Robert Rasmussen on Law School Admissions, Choosing a Law School, Rankings, and Legal Careers

^{Last Updated: September 2026}

Introduction

Choosing a law school is about much more than comparing rankings, LSAT medians, or employment statistics. Applicants are making a decision that can influence their education, professional network, geographic opportunities, and career trajectory for decades.

Robert K. Rasmussen, former dean of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has spent much of his academic career thinking about legal education and the profession lawyers enter after graduation. In this interview with Top-Law-Schools.com, Rasmussen discusses what applicants should look for in a law school, how admissions committees evaluate candidates, why location and alumni networks matter, how rankings should be interpreted, and what students can do to prepare for successful legal careers.

The original interview was conducted while Rasmussen was serving as dean of USC Gould. References that depended on the specific programs or economic conditions of that period have been condensed or reframed so that the discussion focuses on principles that remain useful to prospective and current law students.

Applicants beginning the process may also want to explore the broader Top-Law-Schools.com law school admissions resources for guidance on applications, essays, the LSAT, school research, and other admissions topics.

What Makes a Strong Law School Applicant?

TLS: What qualities should a law school look for in an ideal applicant?

Robert Rasmussen: Strong law schools seek students with intellectual ability, accomplishment, motivation, and the potential to contribute something meaningful to the academic community.

Academic performance and standardized testing can provide useful information about whether a student is prepared for demanding legal study, but they do not tell the entire story. A law school class benefits when its students bring different experiences, interests, ambitions, and perspectives into the classroom.

Applicants should therefore avoid thinking about themselves only as a GPA and test score. Their application should help the admissions committee understand what motivates them, what they have accomplished, how they have responded to challenges, and what perspective they would contribute to their classmates.

Some students may hope to use their legal training in public service. Others may be interested in business, litigation, government, academia, or another professional path. What matters is demonstrating genuine purpose and the ability to succeed in a rigorous professional environment.

What Is the Most Important Advice for Law School Applicants?

TLS: What advice would you give someone preparing to apply to law school?

Robert Rasmussen: Be authentic.

Admissions committees typically evaluate the entire application. Grades and test scores matter, but applicants also have opportunities through their personal statements, resumes, recommendations, and other materials to show qualities that numbers cannot capture.

Trying to construct an artificial persona based on what you think an admissions committee wants can make an application less persuasive. A stronger approach is to explain your experiences and goals clearly and demonstrate what you would add to the law school community.

Your personal statement is particularly important because it gives you an opportunity to provide context and personality that may not appear elsewhere in the application. Top-Law-Schools.com provides extensive guidance on writing an effective law school personal statement, as well as advice for preparing a professional law school resume.

Applicants should also give themselves enough time to approach the process carefully. The law school application timeline can help prospective students think through the major stages involved in preparing an application.

How Should Admitted Students Prepare for Their First Year of Law School?

TLS: Once admitted, what should students do to prepare for 1L?

Robert Rasmussen: Students should arrive prepared to commit themselves fully to their legal education.

The first year of law school is demanding because students are learning not only new legal rules but also new ways of reading, analyzing, writing, and reasoning. Professors and classmates will challenge assumptions and require students to evaluate problems from different perspectives.

There is no need to arrive knowing everything about the law. More important qualities are curiosity, discipline, resilience, and a willingness to engage seriously with the material.

Law school should be treated as a professional education rather than simply another academic credential. Students who approach it with that mindset are better positioned to take advantage of professors, classmates, clinics, journals, internships, professional organizations, and other opportunities that can shape their careers.

What Should Students Consider When Choosing a Law School?

TLS: What factors should an admitted student examine before deciding which law school to attend?

Robert Rasmussen: Reputation and academic quality are important, but prospective students should evaluate a much broader set of factors.

Consider the faculty. Consider the students with whom you will study. Look at the school's academic offerings, professional opportunities, alumni network, location, culture, class size, experiential programs, career services, and the types of employers that recruit its graduates.

Cost and anticipated debt should also be considered alongside likely career opportunities.

Most importantly, remember that you are deciding where you will spend several formative years and which professional community you will join.

A ranking may help identify schools worth investigating, but it cannot tell you everything you need to know about whether a particular law school is right for you.

