Top Law Schools

Hey I was looking over this: http://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-books.html for books pertaining to admissions and school specific profiles (ie what the culture is like, what programs are best, what deans look for) and the books offered on there seem a bit dated.

First of all is that a problem? Would using a 10 year old (or even newer) law school application guide make a big difference?

Also did people who applied this cycle find any particular books helpful? Just looking for something with personal statement advice, addendum advice as well as school profiles that go beyond class size and LSAT #'s

how to get into the top law schools.

i thought it was useful. especially for writing personal statements. gets you to ask yourself a lot of questions that will help you uncover what you should write about, the tone you want to set, etc.

Honestly, everything you need can be found on TLS.

The books tend to overstate the importance of PS/soft factors.

Just peruse the TLS articles (ie there is a great one on writing Personal Statements, and theres a forum specifically for correcting/editing Personal statements at your disposal).

totally agreed. tls is probably the most informative place to start.

but, for people like me who can't be online without wasting away idling hours of blogs and videos and facebook chats and then forget the reason they opened their computer in the first place ..... the book is not so bad either.

How to Get into Top Law Schools is a good book. There is another book, I forget what it is called. It is sold at Borders and is small and thin. It is brown. It was a decent book on personal statements.

Do not waste money on a book. Please donate that money to charity. Or buy something else for yourself.

Everything you want to know about the process can be found on this forum. In fact, the books probably overvalue soft factors because "LSAT AND GPA BOOM END OF STORY" wouldn't fill as many pages.

Please.

"The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions" by Anne Ivey

TLS is good, but a lot of the advice isn't applicable to everyone... The book is really honest and maintains that while GPA/LSAT are far and away the most important factors they're not the end all and be all of law school admissions.

The books found at the library are better then this forum. Although, the forum is good for school profiles and some of the diversity personal statements were strong.

However, a fast majority of posters on this site think too highly of themselves and act like you need to get into a T14 to have any reasonable life as a lawyer.