Anyone who has considered going to law school has almost certainly heard any number of awful things about the law school experience. I’ve got news for you: most of what you’ve heard is false. Need further proof? Check out the list of law school myths below:

Law School Myth I: You will have angry, pedantic professors who cleave to the Socratic method

I suspect this myth is born mostly of ages-old horror stories and people who have seen The Paper Chase one too many times. People imagine an old, white professor leering at a room full of law students, continuously peppering them with questions until he finds one they can’t answer. While you may run into a professor who believes strongly in the Socratic method, your law professors want to help you understand law. They don’t want it to appear mysterious and difficult. They want you to grasp it and use it. Most law professors are quite friendly and all too happy to answer a question or six in office hours after class. Just make sure you do the assigned reading.

Law School Myth II: Other students will try to sabotage you

Law school can be a competitive environment. This is especially true when you are graded on a forced curve. While it would be theoretically possible for all members of an undergraduate class to get “A” grades, that is not the case in law school. There are only so many “A” grades to go around. That said, I have never seen anything even approaching academic sabotage. Quite the contrary, most students are all too happy to help you study. Study groups are common as is cooperation in the library. Don’t be afraid to ask your fellow students for assistance and don’t be afraid to offer it yourself.

Law School Myth III: You won’t be able to do anything but study

While this may very well be the case during finals, it need not be the case all the time. Carefully planning one’s schedule and leaving time for recreational activities is not only achievable, but important. Spending all of one’s time face-in-book is just as bad as skipping the assigned reading entirely. Make sure you leave time for the things you enjoyed in college: going to the gym, going out drinking with friends, going to the beach, etc. You’ll be happier for it. And yes, there is time for it.

Law students rejoice! There is now a distinct possibility that you could be watching quite possibly the best television crime drama of all time as a homework assignment.

That’s right, a professor at William & Mary Law has been using The Wire to teach Criminal Law. According to the professor, the show is useful as a teaching tool because, unlike most crime drama, it approaches the constitutional and societal issues of crime from a realistic perspective. Are there other shows that share The Wire’s realism? Not so much. That said, there are still other shows that could be of use in the law school context.

Let’s start with any courtroom drama ever. Take any permutation of Law and Order, for example. What happens in those shows? Lawyers pontificate in the middle of cross-examinations. They have huge stretches of time where they’re just talking instead of asking questions. Lawyers wander all around the courtroom willy-nilly. None of this happens in real life. In real life, lawyers have to ask questions. In real life, lawyers have to stand at a dais and ask those questions. They don’t get to punctuate particularly important questions by following their answers with statements of opinion. If a real lawyer were in a Law and Order courtroom, you’d hear nothing but a steady stream of objections. Great for the case, terrible for television.

On to a slightly less obvious example of a TV show perfect for law school curriculum: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those heroes in a half-shell have been living with Master Splinter beneath the city’s streets for at least 13 years (given the title of the show). The turtles are a Property professor’s dream. In fact, they could be a final exam question in themselves. Take adverse possession for example. While the turtles’ occupation of the sewer has certainly been continuous, you’d have to wonder whether living underground could ever be considered open and notorious. Let’s also note that the turtles have been adversely possessing against the government, bringing in a host of other issues. Then there’s the Torts and Criminal Law issues the turtles face for all the pain and suffering they’ve caused to members of the Foot clan during their vigilante night maneuvers. After writing this, I’m surprised none of my law professors ever used the Ninja Turtles in class.

What television shows would you like to see your law professors use in class?

Earlier this month, Rutgers Law made headlines after being fined $25k for waiving the LSAT requirement for some students. Since 2006, the school allowed up to 10 percent of each admitted class to skip the LSAT. Before you get too jealous, the students who didn’t have to take the LSAT were admitted based on their scores on a different graduate school admissions test (the GRE, GMAT or MCAT), so they still got their fill of standardized testing.

The ABA actually does allow law schools to use tests other than the LSAT, but the schools have to seek permission from the ABA and establish that whatever test they’re using is a “valid substitute” for the LSAT. Rutgers Law was apparently following the maxim that “it’s easier to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission,” so when they applied for permission in 2012 — six years after beginning their policy — the ABA stuck them with the fine.

While Rutgers messed up on the execution of their plan, the ABA’s policy makes it clear that it actually is possible for a school to pass on the LSAT and still retain its accreditation. (There are also unaccredited law schools that do not require the LSAT, but in most states, you can’t take the bar exam if you haven’t attended an accredited law school.) The very thought of applying to law school without having to take the LSAT might make you jump for joy — but should it?

First of all, don’t expect to get out of the LSAT any time soon. Dropping the LSAT as a requirement for accreditation has been a topic of conversation for years, but the pace of change within the legal world is absolutely glacial, so I wouldn’t expect to see any big changes soon.

Secondly, there is the question of whether not requiring the LSAT would be a good thing. There’s no doubt that the LSAT is a beast, and the process of studying for it is long, laborious and frequently stressful. There’s also no doubt that there are plenty of people who didn’t receive the highest LSAT scores and were still very successful in law school and beyond.

That said, the reason the LSAT exists is because it — along with your undergraduate GPA — is one of the strongest predictors of law school performance. No one would say that there are too few lawyers in the US right now, and since law school application numbers are down, at least some law schools would likely jump at the chance to admit candidates who haven’t taken the LSAT — if for no other reason than to take their tuition money. So while I feel for my students as I listen to them gripe about the LSAT, it’s hard for me to see dropping the LSAT as beneficial for anyone other than law schools.

Of course, since I get paid for teaching the LSAT, one could say that I have a vested interest in keeping it as a law school requirement. Think I’m dead wrong? Tell me why in the comments.

It’s that time of year again—the US News and World Report‘s annual law school rankings have arrived. As the biggest authority on rating academic institutions in the United States, the US News rankings are a subject of much consideration and consternation for prospective law students, law school administrations, and legal employers alike. For you, the prospective law student, these rankings could mean big things for your future admissions and job prospects. So let’s dive in and take a look, shall we?