Why Does Location Matter When Choosing a Law School?

TLS: How important is a law school's location?

Robert Rasmussen: Location can matter in several ways.

First, law schools located near substantial legal markets may have greater opportunities to involve practicing attorneys in courses, clinics, externships, professional events, and mentorship. Exposure to practicing lawyers can help students understand how academic concepts operate in real legal settings.

Second, geography may influence internship and employment opportunities. A school with deep relationships in a particular city or region can provide students with access to employers and alumni who know the institution well.

Third, students should consider where they actually want to live. Law school represents several years of their lives, and their environment can have a meaningful effect on the overall experience.

Applicants who hope to practice in a particular market should investigate where graduates actually work rather than assuming that every law school's degree has identical geographic reach.

Does Law School Size Matter?

TLS: Should applicants pay attention to the size of a law school?

Robert Rasmussen: Yes. Large and small law schools can offer different experiences, and neither model is automatically better for every student.

At a smaller school, students may have more opportunities to know a significant percentage of their classmates and develop close relationships with faculty. Those relationships can improve the educational experience while also creating opportunities for mentorship, recommendations, research, and career advice.

Larger institutions may offer their own advantages, including broad course selections, extensive student organizations, larger alumni populations, and a wide variety of academic opportunities.

Applicants should ask themselves what kind of environment allows them to perform at their best.

The question should not simply be, "Which school is bigger or more prestigious?" It should be, "Where am I most likely to build meaningful relationships, obtain the education I want, and prepare effectively for my career?"

Why Is a Law School's Alumni Network Important?

TLS: How much weight should students give a school's alumni network?

Robert Rasmussen: Alumni should be an important part of the evaluation.

Students attend law school for only a few years, but they remain alumni for the rest of their professional lives.

An engaged alumni network can help graduates in many ways. Alumni may introduce students to employers, provide career advice, serve as mentors, make professional referrals, help lawyers enter new markets, and eventually become colleagues, clients, or sources of business.

Applicants evaluating law schools should therefore look beyond the number of alumni a school has. They should consider where those graduates work, whether they remain involved with the institution, and whether the network is particularly strong in the locations or fields that interest them.

Professional relationships matter throughout a legal career, and the relationships that begin in law school can remain valuable long after graduation.

How Should Applicants Evaluate USC Gould and Other Law Schools?

TLS: What should applicants look at when comparing USC Gould with other strong law schools?

Robert Rasmussen: Applicants should resist the temptation to treat similarly ranked schools as interchangeable.

Every law school develops its own combination of faculty strengths, student culture, institutional relationships, location, alumni network, class size, and professional opportunities.

For USC Gould, its location in Los Angeles and its connection to the broader University of Southern California have historically provided students access to a significant legal market, an extensive university community, and a large alumni network.

But the same analytical method applies no matter which schools a student is comparing.

Ask specific questions:

Where do graduates actually practice?
Which employers consistently recruit students?
How accessible are professors?
What clinics and experiential opportunities are available?
What is the student culture like?
How strong is the alumni network in the market where you want to work?
What will attendance cost after scholarships and financial aid?
How well does the school support the career path you are considering?

A thoughtful comparison requires more than looking at two numbers in a ranking table.

Students debating competing offers can also learn from discussions in the TLS Choosing a Law School forum.

Why Is Interdisciplinary Legal Education Valuable?

TLS: What academic qualities can distinguish a strong law school?

Robert Rasmussen: Legal problems rarely exist in isolation.

Strong lawyers often need to understand economics, business, technology, psychology, history, public policy, finance, or other disciplines depending on their practice. A law school connected to a larger research university can give students opportunities to encounter ideas and people beyond the law school itself.

Students should examine whether a school encourages interdisciplinary study and whether they can take advantage of resources elsewhere in the university.

They should also investigate the depth of the faculty in areas they may want to explore. Applicants do not need to know their future specialty before enrolling, but they should understand the range of academic opportunities available to them.

Why Do Clinics and Experiential Programs Matter?

TLS: How important is practical legal training?

Robert Rasmussen: Legal education should connect intellectual understanding with the realities of practice.

