Do I even apply? Forum

[oakhan22]

21. Pakistani. LLB final year, University of London. 151 in LSAT. First try. And I have an excuse that my country doesnt have any material available on LSAT. I cant afford law school. 3.4 gpa. Chronic pain in left leg and lower back make sure I can never sit in an exam for too long. Work experience is good. Ran my colleges law clinic for a year. Can I get in anywhere, preferably with aid? I can manage a pretty amazing personal statement.

[JimmyHuang]

No chance, sorry.

[sinfiery]

Just because you can get in doesn't mean you should go.


Don't apply. Retake the LSAT or reconsider law school.

[BullShitWithBravado]

Maybe you could go to school in Pakistan, in the UK, anywhere other than the U.S. if it doesn't require spending a lot of money. Law school in the U.S. is ridiculously expensive and you won't necessarily get a job even if you get in. I also don't know how you would be able to work at a firm if you can't really sit for extended periods of time, which is something you would really need to think about.

If you're dead set on retaking the LSAT, maybe you can see if you can take the Kaplan course online. That's what I did and it worked great for me. You would just need to check whether or not you could take the classes from the U.K. or wherever you are at the moment and whether they would be able to ship the books to you.

[lawschoolsuccess]

21. Pakistani. LLB final year, University of London. 151 in LSAT. First try. And I have an excuse that my country doesnt have any material available on LSAT. I cant afford law school. 3.4 gpa. Chronic pain in left leg and lower back make sure I can never sit in an exam for too long. Work experience is good. Ran my colleges law clinic for a year. Can I get in anywhere, preferably with aid? I can manage a pretty amazing personal statement.

Don't be discouraged. Many of us who are in the States still do pretty poorly on the LSAT. I suggest you try to get some help studying for it online. You can probably fine a lot of great study aides for free if you do your research thoroughly. For me, succeeding on the LSAT was about repetition, repetition, repetition. I also took the exam twice.

Look for a regional school in the States if you're still interested in attending. These schools generally want to attract a diverse group of students (I think your background more than qualifies you) and scholarships are generally available for minority students.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to PM me. Good luck.

[francesfarmer]

21. Pakistani. LLB final year, University of London. 151 in LSAT. First try. And I have an excuse that my country doesnt have any material available on LSAT. I cant afford law school. 3.4 gpa. Chronic pain in left leg and lower back make sure I can never sit in an exam for too long. Work experience is good. Ran my colleges law clinic for a year. Can I get in anywhere, preferably with aid? I can manage a pretty amazing personal statement.

Don't be discouraged. Many of us who are in the States still do pretty poorly on the LSAT. I suggest you try to get some help studying for it online. You can probably fine a lot of great study aides for free if you do your research thoroughly. For me, succeeding on the LSAT was about repetition, repetition, repetition. I also took the exam twice.

Look for a regional school in the States if you're still interested in attending. These schools generally want to attract a diverse group of students (I think your background more than qualifies you) and scholarships are generally available for minority students.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to PM me. Good luck.

OP is not a URM.

You should definitely try to go to law school outside of the United States and then get an LLM here if you want to practice in the US. Its a much shorter program and therefore cheaper (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

[BullShitWithBravado]

Look for a regional school in the States if you're still interested in attending. These schools generally want to attract a diverse group of students (I think your background more than qualifies you) and scholarships are generally available for minority students.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to PM me. Good luck.

That seems like terrible advice. OP wouldn't even have any other ties to that regional school's market other than going to law school in the area. Also, trying to go for mostly regional firms would mean that OP would be unlikely to be able to leverage the fact that he/she is international because it's unlikely that many of those firms have international offices. Are you basing your advice on anything concrete?

[heythatslife]

LLB final year, University of London.

I cant afford law school.

Do you have any compelling reasons for seeking further legal education in the US?

And I have an excuse that my country doesnt have any material available on LSAT.

No, that's not really an excuse - at least, not in the 21st century. There are plenty of resources online; a lot of people these days rely almost exclusively on online resources and do well.