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The T14

Surprise, surprise: the Top 14 schools have once again reasserted their place at the top. From Yale (1st) to Cornell and Georgetown (tied for 13th), the T14 has pretty much stayed the same, with a few minor revisions. Yale, Harvard and Stanford retain their throne in the top three, though Stanford has dropped a slot from its second-place tie with Harvard last year. Also, a big shout-out to my alma mater, Duke Law, for finally cracking the top ten! Richard Nixon (’37) would be proud.

Here are this year’s top 15 US News and World Report law school rankings:

Movers and Shakers: The Big Winners

Let’s highlight some law schools that made significant jumps in this year’s US News and World Report law school rankings:

19. Emory University (+4) – While much of the country continues its incessant struggle through the polar vortex, we hear that Atlanta is pretty nice this time of year. A jump into the top 20 only makes Emory that much more attractive. Don’t be surprised if their median LSAT of 165 begins to climb.

24. College of William & Mary (+11) – Whoa! The oldest law school in the land has made a huge leap into the top 25. Expect the D.C. market to give William & Mary students an even closer look now that the school is among more elite company.

40. University of Iillinois–Urbana-Champaign (+7) – It’s nice to see U of I bounce back a bit after a 2011 admissions scandal led the institution to drop 24 slots in the past two years.

51. Penn State University (+13)
58. University of Oklahoma (+10)
61. University of Miami (+15)
68. University of Kansas (+18)
72. University of Tulsa (+14)
87. Seattle University (+15)
87. Wayne State University (+18)
93. Stetson University (+16)
93. University of New Hampshire School of Law (+26)

All we can say from the above is that there must be something good going on in America’s Heartland, with Oklahoma, Kansas and Tulsa all climbing double digits.

Not Just a Weight Loss Competition: The Biggest Losers

43. Washington and Lee University (-17) – Far and away, the biggest loser today has got to be Washington and Lee. With its long-sustained top 25 pedigree, we’re dismayed to see the school drop so many spots. If you’re wondering what’s to blame here, it could be Washington and Lee’s experience-based learning program for third-year students, which by many accounts is an enormous flop. Or it could be their 40+ percent reduction in class size, the largest in the nation. Or their troubling career placement statistics, which have hovered around the 50 percent mark for recent graduates.

Here’s hoping that Washington and Lee’s administration can turn things around. A few other notable drops:

58. University of Houston (-10)
64. Georgia State University (-10)
72. American University (-16)
83. University of Nevada—Las Vegas (-15)
87. Loyola Marymount University (-19)
87. University of Louisville (-19)
100. SUNY Buffalo (-14)
100. University of Hawaii (-20)
107. Catholic University of America (-27)

With D.C. Schools like Catholic and American dropping several spots (and Washington and Lee itself not being too far from the Beltway), it looks like something is rotten in our nation’s capital. Given the seismic shifts in this area, it bears repeating that applicants who desire to practice in D.C. should give 24th-ranked William & Mary a closer look.

Check out the complete 2015 US News and World Report law school rankings, as well as this helpful infographic breaking down the law school data.

On May 13, 2007, Charlie Munger gave a memorable keynote speech at USC Law School’s commencement ceremony. While he is especially well known for his work as an investor and longtime associate of Warren Buffet, Munger began his career as a lawyer, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1948.

However, Munger did not deliver the typical go-get-‘em oratory packed with inspiration and lofty ideals of justice. Instead he offered up the most practical and realistic advice he could distill after 83 years of living. What is perhaps most striking and refreshing about his speech is the simplicity of the values and practices that he found indispensable to a successful life.

Here are a few highlights:

Must-Do #1: Be a Lifetime Learning Machine

There is a tendency to treat learning as a chore that can be finished and succeeded by some more enjoyable aspect of life. But as Munger put it, learning is “not just something you do to advance in life,” but rather a “moral duty” that requires a lifelong commitment to continue deepening one’s wisdom. According to Munger, the most successful people are not necessarily the smartest or the most diligent by nature, but those who “go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up.” Essentially, Munger found that learning yields its greatest results when viewed as a perpetual practice rather than as a means to an end.

Must-Do #2: Do What It Takes

Great potential without great effort behind it is like a rocket ship without fuel. Munger told his USC audience that you simply must have “a lot of assiduity” (pronounced ass-eh-doo-ih-tee). He added wryly, “I like that word because it means: sit down on your ass until you do it.” While this may not be novel advice, it does run counter to many of our popular cultural myths about success, such as the sudden stroke of luck, the big break, or the opportunity of a lifetime. These may be elements of some success stories, but Munger brings us back to earth with his reminder to diligently address the work at hand.

Must-Do #3: Be Interested

If you’re going to learn all your life, and if you’re going to subject your ass to countless hours of accomplishing what needs to be done, then it follows you must not be holding your breath all that time. Munger wisely proposed that “intense interest in a subject is indispensable if you’re going to excel in it.” Many of us probably find this true in a small way when we tackle the LSAT’s Reading Comprehension passages. Is it not easier to move through them quickly and accurately when they interest us? And we’re only talking about 35 minutes of required focus in that case. Imagine a career — a lifetime. Mungers words remind us that we cannot sustain the effort required to do outstanding work if we do not also sustain our curiosity and passion for that work.

For more sage advice, watch or read Munger’s full speech.

If there’s a golden rule for the internet, it’s that you don’t tweet, post, or email anything that you wouldn’t want made public. Law professor Robert Illig, it seems, did not get the memo on that.

Illig, an associate law professor at the University of Oregon, made headlines last week when his email diatribes to his fellow faculty members were leaked to online news outlets. In a nutshell, Illig was furious about a proposed initiative to cancel faculty raises — i.e., his raise — and divert the money to a job placement fellowship program for recent graduates. So furious was Illig that he wrote not one, but two nasty emails. Illig had some choice words for his colleagues and administrators:

No wonder we’ve become a third-tier law school. Who’s going to want to come here to study or teach in this kind of poisonous atmosphere? . . . Is this some kind of faculty version of white-man’s guilt? We see students without jobs and think that if we throw them a few of our dollars we can go back to our scholarship and not worry about whether they are getting real careers and real training? I feel that having given up the chance at a seven-figure annual income is charity enough for the students…

(You can read the entire meltdown in all its glory here, but suffice it to say, the dude is out of his mind.)

