context, explain why it happened (without shirking responsibility!) and crucially, you have to explain what is different now.

You can explain what you learned from the experience, how it changed you, and why you are ready to succeed in law school and beyond. In the best-case scenario, you turn your weakness into a strength.

Make it the “struggle” in your story of “struggle and triumph," meaning: “Stealing a car to joyride with my friends was unquestionably the stupidest, most immoral thing I have ever done. However, my rehabilitation process, which included jail time, parole, and mandatory therapy, has been incredible—one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”

If you address your weaknesses with sincerity, contrition, and positivity, even severe weaknesses will not bar you from law school.

Examples of severe weaknesses in your application include: having faced disciplinary action from your college, having a criminal record, having years of very depressed grades, having attended an unaccredited or shakily accredited undergraduate institution (including online colleges) or having a huge, multi-year gap in your record.


Not At All
If your weakness is mild, do not explicitly address it in your personal statement, or the addendum. If you spend time and space explicitly addressing mild weaknesses, you run the risk of annoying your reader, who will think, “Who cares!? This person is too obsessive!” Everyone has mild weaknesses in their application. Don’t dwell on them. Instead, highlight your strengths.

Examples of mild weaknesses include an outlying low grade in one class, having an unexciting extracurricular record, or having attended a less-than-stellar college.

Photo by jjpacres

Michigan Law Admissions Dean Interview

In this LSAT Blog post, I interview the University of Michigan Law School’s dean of admissions, Sarah Zearfoss. Our discussion follows.

1. To what degree do you use the LSAT's Writing Sample?

A lot of applicants appear to make an assumption that the LSAT writing sample never gets looked at–and that’s not a safe assumption!

We use it in a lot of different ways. At the most basic level, we always at least glance at it, and that means someone who uses only three-quarters of a page out of the available two pages will stand out, as will the folks who draw pictures, or write repeatedly, "I know you’re not reading this." And I don’t mean that they stand out in the way that one hopes to in the admissions process.

For some applications, we routinely take a much closer look, particularly when we have reason to be concerned about writing abilities (based on a major or something else in the background suggesting a lack of writing experience, or based on a comment in a recommendation letter, or based on writing quality elsewhere in the application). The standard in those cases isn’t a highly rigorous one, to be sure, but we’re looking for a lack of mimicry between the question and the answer, a facility with basic grammar and spelling, and a reasonably coherent argument. It’s surprising how frequently people don’t meet that minimal standard.

And apart from how Admissions Office staff views the sample, there are always the faculty, an unpredictable lot. At Michigan, faculty don’t have a heavy involvement in reviewing files, but I would say at least 50% of those who do look at files consider the LSAT writing sample as the single most interesting element of the application materials. No, I’m not kidding. My colleagues at some other schools have confirmed this idiosyncrasy.

Bottom-line, applicants would be well-served to approach the writing sample with seriousness. You have to sit there for the duration anyway, so you might as well put a little effort into it, right? Treating it cavalierly could leave a big negative impression on a reviewer.


2. What are some changes that students at Michigan would like to see, and what is Michigan doing to implement these changes?

I hear a pretty steady drumbeat of requests for a more tropical climate, but we resist this–I have the power, absolutely, but I choose not to use it because I think it would cut down on study time and ultimately result in less-prepared graduates. I have only the best interests of our students at heart.

In all seriousness, I don’t think there are any Major Issues that we see student concerns coalescing around at the moment. If there were, I have no doubt that they’d get a lot of swift attention from the administration, which in my experience is remarkably responsive. But that said, there are certainly often small coalitions around certain topics, and when they come up, sustained attention gets devoted to figuring out the right answer, a process that can take some time.

