Top Law Schools

2.2 from a state school, spent 3 years as a full-time rock climber, became a sommelier and ended up working at the #1 ranked restaurant in the world for 3 years. Left end of 2016, traveled the world for a year and got married, took the February LSAT because it was the only one I could schedule around my wedding and got a 180 and applied to 30 schools.

I got basically universal rejections/wait lists but I've been told that the late LSAT hurt me a lot and I'm reapplying. In the interim year I got a job at a tech company and I'm now director of partnership at a small (40 employee) tech company and a senior business analyst and head of enterprise marketing at another larger (150 employee) tech company (they're sort of affiliated).

I'd love any advice that I can get on being a re-applicant, a super-splitter, and an older applicant. My goal is to practice appellate and I'm told that there are only a few schools that can reasonably set you up for that. I'm applying to all of the top schools but I think I might have a good chance at UVA?

Applying late definitely hurt you. You've got the largest split I've ever seen, so I don't think there's any way to predict how you'll do. You've got great soft factors though. Your biggest hurdle (other than the GPA) will be convincing an admissions committee that you're actually interested in legal work (rather than just law school) and that you've thought it all the way through.

Appellate work is extremely tough to get, and even those that do it rarely do that alone. But it is also some of the most fun work to do. A fancy federal appellate clerkship is a prerequisite, so if you end up somewhere other than a T6 you'll need to be near the top of your class.

I don't have any real advice for you, but I hope you do well.

Pneumonia wrote: I don't have any real advice for you, but I hope you do well.

Thanks, Pneumonia. As a follow-up, what's the consensus on re-applicants? Does it hurt my chances at all to have applied last year?

deventine wrote:

Pneumonia wrote: I don't have any real advice for you, but I hope you do well.

Thanks, Pneumonia. As a follow-up, what's the consensus on re-applicants? Does it hurt my chances at all to have applied last year?

No, so long as you use a new PS.

QContinuum wrote: No, so long as you use a new PS.

I'd love to know your source on this. I'm not questioning its validity it's just that I've heard both sides ("submit your best PS, not necessarily a new one"/"submit a new PS no matter what") from all sorts of sources, even from calling in and speaking with admissions departments. It would be great to know if there's an actually strong consensus and what it's based on.

Try asking in the S p i v e y thread on the new site.

Pneumonia wrote:Try asking in the S p i v e y thread on the new site.

Would you mind linking me? I'm not that familiar with this site.

For a while it wasn't ok to post links on this site. I'm not sure whether that's still the case. But this link should show you some options:
https://blog.spiveyconsulting.com/law-school-forums/