deletd Forum

[ohbrotherlawschool]

TLS has been very helpful.But I think it does more harm than good.

It provides a place where insecure, bitter students can anonymously make snide remarks. It breeds an elitist, competitive, condescending group of people. Fewer and fewer people are honestly trying to help. There are so many people that, presumably because they lack real social interaction, lurk these forums, gleefully showing people how stupid they are and putting people down for having dumb questions.

THIS IS A FORUM FOR PEOPLE WITH DUMB QUESTIONS. Give it a rest, children.

This is a pretty accurate assessment of the place, but I don't think it does more harm than good. I've now just graduated from law school. I've long since forgotten my original user name, but made this new one just to answer this thread when I came across it while looking for free MPRE study guides.

So what I want to say is that even though I think that TLS is a douchey place where people give douchey advice I think it's helpful.

I came to law school to study human rights. TLS told me I was the biggest idiot on the face of the planet and that I would surely not succeed. They were wrong. I just graduated and I have a 65k (not much to others, but just what I wanted) job in the human rights field and my law school debt will be entirely paid by the LRAP program from my school.

Even though TLS gave me advice in a mean way and tried to discourage me from a career path that I desperately wanted, they didn't give me BAD ADVICE. It was good advice. I had a full ride to a T30 (including living expenses), and TLS convinced me to turn it down in favor of half price at CCN and that if I wanted human rights it would be like finding a needle in a haystack and that the number of jobs in the human rights field was incredibly small. All this was true. I would be in a waaaaay worse off if I had taken the full ride, and I would almost certainly not be able to work in the human rights field. TLS helped me navigate LRAP and decide if a public interest career would work for me and be doable with my debt load. TLS gave me good advice on the LSAT and on admissions in general.

Also, law school is full of douchebags. Just exploding from every corner. TLS was a great introduction into that culture in a very distilled and unfiltered way.

TLS does a disservice to non-traditional students and people not interested in big law. The majority of posters have a certain world view and enjoy beating people who don't have that world view over the head and making fun of them for living in a dream world. This is why I did not continue visiting TLS throughout law school, especially as their advice for people who want to do anything other than big law is not that helpful. But the information available on TLS is bar none the best available anywhere about law school.

[BigZuck]

TLS has been very helpful.But I think it does more harm than good.

It provides a place where insecure, bitter students can anonymously make snide remarks. It breeds an elitist, competitive, condescending group of people. Fewer and fewer people are honestly trying to help. There are so many people that, presumably because they lack real social interaction, lurk these forums, gleefully showing people how stupid they are and putting people down for having dumb questions.

THIS IS A FORUM FOR PEOPLE WITH DUMB QUESTIONS. Give it a rest, children.

This is a pretty accurate assessment of the place, but I don't think it does more harm than good. I've now just graduated from law school. I've long since forgotten my original user name, but made this new one just to answer this thread when I came across it while looking for free MPRE study guides.

So what I want to say is that even though I think that TLS is a douchey place where people give douchey advice I think it's helpful.

I came to law school to study human rights. TLS told me I was the biggest idiot on the face of the planet and that I would surely not succeed. They were wrong. I just graduated and I have a 65k (not much to others, but just what I wanted) job in the human rights field and my law school debt will be entirely paid by the LRAP program from my school.

Even though TLS gave me advice in a mean way and tried to discourage me from a career path that I desperately wanted, they didn't give me BAD ADVICE. It was good advice. I had a full ride to a T30 (including living expenses), and TLS convinced me to turn it down in favor of half price at CCN and that if I wanted human rights it would be like finding a needle in a haystack and that the number of jobs in the human rights field was incredibly small. All this was true. I would be in a waaaaay worse off if I had taken the full ride, and I would almost certainly not be able to work in the human rights field. TLS helped me navigate LRAP and decide if a public interest career would work for me and be doable with my debt load. TLS gave me good advice on the LSAT and on admissions in general.

Also, law school is full of douchebags. Just exploding from every corner. TLS was a great introduction into that culture in a very distilled and unfiltered way.

TLS does a disservice to non-traditional students and people not interested in big law. The majority of posters have a certain world view and enjoy beating people who don't have that world view over the head and making fun of them for living in a dream world. This is why I did not continue visiting TLS throughout law school, especially as their advice for people who want to do anything other than big law is not that helpful. But the information available on TLS is bar none the best available anywhere about law school.

