Archive for February, 2012

If you’ve got your sights set on a top law school, don’t miss our latest podcast, Getting Into a Top Law School: What It Takes To Join the Elite. 

Law School Podcaster Host, Diana Jordan, interviewed admissions deans from some of the most prestigious law schools, and a leading author/consultant, to find out what sets the top-tier schools apart and how you can aim high and nail your target — if that’s what you want.

And that’s important.  Our guests all say,  first make sure an elite school is what you really want and that it fits with your career and educational goals.

Rankings and reputation aside, there are some very good reasons to aim high.  Michigan’s Dean Sarah Zearfoss says elite law schools will position you better for certain jobs in the legal field. “There are some jobs, like legal academia or certain kinds of clerkships that you simply aren’t going to be able to get to if you haven’t gone to an elite school. There are other jobs that you can break into from a number of schools, but your chances are much higher. And of course, beyond that very practical consideration, there’s the quality of your education. You are going to be training alongside some of the best minds in your generation at the best schools, and we think that’s going to make you a better lawyer.”

If you decide that a top school is what you really want, then apply!  Your numbers (LSAT and GPA) will be vitally important, but they are not the entire story.  Too often, prospective students just look at the median, instead of also at the 25 percentile. 

Michigan’s Dean Zearfoss says that the top law schools are less fixated on the numbers than you might expect. “Because of the size of their pool and the success with which they recruit people, you have a little more freedom to look beyond the numbers at the top schools. So once you’re convinced that someone can do the work, you’re trying to decide what they’re going to contribute to the classroom dialogue, and what kind of future they’re going to have as a professional. So, it’s likely to boil down to, you know, an assessment of those factors. So, you know, we look for work experience, or an indication of leadership ability, or a commitment to a particular field or cause, or in some cases, just simply looking for smarts that aren’t reflected in the scores. So, for that you might look at the impressions you get from the quality of someone’s writing, or the tenor of recommendation letters.

You’ll also hear from the following guests:

• Ann Perry, Associate Dean for Admissions, The University of Chicago Law School
• Renee Post, Associate Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid, The University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Chloe Reid, Associate Dean & Dean of Admissions, University of Southern California, Gould School of Law
• Richard Montauk, Admissions Consultant & Author, How to Get Into the Top Law Schools

Listen to the full show to hear more!

When thinking about legal career specialties, the first thing that comes to mind for many people is a criminal attorney – a lawyer who defends the accused or prosecutes him/her.  But for current and future law students, there are dozens of other interesting practice areas to consider (like banking, corporate, transactional, bankruptcy, just to name a few).  And for those interested in civil litigation, there is also a wide range of specialties, everything from personal injury law to complex environmental litigation.  So, what exactly is personal injury law?

You’ve seen the movie: the courtroom scene where the plaintiff shows up with a neck brace, taking the witness stand to testify against the evildoer who caused their pain. In real life, this type of lawsuit is called a personal injury action. Personal injury claims are the basis for civil lawsuits (or actions) between two people (or parties). Usually, a party brings the lawsuit against someone who has wronged or injured them in some way. Ultimately, the goal of the lawsuit is to receive money to compensate them for the way in which they were wronged or injured. Here are the five most common types of personal injury claims.

1.     Automobile Related Injuries

Personal injury attorneys will tell you that most of the cases they see are traffic related. Ranging from collisions to pedestrian incidents, cars cause the most legal disputes of this type.

2.     Property Damage

Remember those games of catch when you were a kid? Did you accidentally break a window? If so, and you managed not to get sued by your angry neighbor, consider yourself lucky. You dodged the bullet known as a property damage suit. Anything from that bungled pitch to bringing your pet bull into a china shop, with this claim, if you break it, you bought it.

3.     Malpractice

Any licensed professional can be sued under this claim. However, the two most targeted professions are doctors and attorneys. Some states even have specific laws dealing with this issue as it affects doctors and attorneys. Malpractice means that the injured person trusted the professional to perform their job correctly, and the professional failed to do so.

4.     Slips, Trips, and Falls

Here’s another well publicized personal injury claim: injury to someone’s body. Examples of this type of claim are slipping on a spill in the grocery store floor, injuries sustained in a bar fight, or falling down the stairs.

5.     Defective Products

Bringing up the rear is the personal injury claim for defective products. These types of claims are the reason for warning labels on products. Next time you see a warning label, you can thank personal injury attorneys for keeping you aware of any way in which this product has caused damage previously. When a product injures a person while the person was using the product in a reasonable way, a defective product claim emerges.

This guest post is authored by Jeremy Danielson, a personal injury attorney, with a practice in Atlanta, Georgia.

 The night before the test, you should lay out all of the things you’re going to need, most important of which are your admissions ticket from the LSAC, photo identification.

And the day of the test, get up early, have a good breakfast. If you’re the type of person that needs coffee, then drink.  Don’t screw with your routine but also sort of scale back on the caffeine a little bit. 

Try to remain calm. Try to, again like I said, if you’re going to do anything, get something you’ve already done like in logic game you did well on that week and just walk yourself through it, put yourself in the right mindset.