151 in LSAT... 3.4 gpa... Work experience is good. Ran my colleges law clinic for a year... I can manage a pretty amazing personal statement.

Law school admissions is a numbers game. Softs can only help so much.

The only scenario in which I can imagine it will be worth your time and money to go to a US law school for a JD degree is that you retake your LSAT and get a score above 170 so that you can get into a decent school and actually have a shot at a decent legal job.

[heythatslife]

Look for a regional school in the States if you're still interested in attending. These schools generally want to attract a diverse group of students (I think your background more than qualifies you) and scholarships are generally available for minority students.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to PM me. Good luck.

That seems like terrible advice. OP wouldn't even have any other ties to that regional school's market other than going to law school in the area. Also, trying to go for mostly regional firms would mean that OP would be unlikely to be able to leverage the fact that he/she is international because it's unlikely that many of those firms have international offices. Are you basing your advice on anything concrete?

+1

That is a TERRIBLE advice for international applicants such as the OP and myself.

Sure, a US citizen going to a Tier 2/3 law school and then getting a job with a local firm that pays $50~70k has done okay, provided one has minimized the cost of attending law school through scholarships and what not. Foreign applicants should not assume that this option will be available to them upon graduation, because a) they likely have no local connections, and b) most midlaw/shitlaw firms lack the resources and/or the willingness to sponsor a long-term work visa.

[suralin]

Don't go to law school in the U.S. unless you score in the 170s; you'll probably regret it.

[Nova]

Apply for LSAT accommodations from LSAC. Maybe a short break after each section would help.

Dont retake the test until you are PTing much higher though.

[Zoomie]

An excuse? How about just owning up to you got. 151. Oh well. Don't make excuses. Own up to you. Order some online. I'm sure they will ship to your country. There are Online resources as well.

[uvabro]

DON'T LISTEN. APPLY. LAW SCHOOLS WILL BE FORGIVING BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SHIP THINGS TO PAKISTAN UNLESS YOU SPEND RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF $ - THINK $20 A BOOK. YOU STILL GOT A 151 WHICH IS A GREAT SCORE BETTER THAN HALF OF TEST TAKERS, AND THE AVERAGE TEST TAKER OF THE LSAT IS A GENIUS. YOUR GRADES ARE GREAT. YOU CAN GO TO A TOP-14 OR REGIONAL ON A LARGE $$$$$. YOU'LL GET A JOB BECAUSE REGIONAL FIRMS LOVE HIRING NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS FROM DIFFERENT PLACES BECAUSE CLIENTS DON'T WANT LOCAL LAWYERS, BUT SEASONED ATTORNEYS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. WHENEVER I CALL AN ATTORNEY I ALWAYS HOPE TO HEAR A FOREIGN ACCENT BECAUSE THEN I KNOW I'M IN CARING AND EXPERIENCED HANDS BY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THEIR STUFF.

[BullShitWithBravado]

DON'T LISTEN. APPLY. LAW SCHOOLS WILL BE FORGIVING BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SHIP THINGS TO PAKISTAN UNLESS YOU SPEND RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF $ - THINK $20 A BOOK. YOU STILL GOT A 151 WHICH IS A GREAT SCORE BETTER THAN HALF OF TEST TAKERS, AND THE AVERAGE TEST TAKER OF THE LSAT IS A GENIUS. YOUR GRADES ARE GREAT. YOU CAN GO TO A TOP-14 OR REGIONAL ON A LARGE $$$$$. YOU'LL GET A JOB BECAUSE REGIONAL FIRMS LOVE HIRING NON-NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS FROM DIFFERENT PLACES BECAUSE CLIENTS DON'T WANT LOCAL LAWYERS, BUT SEASONED ATTORNEYS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES. WHENEVER I CALL AN ATTORNEY I ALWAYS HOPE TO HEAR A FOREIGN ACCENT BECAUSE THEN I KNOW I'M IN CARING AND EXPERIENCED HANDS BY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS THEIR STUFF.

lol.