Let’s be fair: you would be angry too if your raise was suddenly taken away and given to someone else. But the manner in which Illig responds, with overdramatized characterizations of a “poisonous atmosphere” and racial overtones about “white-man’s guilt,” is completely over the top and inappropriate. If you’re wondering what Illig meant about giving up his chance at “a seven-figure annual income,” he’s probably referring to his days as a business lawyer with Nixon Peabody in London and New York. Illig actually elaborated on this when he appeared in the comments section of a local UO blog to defend himself (Yes, he did. Keep digging that hole, Professor):

In my former life, I was an M&A lawyer at a large New York law firm, where I was all but certain to be earning more that $1 million annually. No one can tell me I’m not on the students’ side . . . . The UO and its students are lucky to have me and all the other wonderful university faculty and staff who have sacrificed to be here.

Let’s get one thing straight: Mr. Illig may be able to make more money in the private sector, but in no way is he making some kind of “charitable sacrifice” for being a law professor. In exchange for the millions of earnings he gives up, he gets a cushy, lower stress job in academia with summer vacation while still making six figures per year. Plus, Illig was merely an associate at Nixon Peabody. He may have made partner and won his mythical seven-figure salary, but in the dog-eat-dog world of big law there are no guarantees.

But enough about Illig. He’s an easy target, but he’s not the only villain in this story. For starters, there’s the Oregon Law faculty, who not only leaked this embarrassing email to the public, but voted on the elimination of bonuses without people like Illig’s knowledge or consent. If we are to take Illig at his word, the faculty meeting was conducted at the same time as another law school event, an event which Illig attended. The idea that faculty members would vote against each other’s bonuses behind each other’s backs does not inspire confidence. Neither does the fact that the professors’ are airing each other’s dirty laundry to blogs and news outlets. Incidents like this can only hurt Oregon’s perception as the law school tries to recruit talented faculty.

Also, let’s not forget about the administration, who conjured up this half-brained plan in the first place. Whether the money comes from faculty salaries or from someplace else, job placement programs such as Oregon’s are nothing new. But let us remember what these programs truly are: the law school pays an employer money to temporarily hire an unemployed student. The graduate can now be counted as “hired,” which boosts the law school’s job placement percentage and in turn improves its standing with the U.S. News law school rankings. Current and future law students should be skeptical of such programs—are they leading to full time job offers? Are they actually developing grads in an area of their interest, or are they simply shoveling them document review-style temp work?

Oregon University has opted against the controversial salary-diverting program, but not without doing some damage to the reputations of its administration, faculty, and Illig himself. The takeaway for prospective law students is a reminder that the entry-level job market is still rough, and that law schools are starting to get creative when it comes to securing their students’ positions. Regardless of what steps law schools take, however, the best defense to a bad job market will always be in the law student’s hands: studying hard, networking well, and minimizing student loan debt.

In a recent profile, Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito recently held forth on the LSAT and on the U.S. News and World Report law school rankings. He’s not a fan. He feels differently about the Philadelphia Phillies.

The LSAT, he says, gets too much emphasis from law schools. He asks, “What in life is a multiple choice test?” He calls the U.S. News rankings “an abomination.”

I’ll readily agree with Alito that the U.S. News rankings get way more attention than they deserve. They often get treated as if they were incontrovertible fact, when really they’re just one magazine’s assessment based on its choice of factors. And some of those factors, such as expenditures per student, faculty-student ratio, and library size, have probably contributed to the high cost of legal education as law schools jockey to improve their standing.

But Alito hits on the reason the rankings are here to stay: “I gather that all these rankings are one of these things that keeps U.S. News and World Report in the black—unlike Newsweek.” As long as people keep paying attention to the rankings, and the rankings keep making money for the magazine that produces them, they’re not going anywhere. The only way that would change is if everyone stopped paying attention, and that’s not going to happen no matter how many Supreme Court justices weigh in. But prospective law students would be well advised to check out other sources of info, such as Law School Transparency’s Score Reports. Also check this LSAT blog Wednesday for our take on Above the Law’s law school rankings.

Alito is also right when he points out that the rankings are one of the reasons for the huge emphasis law schools place on the LSAT. Since everyone pays so much attention to the rankings, law schools want to do what they can to improve their standing, and one way they do that is to pursue students with high LSAT scores.

But while it’s true, as Alito says, that life isn’t a multiple-choice test, that doesn’t mean that a multiple-choice test such as the LSAT can’t test valuable skills. The LSAT’s consistent predictive validity means that, even if law school rankings were to disappear tomorrow, law schools would still pay lots of attention to their applicants’ LSAT scores. A combination of LSAT score and GPA is the best predictor of law school performance, and that’s what law schools use.

Since this is an LSAT prep blog, I’ll steer clear of politics. But let me just point out that Alito’s beloved Phillies were pretty much the last Major League Baseball team to join the 21st century and hire a stat guy.

One thing no one has ever said: “You know, there just aren’t enough law school rankings out there.” U.S. News & World Report is the biggie, of course; it’s also criticized for many reasons, particularly for not placing enough emphasis on employment outcomes.

In response to the criticism, others have created their own system of rankings. Above the Law has its own system of rankings that places a higher emphasis on employment outcomes and alumni satisfaction. Thomas M. Cooley School of Law infamously has its own ranking system that emphasizes factors such as student body size and number of books in the library and, coincidentally, tends to place Cooley Law in the top 20 ahead of schools such as Duke and Stanford.

So there is no shortage of law school rankings. Now Law.com has gotten into the rankings game with a new ranking based on median LSAT scores, the percentage of students holding full-time, permanent, JD-required employment after graduation, and citations of the school’s main law review. The results can be downloaded for free – but are they worth checking out?

The criteria used for the rankings are an interesting mix – whereas rankings such as Above the Law’s focus almost exclusively on outcomes, the Law.com rankings incorporate more of a mix. The median LSAT score was selected as a factor to indicate student quality – a designation with which many would disagree, but for better or for worse, LSAT scores are one of the few quantifiable factors that we can lean on when analyzing law school admissions. The incorporation of employment data into the rankings makes sense – after all, although there are a few exceptions, the ultimate purpose of going to law school for most is to get a job as a lawyer.