Clinics, externships, simulations, legal writing courses, moot court programs, journals, and other experiential opportunities can allow students to work on problems that resemble the work lawyers actually perform.

Depending on the program, students might gain experience in litigation, transactional work, client counseling, negotiation, mediation, government, public interest work, intellectual property, immigration, business law, or other fields.

These experiences can help students determine which type of work they enjoy while also developing practical skills that employers value.

Students should therefore ask not merely whether a school has clinics, but what students actually do in those programs and how accessible those opportunities are.

How Much Should Law School Rankings Matter?

TLS: What role should rankings play when students evaluate law schools?

Robert Rasmussen: Rankings are part of the landscape, and applicants understandably pay attention to them. The mistake is treating a ranking as a complete measurement of educational quality or career opportunity.

Any ranking simplifies a complicated institution into a single position. That number cannot fully represent faculty quality, culture, geographic strength, alumni engagement, specialized programs, professional networks, student experience, or individual fit.

Students should use rankings as one source of information rather than the final answer.

Investigate the methodology behind a ranking. Then research the factors that matter for your own goals.

Top-Law-Schools.com examines this issue further in US News Top 200 Law Schools: Do Rankings Even Matter?. Applicants interested in different approaches to evaluating schools can also read the Brian Leiter interview on law school rankings and academic quality.

Ultimately, the goal is not to attend the school with the most attractive number. It is to make an informed decision about the school that offers the strongest combination of education, opportunity, cost, and fit for you.

Why Does Diversity Matter in Legal Education?

TLS: What does diversity contribute to the law school classroom?

Robert Rasmussen: Legal education benefits when students encounter people whose backgrounds and experiences differ from their own.

Law frequently requires lawyers to understand how rules affect different people and institutions. Students who encounter different perspectives in classroom discussions may see dimensions of a legal problem that they otherwise would have overlooked.

Diversity can involve many forms of experience and perspective. Economic background, culture, geography, professional experience, military service, age, disability, intellectual interests, community involvement, and numerous other life experiences can influence the way people understand legal questions.

That matters beyond law school as well.

Lawyers communicate with clients, colleagues, judges, juries, regulators, business leaders, government officials, and communities whose experiences may be very different from their own. Learning to listen to and communicate effectively with different people is therefore an important professional skill.

What Should Applicants Write About in an Optional Perspective or Diversity Statement?

TLS: What advice would you give applicants who are unsure whether they have something meaningful to contribute in an optional statement?

Robert Rasmussen: Do not begin by trying to fit yourself into a category.

Instead, think about the experiences that have shaped how you understand people, institutions, problems, or the law.

Ask yourself what perspective you would bring to a law school classroom. What have you experienced that influences the way you approach difficult questions? What have you learned from your family, work, education, community, service, responsibilities, or challenges?

The strongest statement will usually come from genuine reflection rather than an attempt to manufacture a dramatic story.

The same principle that applies to the personal statement applies here: authenticity is more persuasive than trying to guess what an admissions committee wants to hear.

What Role Do Law Review and Legal Writing Play?

TLS: Why should students consider journals and other writing opportunities?

Robert Rasmussen: Strong writing is fundamental to legal practice.

Law journals and writing competitions can give students experience researching complicated issues, developing arguments, editing closely, and working collaboratively. They may also provide opportunities to develop relationships with professors and other students.

Journal participation is not the only route to professional success, but students should take seriously any opportunity that improves their research, writing, analytical, and editing skills.

Those skills remain valuable whether a graduate ultimately enters litigation, transactional practice, government, public interest work, academia, or another legal field.

What Should Students Look for in Law School Culture?

TLS: How important is student culture when selecting a school?

Robert Rasmussen: Culture can significantly affect the quality of a student's experience.

Law school is demanding. Students benefit from being surrounded by classmates who challenge them intellectually without treating every interaction as a contest.

Applicants should investigate whether the atmosphere is collaborative, whether professors are accessible, whether students support one another, and whether the school provides opportunities to form meaningful relationships.

Campus visits can be especially useful because culture is difficult to understand from statistics.

Talk to current students. Attend a class if possible. Observe how students interact with one another and with faculty. Ask what they like and what they would change.