One recently solved example: we have heard from students in recent years that they would like a clinic with an international law focus. The challenge was how to put that into effect while being committed to Michigan’s vision of clinical work, which involves considerable hands-on involvement by the student attorneys–as opposed to assigning students one small paragraph in a giant brief being actually written by a faculty member for filing with an international court, an experience we didn’t think would provide much pedagogical benefit. The answer has turned out to be, one, an international transactional clinic focusing on microfinance, which just took off this year, and two, a human-trafficking clinic, which will get started next year. Both will involve considerable client involvement, a core value, while having a central international-law component. Those new clinics didn’t come about quickly; it took us a couple of years between starting to get the requests and figuring out the best way to effect the project. But the end result is terrific, and much better for not having been knee-jerk.

Another issue that has been the subject of sustained dialogue between students and administration in recent years involve public-interest funding, and how to come up with more institutional support. That’s an area where we’ve already seen some wonderful changes, such as a commitment to 2L summer funding for public interest jobs--but we’re also in the midst of trying to think of other new, creative solutions.

And a third issue that has been consuming some energy and attention recently is the question of grading and curves. There have been changes at other schools, so some students have naturally questioned whether we should reexamine our own approach–in fact, our faculty and administration raised the question themselves, independently. But that’s a puzzle we’re at the beginning of solving, and it’s not an easy one; we have concerns that moving to, for example, no grades or no curve could result in risk-aversion by legal employers about hiring our students–employers tell us that they worry a lack of grades means a lack of engagement by students, with the result being a poorly educated lawyer. No one wants to do anything that makes it harder for students to get the jobs they want, obviously. So we’re continuing to grapple with these issues; while we may not have come up with a solution yet, it’s not for lack of approaching the question seriously. That, ultimately, is what students should ask of their institution–not that they get a "yes" answer on every request, but that the requests be given attention and consideration.


3. What are some of the most common / funniest mistakes you've seen in students' applications?

Certainly the most common mistake is sending in an impassioned essay about why an applicant desperately wants to attend.... some other law school, not Michigan. Meanwhile, someone in Charlottesville is scratching his head about why the same student is writing at length as to Ann Arbor’s merits as the ideal student community. We try not to hold that against anyone, though, and only rarely do we actually weep at our sense of rejection.

The funniest kind of mistake I see is beginning an essay with a quote that is misattributed. Given that one of the most fundamental skills of a lawyer is research, this usually strikes me as dispositive. I first started as an admissions dean at just this time of year, when a lot of deny letters had already gone out. One denied applicant, very aggrieved, insisted on meeting with me. I now know how completely unproductive these meetings invariably are, but I was very idealistic at the time and agreed to the meeting, thinking I could give some helpful guidance (even though I hadn’t actually been the admissions dean who had made a decision on her application). The first thing I pointed out to her was that her essay misattributed a famous poem to the wrong author, and that the mistake made a really bad first impression. Her reaction was outrage; she said it showed beyond doubt that she had written her own essay, and hadn’t paid a professional to do it, and that was to her credit. Certainly, the quick thinking was to her credit, but doing her own work was a basic expectation, and her argument didn’t result in a different outcome.

***

Bio: Sarah Zearfoss is Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions at the University of Michigan Law School. A member of the Michigan bar, she stays active in the practice of law as a volunteer attorney for the ACLU.

Photo by 51170735@N02

Logic and Games

* Deciding whether to go to law school? Check out this great advice from a lawyer/author. [LSAT Blog]

* The Tea Party doesn't like being compared to Occupy Wall Street. [NYTimes]

* College student pulls self up by mythical bootstraps, implies Occupy Wall Street protesters are lazy. [Persephone Magazine]

* Some super-religious Jews try to force a recreation of the Rosa Parks saga. [NYMag]

* After a recent SAT cheating scandal, the College Board is cracking down. [NYTimes]

* Anyone planning to dress up as a sexy sea turtle for Halloween? [YouTube]

December 2011 LSAT vs. February 2012 LSAT

The short version:

If you haven't had the expected amount of time to study and are feeling that you won't be ready to take it in December, I recommend you bite the bullet, take the LSAT at a later date, and apply next cycle. A higher LSAT score means you'll get into better law schools and/or, potentially, more scholarship money. 1 year could be well worth the wait.