The final factor in the rankings, the number of citations to the school’s main law review, was selected “to tell something about the intellectual orientation and culture of the school and to reveal something about the school’s standing in the legal education community.” I have never been personally involved with a law review, either on the writing or editing end; my question would be to what extent this metric is affected by the school’s existing reputation. I suspect that Harvard Law Review is much more likely to be cited than a smaller, more regional school, and that that may or may not be a reflection of the “intellectual orientation” of that school. Even if this criteria is strongly affected by existing reputation, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be something to consider when looking at the resulting rankings.

As is the case with many rankings, the end result ends up having many familiar faces, albeit in a slightly different order. Columbia tops the list, followed by Harvard at #2, Stanford at #3, and Yale at #4. The biggest changes are lower in the rankings – William Mitchell is ranked 48 places higher, for instance, and South Carolina climbs the rankings by 41 spots. The biggest losers include Penn State and CUNY with 43-spot drops.

New systems of ranking law schools can make for interesting discussions, and putting more emphasis on employment outcomes when creating the rankings seems like a step in the right direction given the uncertain legal economy. That said, no ranking should be a deciding factor for someone who is considering where to go to law school. At most, rankings should be treated as just another factor in that decision – unless we’re talking about those Thomas J. Cooley rankings, in which case you’re on your own.

One of the most important things for you to think about before entering law school is the type of job that you want when exiting law school.

You should begin planning your job search before you even sign up for the LSAT.
Why so early?  Because a successful job search requires a thoughtful, targeted approach.

Employers hire students who:
- Can thoughtfully explain why they want to practice law – not merely why they went to law school.
- Have interned in a legal practice setting to experience the actual day-to-day practice of law.
- Demonstrate – not just claim – an interest in the particular legal practice for which they are interviewing.
- Have established that they are willing to work extremely hard and put in the hours the moment they walk in the door.

Employers avoid students whose expectations are for the Hollywood lawyer life, complete with long cocktail hours, trials that wrap up quickly, and a perfectly tailored Armani suit for each day of the week.

You will give yourself the best chance of landing a law job by meeting early and often with your law school’s career development office. Your career development office can best guide you when you have a clear vision of the type of job you want, and the narrative you want your resume to portray.

Employers are reviewing your resume to see if:
- Your experience indicates that you are actually interested in the type of job for which you are applying.
- You are prepared for the hard work that the job will require you to do.

For instance, say you want to pursue a career in family law in California. If you’ve already set that goal at the outset of law school, your career counselor can immediately begin to help you execute a precise plan for getting a job from the moment you step into his or her office.

Your counselor can direct you toward summer internships with family law practices in California; help you choose classes, pursue volunteer activities, and join organizations that show an interest in family law; encourage you to meet with family-law oriented professors; and introduce you to alumni who practice in that field.

By the time you are a 3L, if you don’t already have a job in family law, you will have a resume that clearly demonstrates a consistent interest and capability in the field, and connections with several attorneys practicing family law. In other words, you won’t be looking for a job for long.

Contrast that with a student who enters law school entirely unsure of the type of career she wishes to pursue, or even the geographic area in which she wants to practice.  This student may take courses, externships and internships in law school that do not have any coherent theme, and do not demonstrate a consistency of interest or purpose to an employer. If that student is unemployed 3L year, she simply lacks the resume showing consistent interest and experience in any one area of the law and is much less likely to find a job than her family-law focused counterpart.

When you exit law school, the absolute most important issue will be whether you are employed.  Start thinking about the specifics of what that job might be as a 0L, and you will give yourself the best chance of success.

Today’s blog post comes to us from Katelynn McBride, Assistant Director of Career Development at Notre Dame Law School.

Yuko Sin is an instructor and blogger for Blueprint LSAT Prep. He just started as a 1L at Columbia Law School, and is writing a series of law school-related posts about his experiences.

Classes – the graded, real kind – started this week at Columbia. Sure, we did go through three weeks of Legal Methods, but that’s a pass-fail class that everyone passes.

Among other things, you’re supposed to get your first cold-calls out of the way in Legal Methods. You see, at law school, professors don’t wait for someone to contribute to the class discussion. They call on people. So you’d better be ready.

Or not.

Class participation usually won’t figure into your final grade, so you can flub all your cold-calls, but you’d better have a high tolerance for public shaming.

One of the Legal Methods professors cold-called two unprepared students in a row and summarily kicked both of them out of class. Ouch.

My Legal Methods professor, let’s call him Professor D, never made a big deal about any unprepared students. I wasn’t sure what I thought about Professor D until the final day of class when he won me over. We both think that three years of law school is overkill.

For most law students, legal hiring happens one to two years before you graduate. This makes the expense of a third year at law school very questionable. Many, including our Constitutional Law Professor-in-Chief, think that we should get rid of the third year. Professor D seems to think that we could do without the other two as well. Swoon.

In D’s Legal Methods class we studied a death penalty case that he’s been working on for decades. We even got a call from the professor’s client during class. D thinks that, having made it through his Legal Methods class, we’re already prepared to go out and practice law. So if you ever kill someone in Alabama, let me know.

I start my day at 9 and I’m done with classes and reading by 5 or 6. There’s still free lunch every day, and the school is throwing us a huge party on Friday. Real classes aren’t too bad.

For more of Yuko’s law school journey see:

• Why I’m Going To Law School
• How I Chose Columbia Law
• What I Learned In Law School Admissions
• How I’m Preparing for Columbia Law School
• The Beginning of Law School

I’m halfway through my first semester at law school. I’m starting to think like a lawyer more and more. I look at every decision from both angles, and frankly it’s stressing me out…

I’m having a hard time deciding what I should be for Halloween.

How about a suit made entirely of statutes and cases? Get it? It’s a law suit! Or I could roll out a rug made of statutes and cases and walk on it everywhere I go. I’d be above the law!

