Interview With An Attorney

As I've always done my best to make clear: I am not an expert on the subject of law school applications. I'm certainly not just going around making up false claims, but I'm going through this process myself. There's a lot that I don't know, and that I won't know until I'm at the end. 

Fortunately we don't live in a world where lawyers are quarantined from the general population until there's litigation at hand, so I reached out to an attorney, Dan Coury, who works in the legal department for Cigna, a medical company based in Connecticut, and asked for his advice. Our correspondence resulted in the following interview:

1. When and where did you attend law school? 

 I went to Qunnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, CT from 2004-2008.

2. What factors did you take into account when selecting your school?  

Finances were an issue, so I was hoping to go to the highest rated academic school that would give me a full scholarship.  It also needed to be driving distance (90 minutes drive max) from Torrington, CT.  I got full scholarship offers from QU and WNEC (Western New England College) Law School.  Quinnipiac was higher rated academically, and seemed to be a school on the rise. So I chose QU over WNEC.  

3. How long did you prepare for the application cycle?  

About 9 months I believe. 

4. What advice do you have about financing law school?  

Personally, unless you plan on shooting for a really competitive firm (which I wasn’t), I would not overspend. Go where you feel comfortable academically and financially, don’t stretch.  Because no matter where you go, you take the same bar exam.  Same prep courses and books and programs available for the bar exam.  And once you're in the field, your work typically speaks for itself, vs what school you went to.  Some career tracks it does matter; but if that’s not what your shooting for, then take the most scholarship or lowest cost.  Take loans if needed too; they are usually very low interest. (Instead of killing yourself to work jobs for 4 years). 

5. If you could go back and do one thing differently in your application process what would it be?  

I got into every school except my alma mater, UConn, so I guess I would rewrite that essay, haha!  But, I took that rejection letter from Uconn, and I put it in a frame on my wall, next to my other diplomas (undergrad and grad school from Uconn).  I put it there so I had a reminder every day that I had to prove them wrong and get my law degree.  It was my motivation to succeed. I eventually got my degree, suma cum laude. But I decided to leave the rejection letter up to serve as a reminder of people who doubt me along the way, and that I can prove them wrong. 

6. What’s the best piece of advice that you have for prospective law students?

Don’t ever get overwhelmed. We were all in the same boat.  If you made it to law school, you have what it takes to get through it. Everyone was there at one point.  Don’t kill yourself with caselaw too much; it will help on exams but mostly  irrelevant to the bar exam.  Remember the rules themselves.  The logic. Answer in IRAC (issue rule application and conclusion) any possible time you can. And be thorough in answers. Pay attention in Legal Writing. It helps in so many jobs in life. 

I think there's a lot to take in here. I know that I've talked a lot in prior posts about big name schools, but it's true; unless you're trying to get into BigLaw or get a Supreme Court clerkship, a lot of firms prioritize whether or not you passed the bar, and what your other qualifications are. Finances are going to impact your future, and having a lot of debt can really change the trajectory of the rest of your life. There are always going to be personal reasons that impact where you can go. And as I've always said, you've got to do what fits your situation.

Why You Need an LSAC Account ASAP

The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) website has a lot of wonderful resources for law school applicants. But if you don't have an LSAC account and you're planning on applying during this application cycle, you need to get one, now.

First of all, the LSAC website is the portal through which you submit your applications. Most schools will not accept online applications any other way; you'd have to do hard copies for every individual school. But the LSAC website gives you to-do lists of what else your application requires, compiles all the information that you submit, and sends it off to each school that you apply to.

Your past schools and your recommenders can submit your transcripts and letters of recommendation directly to the website, so that you can be sure that each school that you apply to receives them, rather than hoping that each one individually makes its way to the school, with no confirmation about whether or not it does.

Basically, if you don't want to lose your mind from stress this application season, or get rejected from all your schools because you forgot to send out your personal statements or something, the LSAC website is the way to go.