Can you think a little harder about what your old username was and then link us to the thread where you got this douchey advice? I'm intrigued.

[hiima3L]

Pre-LS, I though TLS was overboard with its incessant too doom and gloom. Around the beginning of my 3L year, when I was looking at the prospect of graduating without a job with sizable debt, I realized that the general tenor and advice of TLS is brutally honest and realistic. I've made sure the handful of friends who have considered law school have spent a lot of time reading around TLS because to me it's hands down the best overall resource for prospective law school students. (Third Tier Reality is a close second.)

Since graduating in 2012, a relative flood of data from law schools has come out that wasn't too readily available in 08-09 when I was looking at schools. There was a fair amount of data on which you could make a reasonable decision (e.g., it has never made sense to go to TJSL), but the amount now is enormous. That data confirms the TLS echochamber. The difference in outcomes between T14 schools and everyone else is night and day (and I also know that to be true based on anecdotal experience of friends who went to or currently attend T14 schools).

Going to law school is an objectively terrible life choice for roughly 90% of law students based just on COA and job outcomes. It's probably higher when you account for how few people go into law school having any idea of what lawyers do or what they want to do as a lawyer.

TL;DR No. TLS is a fantastic resource.

[First Offense]

If it weren't for TLS, I wouldn't have bought Park Avenues. Who knows where I'd be now?

[bsktbll28082]

I like TLS. Convinced me transferring was the best option, even though you lose a lot going to a new school. I didn't really have a lot of lawyer friends before law school to talk about how things work. The guides on TLS for exams and such were helpful.

Encouraging you to transfer is example 1A of how TLS sucks.

It was the best decision for me, career-wise. I have meet many other students who were in the top of their class 1L year, but stayed at a tier 3 because "I made Law Review" and "I really like my study group."

[jbagelboy]

I like TLS. Convinced me transferring was the best option, even though you lose a lot going to a new school. I didn't really have a lot of lawyer friends before law school to talk about how things work. The guides on TLS for exams and such were helpful.

Encouraging you to transfer is example 1A of how TLS sucks.

It was the best decision for me, career-wise. I have meet many other students who were in the top of their class 1L year, but stayed at a tier 3 because "I made Law Review" and "I really like my study group."

okay but transferring is not always the best move; in fact, I'd argue it's rarely the best move when you're sacrificing a large scholarship, and I think many on TLS would agree with me (except some die hard pseudo-lurkers in the transfer board). I actually think you're more likely to get commercial magazine survey-driven advise about transferring and selecting schools outside of this website than on it.

[bsktbll28082]

okay but transferring is not always the best move; in fact, I'd argue it's rarely the best move when you're sacrificing a large scholarship, and I think many on TLS would agree with me (except some die hard pseudo-lurkers in the transfer board). I actually think you're more likely to get commercial magazine survey-driven advise about transferring and selecting schools outside of this website than on it.

Good point about the scholarship. I do think some people have other considerations which may make transferring not ideal (ie spouse needs employment). One size doesn't fit all.

[UnicornHunter]

okay but transferring is not always the best move; in fact, I'd argue it's rarely the best move when you're sacrificing a large scholarship, and I think many on TLS would agree with me (except some die hard pseudo-lurkers in the transfer board). I actually think you're more likely to get commercial magazine survey-driven advise about transferring and selecting schools outside of this website than on it.

Good point about the scholarship. I do think some people have other considerations which may make transferring not ideal (ie spouse needs employment). One size doesn't fit all.

No, I think you're confused. A spouse that needs employment is one of the few times when it makes sense to transfer. When you transfer, you give up all the contacts you've made at your old school, all the institutional support they might give you, and any scholarship you had. When you get to your new school, you're going to be compared with other people from your old school (i.e. if a firm had a grade cut-off for your old school, it will still apply at the new one).