Erm, okay. How about…

How about I get one of those toddler sized slides, oil it up, and tape it to myself? I’ll be that old stalwart legal argument: the slippery slope. I guess that could get a bit too messy; plus, I have a bad history with taping objects to my body (don’t ask).

What if I go as Lady Justice? Togas aren’t really sexy enough for a Halloween costume, though, and I doubt I’d get into too many bars if I’m blindfolded and wielding a sword.

Okay, what if I go as Andi Dorfman then? She’s the attorney turned The Bachelorette. I’d just need a wig and… and 25 bachelors to follow me around all night. Sigh.

Maybe I can be the reasonable person. I’ll just stay sober all Halloween and judge people. I do like judging people, but what the heck does a reasonable person dress like?

How about a famous judge? I’ve seen this Judge Learned Hand fellow show up several times in my casebooks. I could be a giant body-sized hand holding a diploma, or maybe wearing judicial robes. But I’ve never really been good with papier-mâché, and we’re getting dangerously close to taping stuff to my body again…

For people my age, Halloween seems to be all about sexy outfits. But maybe I should bring Halloween back to its roots and go with a scary costume. How about I dress up as a giant page out the calendar with days marked “Final Exam,” or “Job Interview,” or BOTH?!

Yes, that just might do it.

But why not sexy and scary? How could I sex up a calendar page? Oh never mind, that’s easier to do than I first thought. Perfect.

Keep an eye out for a sexy, terrifying calendar if you’re out in NYC this Halloween.

Yuko Sin is an instructor and blogger for Blueprint LSAT Prep. He started as a 1L at Columbia Law School this semester, and is writing a series of law school-related posts about his experiences.

I just took my first final exam. Contracts. I loved my Contracts class. The exam, not so much.

The exam was open book. We had a multiple choice section, and an essay.

Law school exams are very different from undergrad exams. On the essay portion, there was no right answer. You just had to spot the major issues, argue both sides, come to a reasonable conclusion, and stay under the word limit. In undergrad, you just get to info dump and hope for the best, or you get to check your work.

I’m exhausted emotionally. Multiple choice Contracts questions will do that to you. It felt a lot like taking an LSAT.

Most people are relieved. Some are drinking already. Some are getting ready for our next exam. Things seem pretty normal even though Columbia’s exam policy is in the news.

Yesterday, about 50 to 100 protesters marched through the law school and library. There was lots of shouting and they drummed on the lockers for a while. As far as I could tell, there weren’t any law school students among the protesters.

Today there were no disturbances, so that was great, but the exam software crashed my computer. I may have whimpered a bit.

My next exam is Friday.

My first semester went by too quickly. But to my great relief, reading cases and learning the law turned out to be pretty fun. I met a lot of great people, and I’m looking forward to getting my job applications out during the break.

Until next time.

For more of Yuko’s law school journey see:

• Why I’m Going To Law School
• How I Chose Columbia Law
• What I Learned In Law School Admissions
• How I’m Preparing for Columbia Law School
• The Beginning of Law School
• My First Week of Law Classes
• One Month Into Law School

2015 should be an interesting year for law school applicants. Let’s make some guesses about what this new year will bring….

Legal Employment Will Improve
As of the September LSAT, we’re at a historical low for the number of LSAT takers. Law school applications are similarly down. But the economy is improving. Some are predicting that this combination will mean more jobs for the current crop of law school students, though law school employment rates kept falling as of last year. I think the legal field will follow the general trend of the rest of the economy, and legal jobs will rebound in the next year.

Changes In Affirmative Action Admissions May Be Coming
Asian students are suing Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill for allegedly discriminating against Asian applicants in undergraduate admissions. Keep on eye on these suits. If the plaintiffs win we will almost certainly see similar suits brought against law schools, whose affirmative action admissions processes work in much the same ways as those being challenged. It’s too early to tell for sure, but race-based admissions may have to change. Several states, including California and Michigan, already have bans on affirmative action admissions in place. Last year the Supreme Court approved such bans.

Some Law Schools May Close
With the number of law school applicants down, some law schools are hurting. Thomas Jefferson School of Law defaulted on its bonds and it may be soon forced to close. Some schools are trying to cut their faculty to save money and survive. Overall, the schools suffering are those whose graduates have very poor employment prospects. Law school applicants are more savvy these days, and I think this trend will continue. Applicants will avoid low performing schools, and flock to the better performing schools. The better schools include the top 14, but there are also several other schools where the salary to debt ratio is very favorable.

The LSAT Will Stay The Same More or Less
The LSAT is a standardized test. This means that any radical changes to the LSAT are highly unlikely because this may undermine its chief selling point: LSAT scores are comparable from year to year. An LSAT score from 5 years ago will still be good to go for the current application cycle. We may see some small changes, but nothing too bad. In the past couple of years a few rare, but not radically different logic games have popped up. For example, students reported that a circular ordering game came up on a recent LSAT. I think we’ll see more of the same in the next year.

That’s it for my predictions. If you have any of your own, feel free to post them in the comments. Happy New Year!

Before I decided to seriously pursue a career in law or to attend law school, I had a lot of misperceptions about the process of attaining a law degree. I was particularly confused about one aspect of legal education: law review.

It seems like every successful politician or serious academic—assuming they attended law school—was, at one time or another, the editor-in-chief of his or her law review. I knew there was something prestigious about this mysterious position, but I had no idea what it actually entailed. So, now that I’m actually in law school, I’d like to shed some light on law review for all you prospective applicants.

First, what is law review? Law review is an academic journal that publishes articles by professors and other scholars in a variety of legal practices. It is published by students at most law schools, who are responsible for writing notes (shorter academic articles), editing, and checking citations. Usually, second year students are staff members, with less control over the material, and third year students are editors, who oversee the publication to a greater extent.

At most schools, including Columbia, the process for getting on law review begins immediately after final examinations at the end of the second semester. The school distributes a packet of material and students are tasked with writing a note using these materials. You can think of this write-on process as somewhat analogous to the writing sample at the end of the LSAT (just exponentially worse)—immediately after finishing an extremely stressful exercise, when you’re tired and drained, you have to try to write something coherent. But instead of taking half an hour to complete, the law review write-on process lasts for an entire week.

