The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School Forum

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Alex-Trof

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by Alex-Trof » Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:45 pm

Desert Fox wrote:Nobody cares you taught school for 2 years. It's not hard.
I respectfully disagree.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/after-th ... tnerships/

It seems like many grad schools show interests in TFA people, giving all those fee waivers and scholarships.

Teaching as just spending time in a classroom may not be hard, teaching well in a bad school is very hard.

bdubs

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by bdubs » Thu Mar 10, 2011 6:59 pm

Desert Fox wrote:Nobody cares you taught school for 2 years. It's not hard.
TFA tends to attract the same people that law school attracts, over achievers who do well in irrelevant subjects and have bleeding hearts. Those people compete pretty vigorously for those spots, so it's an easy way for law schools to weed out the good "save the world" applicants from the bad ones.

09042014

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by 09042014 » Thu Mar 10, 2011 7:46 pm

bdubs wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:Nobody cares you taught school for 2 years. It's not hard.
TFA tends to attract the same people that law school attracts, over achievers who do well in irrelevant subjects and have bleeding hearts. Those people compete pretty vigorously for those spots, so it's an easy way for law schools to weed out the good "save the world" applicants from the bad ones.
The flaw in your reasoning is that you think law schools care about save the world types.

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powerlawyer06

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by powerlawyer06 » Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:21 pm

Alex-Trof wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:Nobody cares you taught school for 2 years. It's not hard.
I respectfully disagree.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/after-th ... tnerships/

It seems like many grad schools show interests in TFA people, giving all those fee waivers and scholarships.

Teaching as just spending time in a classroom may not be hard, teaching well in a bad school is very hard.
I believe TFA is better than nothing but there are other things you could do that will look better on your resume. My best friend in UG went to do TFA and I went into the corporate world a couple years ago. She got done after two years and applied to law schools. She got into some good schools but only one T14. She ended up taking a modest scholarship at a T50. I have identical stats as her (same LSAT, .12 lower UGPA, same ethnic background) and I got into several T14s and was offered a bigger scholarship than her at her school. The only major difference we can see between our applications (besides gender) was her TFA experience and my corporate finance experience and managerial position in finance. She is also a better writer than me so I don't think it was her PS.

TFA is good but I think law schools get a ton of former TFA applicants so substancial professional or managerial experience may make you more competitive. But like I said, TFA is definitely better than no experience/bartending job after UG.

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Alex-Trof

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by Alex-Trof » Thu Mar 10, 2011 11:39 pm

powerlawyer06 wrote:
Alex-Trof wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:Nobody cares you taught school for 2 years. It's not hard.
I respectfully disagree.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/after-th ... tnerships/

It seems like many grad schools show interests in TFA people, giving all those fee waivers and scholarships.

Teaching as just spending time in a classroom may not be hard, teaching well in a bad school is very hard.
I believe TFA is better than nothing but there are other things you could do that will look better on your resume. My best friend in UG went to do TFA and I went into the corporate world a couple years ago. She got done after two years and applied to law schools. She got into some good schools but only one T14. She ended up taking a modest scholarship at a T50. I have identical stats as her (same LSAT, .12 lower UGPA, same ethnic background) and I got into several T14s and was offered a bigger scholarship than her at her school. The only major difference we can see between our applications (besides gender) was her TFA experience and my corporate finance experience and managerial position in finance. She is also a better writer than me so I don't think it was her PS.

TFA is good but I think law schools get a ton of former TFA applicants so substancial professional or managerial experience may make you more competitive. But like I said, TFA is definitely better than no experience/bartending job after UG.
Moral of the story, don't do TFA if you are doing it to get accepted to a better law school. The AdCom will smell your BS out even if you end up doing a good job as a corps member.

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spets

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by spets » Fri Mar 11, 2011 3:19 pm

Wish I had read this a year ago.

lawloser22

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by lawloser22 » Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:14 am

rad law wrote:
lawloser22 wrote:Nashville and LA are large legal markets.
lol no
Just came across my source (from pg. 17/20 of the final 2010 OCI thread):
vamedic03 wrote:Some data for the silly primary versus secondary market discussion:

(Note the large dropoff after LA)

NLJ 250 2010 was released last week. Here are the largest 18 legal markets (for large firms) with number of NLJ 250 lawyers:

1) NYC - 21250

2) DC - 13004

3) Chicago - 7247

4) LA - 5462

5) SF - 3729

6) Boston - 3699

7) Philly - 2984

8) Atlanta - 2974

9) Dallas - 2790

10) Houston - 2732

11) Minneapolis - 1630

12) Miami - 1278

13) Denver - 1242

14) STL - 1227

15) Kansas City - 1194

16) Phoenix - 1084

17) Seattle - 1046

17) Nashville - 749

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Mickey Quicknumbers

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by Mickey Quicknumbers » Sun Mar 20, 2011 4:26 am

Not bad, but there are still a ton of holes in it.

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Saul Goodman

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by Saul Goodman » Sun Mar 20, 2011 1:32 pm

This should be changed to "The T13 Things to Know Before Going to Law School," in light of recent USN Rankings...

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gothamm

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Re: The Top 14 Things to Know Before Going to Law School

Post by gothamm » Mon Mar 21, 2011 7:05 am

solid advice..

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