[Johann]

I htink the general rule should be transferring to a T14 is the better choice and the exception is staying back these days.
They might ocmapre you to your old school at OCI, but I actually think the trend is reversing on this. when you have to dig deeper classes from the T14, you're grade cutoffs become pretty meaningless, and the firm determines what schools to interview at well before they know how deep into the class they will have to go. Obviously V10 firms have their pick of the litter, so they might not need to dig below cutoffs, but I can promise you even firms in the V20-30 range right now have abandoned gpa cutoffs -- they don't exist anymore for several firms.

But, even if it does matter at OCI, you'll be judged the rest of your career with your graduating school on your diploma and likely the employer will never even know you transferred from your orginal school.

Finally, re the sticker thing, it's basically a 1/3 scholly for a dumb fuck to the T14 (because paying 2 years rather than 3) rather than a full scholly to a T4. I'm skeptical the people on this board would propose taking a full scholly at a TTT or T4 rather than a 1/3 scholly at T14 even knowing youll graduate top5 or whatever. The transfer data the last few years seems very transfer friendly in job outcomes and also ability to trade up (i.e. median at WUSTL to T14), I think some people are behind the times on this board.

[jbagelboy]

I htink the general rule should be transferring to a T14 is the better choice and the exception is staying back these days.
They might ocmapre you to your old school at OCI, but I actually think the trend is reversing on this. when you have to dig deeper classes from the T14, you're grade cutoffs become pretty meaningless, and the firm determines what schools to interview at well before they know how deep into the class they will have to go. Obviously V10 firms have their pick of the litter, so they might not need to dig below cutoffs, but I can promise you even firms in the V20-30 range right now have abandoned gpa cutoffs -- they don't exist anymore for several firms.

But, even if it does matter at OCI, you'll be judged the rest of your career with your graduating school on your diploma and likely the employer will never even know you transferred from your orginal school.

Finally, re the sticker thing, it's basically a 1/3 scholly for a dumb fuck to the T14 (because paying 2 years rather than 3) rather than a full scholly to a T4. I'm skeptical the people on this board would propose taking a full scholly at a TTT or T4 rather than a 1/3 scholly at T14 even knowing youll graduate top5 or whatever. The transfer data the last few years seems very transfer friendly in job outcomes and also ability to trade up (i.e. median at WUSTL to T14), I think some people are behind the times on this board.

okay, transferring from a TTT/TTTT to a T14 is obviously different from transferring from, e.g., GW to Duke. If you can get out of a shit tier school, do it. But you can't tell me that a top 10% T30 grad with a fully ride is going to have worse options than a transfer to GULC at sticker, or that a top 10% cornell student with a huge scholarship will do better transferring to HLS or CLS at sticker. If you're already paying sticker, then fuck it, transfer. Obviously this stuff is relative. Anyway, this isn't a transfer thread.

[LawsRUs]

Generally no

[LitttUp]

Eh, the advice and stats and anecdotes and resources are all very helpful. It's when people's stock response to any question is "search the forum" or "0L, don't post here" or "TL;DR" or "Wow, I can't tell if you're being naive or just willingly stupid" or "if you're asking that question, you already have your answer" or responses in the same thread. I just don't understand why we can't be honest without being brutal. Why can't we be helpful without being mean?

[NoDayButToday]

.

[BigZuck]

Eh, the advice and stats and anecdotes and resources are all very helpful. It's when people's stock response to any question is "search the forum" or "0L, don't post here" or "TL;DR" or "Wow, I can't tell if you're being naive or just willingly stupid" or "if you're asking that question, you already have your answer" or responses in the same thread. I just don't understand why we can't be honest without being brutal. Why can't we be helpful without being mean?

You're completely oblivious to context here

Telling someone to run a search or "If you're asking that question, you already have your answer" can be the absolute perfect advice in a given situation

I think that the Internet and dealing with a-holes in real life has desensitized me to a lot of the "There's so many meanies here OMG you guyz!" that people are complaining about ITT

[First Offense]

As someone studying for the LSAT (or preparing), the advice is fantastic. It becomes progressively less useful as you go on through law school. After you get an offer it's probably functionally useless to negative.

[LitttUp]

Eh, the advice and stats and anecdotes and resources are all very helpful. It's when people's stock response to any question is "search the forum" or "0L, don't post here" or "TL;DR" or "Wow, I can't tell if you're being naive or just willingly stupid" or "if you're asking that question, you already have your answer" or responses in the same thread. I just don't understand why we can't be honest without being brutal. Why can't we be helpful without being mean?