Law review board members evaluate students in a variety of ways at different schools. At some institutions, a certain percentage of students “grade on” to law review based on their academic performance alone. The rest of the slots are filled by examining students’ writing ability and proficiency in legal citation and editing, as well as their diversity status and grades. Many schools, including Columbia, do not allow students to simply grade on to law review. They follow the “black box” approach by looking at all of the salient factors listed above to determine all the members of law review.

There are significant benefits to serving on law review, especially at a top school. I was speaking to a Columbia alumnus recently, and he told me that there are four major ways of evaluating a young lawyer: their GPA, their journal (with law review being the best), their firm, and their clerkship(s). If you serve on law review, you are regarded as one of the best students at your school. You are more attractive to employers and in a better position to get hired for the most selective jobs. Furthermore, you get experience in legal writing and editing, which are some of the most important skills for any attorney in any practice field.

In addition to law review, most schools also have secondary journals. Secondary journals are not as prestigious as law review, but they serve many of the same functions. Based on my understanding, participation in a journal is a good thing for any law student, but it is particularly important for anyone interested in pursuing litigation or legal academia.

I would encourage anyone in law school to learn more about the journal opportunities available at their school. Even if you don’t get the golden ticket and have the opportunity to join your school’s law review, a secondary journal is an excellent option for both your career prospects and your ability to develop meaningful skills.

With that said, I’m now very stressed out about the future so…I’m going to go study.

US News and World Report released their all-important law school rankings today — a momentous occasion that will affect law school applications, admissions and hiring for the next year. We’ll have tons of analysis over the coming days, but for now here are the Top 150 law schools, along with their movement in the rankings.

Hat tip to Spivey Consulting, which was the first to report the new rankings.

The 2016 US News & World Report Law School Rankings
1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford (+1)
4. Columbia
4. Chicago
6. NYU
7. Penn
8. UVa
8. Berkeley (+1)
8. Duke (+2)
11. Michigan (-1)
12. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. GULC (-1)
15. Texas
16. UCLA
17. Vanderbilt (-1)
18. Wash U
19. Emory
20. USC
20. Minnesota
22. George Washington University (-2)
22. University of Alabama (+1)
22. University of Iowa (+5)
22. University of Notre Dame (+4)
26. Arizona State University (+5)
26. Boston University (+1)
28. University of Washington (-4)
29. William & Mary (-5)
30. University of California-Irvine (NR)
31. University of California-Davis (+5)
31. University of Georgia (-2)
31. University of Wisconsin-Madison
34. Boston College (+2)
34. BYU (+2)
34. Fordham (+2)
34. Indiana University-Bloomington (-5)
34. Ohio State University (-3)
34. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (-3)
40. University of Colorado (+3)
41. University of Illinois (-1)
42. George Mason University (+4)
42. University of Arizona (-2)
42. University of Utah (+7)
42. Washington and Lee (+1)
46. Southern Methodist University (-4)
47. University of Florida (+2)
47. University of Maryland (-1)
47. Wake Forest University (-16)
50. Florida State University (-5)
50. Tulane University (-4)
52. Pepperdine University (+2)
52. Temple University (+9)
52. University of Richmond (-1)
52. University of Tennessee-Knoxville (+20)
56. Baylor University (-5)
56. Georgia State University (+8)
56. University of Nebraska-Lincoln (-2)
59. Case Western University (+5)
59. University of California-Hastings (-5)
59. University of Houston (-1)
59. University of Missouri (+5)
63. Seton Hall University (+5)
63. University of Connecticut (-9)
63. University of Kentucky (-5)
63. University of Miami (-2)
67. University of Denver (+1)
67. University of Kansas (+1)
67. UNLV (+16)
67. University of Oklahoma (-9)
71. American University (+1)
71. Penn State University (Dickinson) (-20)
71. University of New Mexico (+1)
71. University of San Diego (+8)
75. Loyola Marymount University (CA) (+12)
75. University of Arkansas-Fayetteville (-14)
75. Yeshiva University (Cardozo) (-11)
78. Brooklyn Law School (+5)
78. Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago-Kent) (-6)
78. Loyola University Chicago (-10)
78. University of Pittsburgh (+3)
82. St. John’s University (+25)
82. University of Cincinnati (-3)
82. University of Hawaii (+18)
82. University of Oregon (+18)
82. University of Tulsa (-10)
87. Northeastern University (+6)
87. Rutgers (Newark) (-4)
87. St. Louis University (+6)
87. SUNY Buffalo Law School (+13)
87. Syracuse University (+20)
87. University of New Hampshire (+6)
87. Villanova University (+6)
94. Lewis & Clark College (-22)
94. LSU (-22)
94. Michigan State University (-7)
94. Santa Clara University (+13)
94. University of Louisville (-7)
94. University of Mississippi (+10)
94. University of South Carolina (-1)
94. West Virginia University (-11)
102. Florida International University (-2)
102. Indiana University-Indianapolis (-15)
102. Rutgers (Camden) (-21)
105. Marquette University (-12)
105. Stetson University (-12)
105. Wayne State University (-18)
108. Catholic University (-1)
108. University of Wyoming (+21)
110. Gonzaga University (-3)
110. Howard University (+25)
110. University of Maine (+19)
113. Creighton University (+2)
113. CUNY
113. Drake University
113. Seattle University (-26)
113. University of Montana (+8)
118. Duquesne University (+3)
118. Mercer University (-14)
118. Texas Tech University (-11)
118. Willamette University (NR)
122. DePaul University (-1)
122. Hofstra University (+13)
122. University of Baltimore (+13)
122. Vermont Law School (+7)
122. Washburn University (-7)
127. Chapman University (+13)
127. Cleveland State University (-12)
127. Drexel University (+2)
127. New York Law School (+13)
127. Quinnipiac University (-9)
127. University of Akron (-6)
127. University of Idaho (-9)
127. University of Missouri-Kansas City (-23)
135. Loyola University New Orleans (NR)
135. University of Arkansas-Little Rock (-14)
135. University of St. Thomas (MN) (-6)
138. Albany Law School (-20)
138. Pace University (+2)
138. University of North Dakota (-9)
138. University of San Francisco (NR)
142. University of Memphis (-2)
142. University of Toledo (-2)
142. William Mitchell College of Law (-7)
145. Hamline University (-24)
145. Ohio Northern University (NR)
145. University of Dayton (NR)
145. University of South Dakota
149. Oklahoma City University (NR)
149. Samford University (-14)
149. Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (NR)
149. South Texas College of Law (-4)
149. Texas A&M University (NR)

On May 13, 2007, Charlie Munger gave a memorable keynote speech at USC Law School’s commencement ceremony. While he is especially well known for his work as an investor and longtime associate of Warren Buffet, Munger began his career as a lawyer, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1948.