Furthermore, you're going to need an LSAC account to register for the LSAT. No getting around it, the LSAT is administered by the LSAC and you've got to give them some personal information (and pay them) before you can register for the test.

Finally, you get access to some cool stuff once you've got an account. You need an account to register for law forums, to view their official guides and reviews on all law schools, and to access their new Khan Academy LSAT prep material (my review of which will be forthcoming). 

Basically, the LSAC exists to make your life as an applicant easier. Take advantage of what they're offering you.

A Day at a Law School Forum

My regular readers may recall my post last week, when I talked about Law School Fairs. Well, over the weekend, I had a chance to go to one, and now I'm here to give you the scoop.

You have to register for the official LSAC (Law School Admissions Council) forums on their website, which means making an account with them. Fortunately, this is the website where you register for the LSAT as well, so it's not a wasted effort.

Once you've registered, print off the ticket that they send you. I don't know if they'd turn you away for not having a ticket, or if it's simply a longer process to be allowed in, but regardless, your morning will be much easier if you have a hard copy.

In the informative post I made last week, I mentioned that you should dress nicely. Let me reiterate that here. I was in khakis and a button-up, and while I wasn't underdressed, I certainly wasn't the most smartly dressed person in the room. There were a lot of suits.

Once I'd arrived, had my ticket checked, and got my itinerary, I saw that the forum "What Do Lawyers Do?" was beginning in one of the reserved conference rooms. I made my way there, and although it had only just begun, the room was already full. I had to stand in the back, until midway through, when a few people began to trickle out, and I was able to grab a seat.

The main point of the forum was that goals and plans will change during law school, and over the course of your career. You have to be flexible. The best way to figure out where you're hoping to go in life is to do as many internships and clinical programs as possible while you're still in school. That way, you've at least got a feel for what you like, and what you hate. Also, talk to your school's career services department; they may be able to point you towards opportunities that you didn't even know existed.

The Q&A portion of the forum can be worth sticking around for, if you've got the time. However, I did not. I left to go to the section where the different law schools have their tables set up. My first thought, upon seeing the room, was that this was like club fair. You know, club fair, where you go as a freshman, take flyers from everyone, and put your name on all the email lists, just in case you might be interested in that club.

Upon approaching the table of the first school I was really interested in, I was struck with my second thought, that this was absolutely nothing like club fair. There was a 20 minute wait to get to the table, as there was for nearly every school that ranked higher than #25 on the US News law school rankings. Other tables were empty.

As I said in my post last week, prioritization is key. Know which schools you want to hit. You won't have time to dawdle at other tables. Furthermore, know exactly what you want to ask, ask it, and get out of the way. It might not matter to the schools, but there is nothing more annoying to other students than someone who steps up to the table and spends half an hour spouting their life story to the school's representative, as the woman in front of me in line at the Georgetown table did.

I didn't get to hit all the tables that I wanted to, because the next forum that I really wanted to see, "About the LSAT" was starting, and I wasn't in the mood to stand in the back again. Luckily, this time, I was able to snag a seat near the middle.

Most of what I heard from the speaker was recap for me; I've taken nearly half a dozen practice LSATs and thought that I didn't really need to be there. But I am so glad that I was. The speaker started talking about prepping for the test, and mentioned that LSAC has just released a program with Khan Academy, to provide free LSAT prep. I'll be setting up my account, and letting you all know what I think about it, soon.

After the "About the LSAT" forum ended, I went back to visit more tables. Because of the lines, I still didn't have a chance to stop at every table I was really interested in, but I managed to snag some literature from them all. Those little pamphlets and brochures might seem pointless, particularly with most of the information already available online, but if you're like me, the visual representation can help you focus your thinking.

Before I knew it, the tables were being packed up, and the crowd of suit-wearers had narrowed down to a few stragglers.