The TLS Law School Visits forum can also provide perspectives from applicants and students who have visited different schools.

How Should Law Students Respond to a Changing Legal Job Market?

TLS: How should students prepare for changes in legal hiring?

Robert Rasmussen: Students should take an active rather than passive approach to career development.

On-campus interviewing and posted openings can be useful, but they should never represent the entirety of a student's job search strategy.

Students should define their professional interests, build relationships with alumni and practicing lawyers, develop strong application materials, improve interviewing skills, seek mentors, and investigate employers independently.

They should also remain flexible.

The legal market changes over time. Different practice areas, firm sizes, industries, and geographic markets expand and contract. Students who understand their skills and build genuine professional relationships will generally be better prepared to respond to those changes.

LawCrossing's guide to building career clarity as a law student discusses how self-assessment, experience, mentorship, and strategic planning can help students make better career decisions. Students preparing to enter the market can also review strategies for successfully landing legal jobs.

What Should Law Students Do During Their Summers?

TLS: How should students use their 1L and 2L summers?

Robert Rasmussen: Summer employment can serve several purposes.

A first-year summer can expose students to different forms of legal work through judicial chambers, government agencies, public interest organizations, law firms, research positions, corporations, or other legal settings.

Students should not assume there is only one acceptable type of 1L summer experience. The goal should be to obtain meaningful exposure, improve legal skills, establish professional relationships, and learn more about the kind of work that interests them.

The second summer often becomes more closely connected to post-graduation employment, particularly for students pursuing law firm careers. That makes early career exploration valuable.

Students who begin thinking about their careers before graduation can make more strategic decisions about courses, internships, networking, and professional development. LawCrossing's career planning guide for law students provides additional guidance on connecting law school decisions with longer-term career goals.

Can Graduates Work Outside the Region Where They Attend Law School?

TLS: Should students worry that attending a school with a strong regional identity will limit them geographically?

Robert Rasmussen: Applicants should research geographic placement carefully rather than relying on assumptions.

Some law schools have particularly deep networks in certain regions. Others send large numbers of graduates throughout the country. Even at nationally recognized schools, geography can influence recruiting patterns because alumni relationships and employer familiarity tend to be strongest in particular markets.

If you already know where you want to practice, investigate whether a school's graduates regularly obtain jobs there.

Look at alumni concentrations, employer recruiting, externship opportunities, career-service resources, and actual graduate outcomes.

Students who want to enter a market outside their school's primary region may need to be more proactive about networking and demonstrating genuine ties to that market. That does not necessarily make the move impossible; it means students should understand the path they will need to take.

What Is the Most Important Advice for Choosing a Law School and Building a Legal Career?

TLS: What final advice would you give applicants, law students, and future attorneys?

Robert Rasmussen: Treat law school as an investment in your professional future.

That investment involves money, but it also involves something even more valuable: your time.

Do not choose a school solely because of a ranking, a familiar name, or someone else's definition of prestige. Determine what you want from your legal education and investigate which institution is most capable of providing it.

Once you enroll, participate fully. Develop relationships with professors. Learn from classmates. Improve your writing. Seek practical experience. Build your network. Explore different types of legal work. Take advantage of the resources surrounding you.

The value of a legal education is not limited to the diploma received at graduation. Much of its long-term value comes from the knowledge, skills, relationships, judgment, and professional opportunities developed along the way.

Key Takeaways from Robert Rasmussen's Law School Advice

Rasmussen's broader message remains useful for applicants and law students because it encourages students to evaluate legal education as a long-term professional decision rather than a competition over rankings alone.

Prospective students should look beyond numerical credentials when presenting themselves to admissions committees and beyond numerical rankings when evaluating schools. Location, cost, faculty access, academic programs, practical training, student culture, alumni relationships, and employment opportunities may all affect the value of the experience.

Once in law school, students should become active participants in their professional development. Networking, mentorship, practical experience, writing ability, career exploration, and relationships with faculty and classmates can ultimately matter as much as many of the factors applicants obsess over before enrolling.

The larger lesson is simple: choosing a law school is not merely about deciding where to study for three years. It is about choosing an educational and professional community that can influence the rest of your legal career.

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