However, Munger did not deliver the typical go-get-‘em oratory packed with inspiration and lofty ideals of justice. Instead he offered up the most practical and realistic advice he could distill after 83 years of living. What is perhaps most striking and refreshing about his speech is the simplicity of the values and practices that he found indispensable to a successful life.

Here are a few highlights:

Must-Do #1: Be a Lifetime Learning Machine

There is a tendency to treat learning as a chore that can be finished and succeeded by some more enjoyable aspect of life. But as Munger put it, learning is “not just something you do to advance in life,” but rather a “moral duty” that requires a lifelong commitment to continue deepening one’s wisdom. According to Munger, the most successful people are not necessarily the smartest or the most diligent by nature, but those who “go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up.” Essentially, Munger found that learning yields its greatest results when viewed as a perpetual practice rather than as a means to an end.

Must-Do #2: Do What It Takes

Great potential without great effort behind it is like a rocket ship without fuel. Munger told his USC audience that you simply must have “a lot of assiduity” (pronounced ass-eh-doo-ih-tee). He added wryly, “I like that word because it means: sit down on your ass until you do it.” While this may not be novel advice, it does run counter to many of our popular cultural myths about success, such as the sudden stroke of luck, the big break, or the opportunity of a lifetime. These may be elements of some success stories, but Munger brings us back to earth with his reminder to diligently address the work at hand.

Must-Do #3: Be Interested

If you’re going to learn all your life, and if you’re going to subject your ass to countless hours of accomplishing what needs to be done, then it follows you must not be holding your breath all that time. Munger wisely proposed that “intense interest in a subject is indispensable if you’re going to excel in it.” Many of us probably find this true in a small way when we tackle the LSAT’s Reading Comprehension passages. Is it not easier to move through them quickly and accurately when they interest us? And we’re only talking about 35 minutes of required focus in that case. Imagine a career — a lifetime. Mungers words remind us that we cannot sustain the effort required to do outstanding work if we do not also sustain our curiosity and passion for that work.

For more sage advice, watch or read Munger’s full speech.

Every year or so, a major news outlet publishes an op-ed calling for the abolishment of the third year of law school. Having gone through law school, I can say that there’s some validity to that argument.

Allow me to explain using the following well-worn adage: In 1L, you’ll get scared to death; in 2L, you’ll get worked to death; and in 3L, you’ll get bored to death.

1L: Scared to Death
1L is really not that bad. But. You’ll still be terrified out of your beautiful mind some of the time.

The law is completely new to you, so there’s that learning curve. Then, you have the actual curve, which is unforgiving and will be spoken of by your classmates as if it’s an actual horror-film entity. You’ll be studying like mad so that you can make like Neve Campbell and survive The Curve, except law school exams are far less killable than exams you’ve survived before. Finally, you have the Socratic method, where you’ll get called on randomly to answer a string of questions while the entire class listens to you float or flounder.

Still, for all that terror, the classes are essential. They usually consist of something along the lines of Criminal Law, Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, and Legal Writing, and they form the foundation of your legal education.

2L: Worked to Death
By 2L, you have a much better idea of how things work: the law is no longer a confusing mass, you know how to outline, and you know how to handle cold calls (at the very least, you know how to make it sound like you did the reading). How, then, do you wind up getting worked to death?

You’ll be taking on more classes, classes that are more complex than your 1L classes, and you’ll have so much more going on. You’ll be on a journal, doing a clinic, taking on a part-time job, and/or getting more involved in a student organization. Here’s the thing with student organizations: the 2Ls are the officers and do all the work. I questioned a 3L on this when I was a 1L, and she said, “Oh, the 3Ls just kick back. That’s just how it is.”

In 2L, you’ll be taking classes that are directly relevant to what you plan on doing after law school, whether it’s Corporations if you plan on doing corporate law or Evidence if you plan on doing litigation.

3L: Bored to Death
By this point, you’ve become a well-oiled machine, able to spend the minimum amount of time necessary to outline and answer cold calls (or, with proper planning, you’ve managed to avoid taking any classes that feature the Socratic method). You’re kicking back with the student organizations. You’ve taken the classes you needed.

In my last semester of law school, I took Constitutional Law, a policy colloquium, a class at the business school, and some other class I can’t recall (3L, amiright?). At this point, my criteria for classes were “What do I need to graduate?” and “What sounds interesting?” (possibly also “What does not require me to wake up at an ungodly hour?”).

I found the speakers in the colloquium to be interesting, and I liked working on projects for the business school, but none of what I did was really essential. Sure, there was Constitutional Law, but I could have taken that 2L year, if I hadn’t known there was a third year to push it off to.

3L was fun, but not essential to the development of my legal education—especially for all that tuition.

Before I went to law school, I reached out to alumni of my alma mater who were practicing attorneys for their takes on law school. I kept hearing the following refrain: “What I did in law school has nothing to do with what I do now as an actual attorney.” I heard that all through law school from friends who had already graduated and lawyers I met at networking functions.

In 1L, you’re developing a general understanding of how the law works. In 2L, you’re honing in on what you want to do as an actual lawyer. 3L should be a time where you put all that knowledge to work, through clinics or actual employment.

The law school rankings game is competitive these days. While U.S. News and World Report is still House Lannister — they’ve got the money and the power — there have been a ton of pretenders to the throne cropping up in the last few years. Of these, Above the Law’s rankings might be House Stark in our Game of Thrones analogy: they’re in this thing for honor, not (only) influence.

