Top Law Schools

Hey guys. I recently found this forum and I really like the honest feedback people give, so thanks in advance.

Background:

I have a 3.3 gpa. However, a few people from my uni have gone on to law school. LSAC has always raised the gpa from our schools because of our notoriously rigorous schedule and difficult classes. The other guys I've talked to say they should at least get it up to a 3.4.

I recently took an lsat pt, stone cold. I have yet to even crack the spine on a prep book and pulled a 151. My law school friend said that means I should definitely put in a few month of real study and I might be able to crack the 170s.

I have lots of really good softs. Hundreds of volunteer hours abroad. 5 years teaching English in Korea. Military service by the time applications start rolling out.

The Plan:

I strap myself to a chair a few days a week for the next year in prep to take the real thing next Sept/Oct (2012.) That gives me over a year to study for the test and loads of time to write letters and essays for a bunch of schools. No "I want to study at X" and just fill in the blanks.

My goal is to do well enough I get offered a free ride somewhere. Now, I know that will not happen at a t14. So I'm not even setting my sights that high. Ideally, I want to make myself attractive enough to get accepted into nicer schools, but leverage that into getting a free trip to a state or public school.

Now, location doesn't really matter, because here's the catch....

...I don't really want to be a lawyer. I'm a politician at heart guys. It's in my blood. I knew when I was 17 I would one day run for office. I was the only high school junior that came home after debate team practice to watch cspan. (Btw, I'm 27 now.)

I say location won't matter because I will likely end up running for congress near where I went to law school. If I can get through school with no debt (or little debt and have the army pay the balance) then I don't have to go on the hunt for biglaw jobs out of state or struggle to pay back loans. I can set up a family practice or work for the state - which looks much better to voters. The only location I would pass up would be somewhere in the deep south (ironically I'm from Alabama, but Bama voters don't tend to elect pro-choice liberals that don't go to church.)

So, how does that sound? Reasonable? Could a 3.4/170 get a free ride anywhere, even a lower T1 or T2?


Btw, I don't want to discredit real lawyers. I know some of you guys go to school because you want to work for justice. And that's great. But as I see it, law school is like in investment. But unless you graduate top 10% in your class at a t14 school, I don't really see how that investment will pay off inside of a decade. So, either I get a full (or near full) scholarship somewhere, of I find a different way to the House or Senate.

tl;dr

Here's what TLS sees:

3.3 GPA.

No LSAT.

Soooo...study hard for the LSAT, and good luck. You're going to need a hell of a GPA to break the T14 with that GPA, though your work experience may take some of the sting out of it.

I don't think any of us have personal insights to offer about your plan to use law school as a platform into politics. After you have a LSAT score we can offer a lot more in terms of law school admissions chances though.

If you just want to go into politics, don't go to law school. There are numerous other avenues into the political area that don't involve spending $$$ and 3 years of your life. You will be no more in a position in three years with a JD to run for office than you will be right now.

weso1 wrote: LSAC has always raised the gpa from our schools because of our notoriously rigorous schedule and difficult classes.

LSAC doesn't do this.

Bildungsroman wrote:

weso1 wrote: LSAC has always raised the gpa from our schools because of our notoriously rigorous schedule and difficult classes.

LSAC doesn't do this.

+1

The only scenario I see this happening in is +/- discrepancies on the LSAC scale compared to your school's scale (i.e. if you have A+s on your transcript and your school calculates A+s as 4.0, your LSAC GPA will be a bit higher since LSAC calculates A+s as 4.33). LSAC never weighs a GPA higher or lower because of how "notoriously rigorous" your schedule was. UofChicago and Harvard Econ majors (some of the most "notoriously rigorous" schedules) get their LSAC GPAs calculated on the same scale as a leisure studies major at local state U gets theirs.

Also, a JD is not a prerequisite for politics in this day and age. I worked with a couple campaigns while I was in college and the small business owner beats out the lawyer in almost every poll we did but it is possible that your future constituency will be different. Military service tends to help you MUCH more than a JD. I would do some serious research before jumping to the conclusion that, like 30 years ago, people still want to elect lawyers.

weso1 wrote:Could a 3.4/170 get a free ride anywhere, even a lower T1 or T2?"

I can't see that being a problem. However, you need to show serious interest (use your politician skills to convince them that you are not going to attend a higher ranked school) so you don't get yield protected away if you apply with a 170 LSAT.

good advice from everyone else here. If you scored in the 150s you could conceivably reach the 170s if you begin training at least 6 months ahead. 1 year seems like overkill. Logic games can be learned well within a month or two if you are diligent. They require just the application of certain diagramming rules which end up being rather methodical. For the logical reasoning questions learning to deal with necessity and sufficiency is another hurdle many LSAT takers must overcome, as well as time management, which is one of the most important skills. There are already a ton of great guides on TLS to refer to. I still think 1 year is overmuch.
For the record, I studied on and off for a year (the total amount of days/hours I spent studying was well below a year, however) and took it twice. Before taking it officially my cold attempt garnered me a 154. I received a 159 on the first official attempt, and a 165 on the second, though I was PTing between 168 and 171. Test day is all sorts of stress. And of course, supposing we all have our individual ceilings, they won't be apparent before we hit them, so good luck.

Unlike other members here I don't think law school is a mistake for those who aspire to eventually pursue politics, though you'd probably have to work for at least a few years as an attorney of some sort before politics becomes available to you. If you don't want to do any lawyering whatsoever, however, going to law school may not work in your interests.

172+ on LSAT. Enjoy NW

Plan sucks HTH

Americans dont like career politicians, and now youve put your career politicianing on the internet.

Your life is over.

The people you know in real life are giving you all sorts of inaccurate info.

Work on a campaign brah.

johansantana21 wrote:The people you know in real life are giving you all sorts of inaccurate info.

When you gunna start hurlin again homie? We miss you.

Grizz wrote:Work on a campaign brah.

Seriously, do this at the very least before committing to attending law school just for the political boost. As others have said, law school is not much of a boost in politics anymore and would be overshadowed by your military service. So I strongly suggest getting involved in politics before making this decision. As someone who was heavily involved and has gone cold turkey since moving to a different state, I can tell you that the political atmosphere is extremely toxic right now and if you try to jump in cold, you could very quickly find out that it's not for you. I kind of miss politics, but my life is so much better now that I'm free from that horrible world. We've become a tone-deaf, self-serving nation that is perfectly fine with bankrupting the country in the service of a minor political edge. Watching C-SPAN in high school could hardly be less similar to running for office. (Not to mention it's the oldest cliche in the book. I would drop that if I were you.) </rant>