You're completely oblivious to context here

Telling someone to run a search or "If you're asking that question, you already have your answer" can be the absolute perfect advice in a given situation

I think that the Internet and dealing with a-holes in real life has desensitized me to a lot of the "There's so many meanies here OMG you guyz!" that people are complaining about ITT

My point is that while "is you're asking that question, you already have your answer" might be the correct advice, TLS revels in delivering that advice in the least constructive way possible. The advice is good. The delivery is mean. Just because people are used to dealing with jerks doesn't give us free reign to be jerks is all I'm saying. We could do so much more good just by being better people to each other.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Generally, I agree with you, but I also think it's worth it for newbies to a community to lurk for a while to get a sense of what the community standards are, so that if they do ask a question they know how to parse answers like "retake." (I tend to think this is a good practice in life generally, actually.) Conversations in a locker room or a military barracks are (usually) different than conversations at Thanksgiving dinner; TLS is at one end of that spectrum, but it doesn't make the advice not genuine.

The regulars here sometimes forget that just because they've heard these questions all before, any given new person asking hasn't, so doesn't intend to be naive or obtuse or redundant. But at the same time, some new people don't realize that the people who hang around the on-topics have answered these questions a million times before, and may not always have patience for answering questions that can be readily answered with just a little reading around on the site. You also get the inevitable clashes when people who believe that a law school is a law school is a law school and lawyers make lots of money/save the world/jetset internationally get told they're wrong (they usually are), and when risk-averse, debt-averse traditionally achieving law students at top schools get confronted with people who've taken completely different life paths and have very different reasons for going to LS.

(To be honest, I think this is one of those contexts where that quote attributed to Gandhi makes the most sense: Be the change etc. etc.)

[LitttUp]

Generally, I agree with you, but I also think it's worth it for newbies to a community to lurk for a while to get a sense of what the community standards are, so that if they do ask a question they know how to parse answers like "retake." (I tend to think this is a good practice in life generally, actually.) Conversations in a locker room or a military barracks are (usually) different than conversations at Thanksgiving dinner; TLS is at one end of that spectrum, but it doesn't make the advice not genuine.

The regulars here sometimes forget that just because they've heard these questions all before, any given new person asking hasn't, so doesn't intend to be naive or obtuse or redundant. But at the same time, some new people don't realize that the people who hang around the on-topics have answered these questions a million times before, and may not always have patience for answering questions that can be readily answered with just a little reading around on the site. You also get the inevitable clashes when people who believe that a law school is a law school is a law school and lawyers make lots of money/save the world/jetset internationally get told they're wrong (they usually are), and when risk-averse, debt-averse traditionally achieving law students at top schools get confronted with people who've taken completely different life paths and have very different reasons for going to LS.

(To be honest, I think this is one of those contexts where that quote attributed to Gandhi makes the most sense: Be the change etc. etc.)

I agree. I also appreciate your measured, thoughtful, considerate, patient, constructive response.

[AT9]

Generally, I agree with you, but I also think it's worth it for newbies to a community to lurk for a while to get a sense of what the community standards are, so that if they do ask a question they know how to parse answers like "retake." (I tend to think this is a good practice in life generally, actually.) Conversations in a locker room or a military barracks are (usually) different than conversations at Thanksgiving dinner; TLS is at one end of that spectrum, but it doesn't make the advice not genuine.

The regulars here sometimes forget that just because they've heard these questions all before, any given new person asking hasn't, so doesn't intend to be naive or obtuse or redundant. But at the same time, some new people don't realize that the people who hang around the on-topics have answered these questions a million times before, and may not always have patience for answering questions that can be readily answered with just a little reading around on the site. You also get the inevitable clashes when people who believe that a law school is a law school is a law school and lawyers make lots of money/save the world/jetset internationally get told they're wrong (they usually are), and when risk-averse, debt-averse traditionally achieving law students at top schools get confronted with people who've taken completely different life paths and have very different reasons for going to LS.

(To be honest, I think this is one of those contexts where that quote attributed to Gandhi makes the most sense: Be the change etc. etc.)