On the other hand, if you are feeling there's a decent chance you'll be ready by December, then take it in December as planned. The February exam's generally too late for it to be a good idea to take it and still apply this cycle.

***

Law schools consider applications on a rolling admissions basis. The earlier you apply in the admissions cycle, the easier it is to gain acceptance. The cycle begins in September.

For top law schools, it's especially important to apply relatively early in the cycle because admission to these schools is particularly competitive.

December, of course, isn't early in the cycle, but it's not too late either. A few points higher than you would've gotten if you'd taken it in June or October will make up for not being early. However, if you're thinking that you won't be ready for December, February's a bit too late for this cycle. Many top law schools (such as Columbia, Harvard, NYU, and Stanford) don't even accept February LSAT scores for that cycle.

(This means you can't take the LSAT in February 2012 and apply to start at those law schools in the fall of 2012. However, you can take the February 2012 LSAT and use that score to apply to start at those law schools in Fall 2013, of course.)

Even some law schools that aren't typically considered "top law schools" have application deadlines that are before February LSAT scores are released. This means, of course, those schools don't take February LSAT scores (for that cycle), either.

Given enough prep time (and the right kind of prep), most people are capable of scoring decently on the LSAT. However, a month or two generally isn't enough time to adequately prepare.

If you're not feeling ready for the LSAT now, you'll likely do better on it if you prep more and wait. Taking it in February, June, or October and applying next cycle will give you enough time to work through some version of my LSAT study schedules. You've probably started working through some of the materials mentioned there for December's exam, but perhaps you haven't gotten past Logic Games - there's still Logical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, and several recent full-length practice exams that you should complete before taking the exam. It simply can't all be done in a couple of weeks.

One thing you don't want to do is take it when you're not ready and have multiple scores on your record if you can avoid it.

Some top law schools (such as Columbia and NYU) consider the average of multiple scores, rather than only the highest. Fordham does not disclose whether it takes the average of multiple scores.

Even if the law schools you're considering explicitly state that they take the highest LSAT score (and most do only take the highest when computing your LSAT and GPA), they'll still see your other scores. Ideally, you'll only take the LSAT once and get it right the first time. Try not to take the LSAT until you're as certain as possible that you're fully prepared.

If you're only shooting for less competitive schools, it won't matter as much if you take the LSAT in February and still apply this cycle. However, there's some debate as to whether it's worth going to less competitive (i.e. 4th-tier) law schools at all. See Anna Ivey vs. Ann Levine on this issue.


Photo by lifeontheedge

How To Increase Your College GPA For Law School Admissions

While the LSAT's numero uno in law school admissions, GPA's also important.

Many of you are still in college and have time to do something to boost your GPA.

(To those of you with low GPAs are already fixed in stone, I'm sorry. You'll just have to make up for low GPAs with a rockin' LSAT score.)

My friend Cal Newport over at Study Hacks has made excerpts of his best-selling college advice books available for free on his website.

If you're still in college, his books are worth checking out. Not the common-sense advice you're used to seeing on the shelves. Check out the dozens of positive reviews on Amazon and see for yourself.

Excerpt from How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less

Excerpt from How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country's Top Students

I'm kind of shocked that these are only around $10 each - they're worth far more. I wish I'd had them when I was in undergrad.

Photo by ryanicus

Logic and Games

* Take the October LSAT? Hope you rocked it! If ☺, read about admissions. If ☹, see this retake advice. [LSAT Blog]

* How to write an impressive personal statement (even if you didn't start an NGO to save orphans from smallpox). [LSAT Blog]

* Are law schools and bar exams necessary? [NYTimes; AboveTheLaw]

* Cooley Law School asks court to drop graduates' fraud claims.

* Fun with correlation and causation when linking teen violence to soda consumption. [National Post]

LSAT Reading Comp Solutions PDF

I've written explanations for over 1,000 LSAT questions.

You can get the full LSAT PrepTest explanations for TONS of exams HERE.