Started three years ago as an alternative to U.S. News, Above the Law’s law school rankings are based almost solely on the employment prospects of each law school. They want students to have an accurate picture of what their degree is worth, to the point that they often discourage students from attending law school because of what a poor investment the bottom tier of degrees is. To that end, they don’t even bother ranking schools past number 50.

Here’s what they have to say about their methodology:

These are the only rankings to incorporate the latest ABA employment data concerning the class of 2014. The premise underlying our approach to ranking schools remains the same: that given the steep cost of law school and the new normal of the legal job market, potential students should prioritize their future employment prospects over all other factors in deciding whether and where to attend law school. The relative quality of schools is a function of how they deliver on the promise of gainful legal employment.

There’s a bit of a catch-22 about these rankings, since so many law firms use the U.S. News rankings as part of their hiring decisions. Even though ATL might ding Yale for having slightly worse raw jobs numbers than Chicago or Penn, you’re still going to have more cache walking into a job interview with a degree from Yale.

More information never hurts, though, so here is ATL’s top 14.

1. Harvard Law School
2. Stanford Law School
3. University of Chicago Law School
4. University of Pennsylvania Law School
5. Yale Law School
6. University of Virginia Law School
7. Duke Law School
8. Columbia Law School
9. Cornell University Law School
10. NYU School of Law
11. UC Berkeley School of Law
12. University of Michigan Law School
13. Northwestern University School of Law
14. University of Texas at Austin School of Law

Click here for the full list.

Yuko Sin is an instructor and blogger for Blueprint LSAT Prep. He just started as a 1L at Columbia Law School, and is writing a series of law school-related posts about his experiences.

Classes – the graded, real kind – started this week at Columbia. Sure, we did go through three weeks of Legal Methods, but that’s a pass-fail class that everyone passes.

Among other things, you’re supposed to get your first cold-calls out of the way in Legal Methods. You see, at law school, professors don’t wait for someone to contribute to the class discussion. They call on people. So you’d better be ready.

Or not.

Class participation usually won’t figure into your final grade, so you can flub all your cold-calls, but you’d better have a high tolerance for public shaming.

One of the Legal Methods professors cold-called two unprepared students in a row and summarily kicked both of them out of class. Ouch.

My Legal Methods professor, let’s call him Professor D, never made a big deal about any unprepared students. I wasn’t sure what I thought about Professor D until the final day of class when he won me over. We both think that three years of law school is overkill.

For most law students, legal hiring happens one to two years before you graduate. This makes the expense of a third year at law school very questionable. Many, including our Constitutional Law Professor-in-Chief, think that we should get rid of the third year. Professor D seems to think that we could do without the other two as well. Swoon.

In D’s Legal Methods class we studied a death penalty case that he’s been working on for decades. We even got a call from the professor’s client during class. D thinks that, having made it through his Legal Methods class, we’re already prepared to go out and practice law. So if you ever kill someone in Alabama, let me know.

I start my day at 9 and I’m done with classes and reading by 5 or 6. There’s still free lunch every day, and the school is throwing us a huge party on Friday. Real classes aren’t too bad.

For more of Yuko’s law school journey see:

• Why I’m Going To Law School
• How I Chose Columbia Law
• What I Learned In Law School Admissions
• How I’m Preparing for Columbia Law School
• The Beginning of Law School

The results are in, and, for the second time in a row, the number of LSAT takers year-over-year is emphatically up. For the June 2015 exam, the number of test takers was up 6.6% over June 2014, and for the September/October 2015 exam, the number of test takers was up 7.4% over September/October 2014. This comes after a string of drops, often in the double-digits, between 2010 and 2014.

What does it all mean for those considering a career in the law? Well, first of all, there will quite obviously be an attendant uptick in law school applications. If you are considering applying to law school, you will likely be faced with a little more competition than last year’s applicants. Keep this increase in perspective, though: law school applications dropped dropped 38 percent between 2010 and 2015, so the pool of applicants overall will still be far smaller than it was five years ago.

What really matters – and what’s had law school aspirants worried for years now – is the job market for newly minted lawyers. I wish I could say that there’s a job waiting for every law school grad the second he or she steps off the dais at graduation. While that’s not the case, things have gotten better, and there is every reason to believe that they’ll continue to do so.

The recent data suggests a trend that’s positive, if for a less-than-positive reason. Within ten months of graduation, 71 percent of 2014 law school grads had secured a job that either required or preferred a JD. That was up from 67 percent the previous year. Before you pop the cork on that champagne, however, you should know that there weren’t actually more jobs available. Rather, the class of 2014 was 6 percent smaller than the class of 2013, which means that there were less graduates competing for a similar number of entry-level jobs.

The good news, however, is that this trend is likely to continue. According to the American Bar Association, the class of 2017 will be 27 percent smaller than the class of 2013. This has mostly to do with the financial catastrophe and attendant recession that peaked in 2010. Lots of people lost their jobs and headed for the safety of law school. And why wouldn’t they? A little debt and the prospect of lawyerly compensation in three years’ time sounds better than an unemployment check and a gaping, years-long hole in one’s resume. Total enrollment at ABA-approved law schools in 2010 was 147,525.

As the economy improved, however, that trend naturally reversed itself. In 2014, the number was less than 120,000. The circumstances that led to such huge law school enrollments are unlikely to repeat themselves anytime soon. Furthermore, it looks like the lure of law school is being eclipsed by the draw of engineering schools and other tech institutions. In other words, there’s little upward pressure on law school enrollments, and it’s likely that the recent glut of lawyers will continue to work itself out. Every year people exit the practice of law. They retire or change careers, and some die. There’s no reason to believe that any of that will change.

It seems that the bottom is here (but don’t hold me to that), and, as everyone knows, you should get in at the bottom of the market. Matriculation in 2016 means graduation in 2019, at which point the lawyerly glut will have, with a little luck, largely resolved itself. If you’ve been holding off on the decision to attend law school, now is the time to revisit the idea. 2019 or 2020 might just be the year you start a great career.