This. Once you lurk around for a while, it becomes easier to sift through the bitter, resentful posts and the posts that actually contain genuine and helpful advice. And the advice you get pre-LS becomes extremely clear once you've lived through some of it. For instance...

"Retake" before spending enough time on TLS: You're only worthy of going to law school if you can score X points higher and go to Y school(s) (hence the apparent elitism), otherwise you're an idiot who needs to go back to your dead-end, shitty job at $30K a year forever.

"Retake" afterwards: Getting a better score, which you're almost certainly capable of doing, will put you in an infinitely better situation because less debt/better odds of attaining your goals.

I didn't take the retake advice and wish that I had. But, I still took lots of advice from TLS to heart, and I think I've benefited from it a ton. So much of the advice is spot on. And the extremely bitter, resentful posts are at least useful as a warning of what LS can be in really bad scenarios. Granted, TLS made me more of a skeptical, critical asshole, but I would almost certainly have been worse had I never found TLS.

[Nebby]

I transferred because of TLS, so that means it's probably a net negative upon the world.

[BigZuck]

Eh, the advice and stats and anecdotes and resources are all very helpful. It's when people's stock response to any question is "search the forum" or "0L, don't post here" or "TL;DR" or "Wow, I can't tell if you're being naive or just willingly stupid" or "if you're asking that question, you already have your answer" or responses in the same thread. I just don't understand why we can't be honest without being brutal. Why can't we be helpful without being mean?

You're completely oblivious to context here

Telling someone to run a search or "If you're asking that question, you already have your answer" can be the absolute perfect advice in a given situation

I think that the Internet and dealing with a-holes in real life has desensitized me to a lot of the "There's so many meanies here OMG you guyz!" that people are complaining about ITT

My point is that while "is you're asking that question, you already have your answer" might be the correct advice, TLS revels in delivering that advice in the least constructive way possible. The advice is good. The delivery is mean. Just because people are used to dealing with jerks doesn't give us free reign to be jerks is all I'm saying. We could do so much more good just by being better people to each other.

Sure, be the change etc.

But you're complaining about the Internet here. You're also overselling the revelry on TLS. Basically you're getting way, way too hung up on meanies. That's not good and on the Internet in 2015 that's kinda on you IMO.

[LitttUp]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdc[/youtube]

[storpappa]

TLS is full of truth - sometimes very cold hard and unfeeling. I like it, I like it very much.

Sugar coat kids in pre-K, not something as costly and consuming as law school

[storpappa]

FTFY - just the content code after the v=

[youtube]WpYeekQkAdc[/youtube]

[lavarman84]

I htink the general rule should be transferring to a T14 is the better choice and the exception is staying back these days.
They might ocmapre you to your old school at OCI, but I actually think the trend is reversing on this. when you have to dig deeper classes from the T14, you're grade cutoffs become pretty meaningless, and the firm determines what schools to interview at well before they know how deep into the class they will have to go. Obviously V10 firms have their pick of the litter, so they might not need to dig below cutoffs, but I can promise you even firms in the V20-30 range right now have abandoned gpa cutoffs -- they don't exist anymore for several firms.

But, even if it does matter at OCI, you'll be judged the rest of your career with your graduating school on your diploma and likely the employer will never even know you transferred from your orginal school.

Finally, re the sticker thing, it's basically a 1/3 scholly for a dumb fuck to the T14 (because paying 2 years rather than 3) rather than a full scholly to a T4. I'm skeptical the people on this board would propose taking a full scholly at a TTT or T4 rather than a 1/3 scholly at T14 even knowing youll graduate top5 or whatever. The transfer data the last few years seems very transfer friendly in job outcomes and also ability to trade up (i.e. median at WUSTL to T14), I think some people are behind the times on this board.

FWIW, I'm at a T1 school and I think I should have transferred. I love my school and my classmates but I have to work so much harder for the opportunities that a transfer would get at a t14. My school's OCI barely had any V50 firms. If I had transferred, I would have had OCI screeners with a lot of them.(as long as I didn't screw up bidding) Due to mass mailing, it is possible for me to get an offer from a top firm but I just didn't get the same exposure I would have at a higher ranked school.

The law school on my resume doesn't matter much to me but the much better job opportunities and exposure would have made a large difference.

So I do regret not casting my transfer net wider than HYSC.