I know it may seem like there's no point in going to something like this, when there's such a wealth of information available online, but although I don't have a word-for-word transcription of all I heard, I guarantee that if you attend a Law School Forum, you'll get quite a wealth of new information.

T14: What's the Point?

I know that this hasn't been big news since last year, but I didn't have a blog last year so you're getting my hot take now: T14 is a meaningless, arbitrary marker.

For those of you that don't know, T14 means the top 14 law schools in the country, as determined by US News rankings. They traditionally were as follows:

1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. Chicago
6. NYU
7. U Penn
8. UVA
9. Berkeley
10. Duke
11. Michigan
12. Northwestern
13. Cornell
14. Georgetown

Now, they'd move around a little bit; one year Stanford might be #2 and Harvard #3, but these schools were traditionally the only schools that ever made it to the top 14 of the list. Until 2017.

In a knockout move, University of Texas rose up from #15, and struck Georgetown down!!! It's ridiculously unprecedented!!! The world of law schools will never be the same!!!!!!

But... Why?

Georgetown is still #15 out of the 205 ABA accredited law schools; it was a very good school when it was a T14, and it's still a very good school now.  Texas University was a good school when it was #15, and still is a good school at #14. 

I don't understand why 14 was ever the cut off. I've tried to do research into the topic, and I've found some varying answers. The two most popular are that because #15 was always in flux, it was easier to have a set 14, which might change position from #1-#14, but were still the same schools; or that the schools that comprised T14 were the only 14 schools that had ever been within the top 10, and that that's why they were the top. So, by that logic, even though Texas might be ranked #14, it's still not a T14 school.

Personally, I think that the former explanation makes more sense than the latter, but you're free to draw your own conclusions. My main take-away from this is that no one actually has a reason to consider T14 the end-all, be-all on whether or not a school is 'good'.

That's not to say that rankings don't matter. School rankings are certainly important in helping students narrow down their choices. Higher-ranked schools with more prestige likely have more money for grants, scholarships, and expensive clinical programs that lower-ranked schools can't afford. They can hire the best professors. And a diploma from a higher-ranked school tends to look more impressive to employers. Yeah, when you step into court, the judge won't ask you to announce your alma mater to the jury, but it makes a difference.

However, the idea that being ranked #14 leaves you miles ahead of #15 just isn't true in this case. That much is clear by the abundance of ties you'll see in the rankings every year; it's always such a close race, particularly near the top. There are times where the gaps between rankings are huge. This isn't one of them.

Ultimately, my point is that choosing 14 as the cut off was a strange decision, and one that I do not support. It was an arbitrary number, and while rankings are important, a difference of one number doesn't change much more than just that one number.

Law Fairs, And What To Know Before You Go

Every time I give advice here, I do my best to cite what the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) has to say on the subject, as my guiding principle. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: They're the experts when it comes to this stuff.

I've probably linked to their website enough times that someone might start to wonder whether or not I'm being paid to promote them (I'm not), but I'm going to do it again here, because that's where you can find information on where they'll be hosting a law fair near you.

Law fairs tend to have two components: Forums and meetings. You can watch panel discussions about topics such as LSAT prep, diversity in applications, and financial aid half the day, and then spend the other half meeting representatives from the various schools that attend. Some fairs have representatives from over 150 schools, so it can be overwhelming at first, if you don't know what you're doing.

If you only think that you might want to go to law school, I'd recommend holding off on attending law fairs for the time being. Their purpose is not to sway conflicted students; law fairs are meant to give those of us who know that we want to apply all the advice that we need. This isn't meant to be a discouraging or exclusionary statement. However, in my experience, these fairs don't tend to offer much that would interest someone who isn't already fairly set on law school.

If you're able to attend a larger law fair, it's likely that there will be more forums than you have time in the day, particularly if you want to meet with school representatives, so prioritize which panels you know that you want to attend. If you have a fairly decent grasp on the LSAT, and you really need to get more information on what schools look for in a personal statement, you know where you need to be. 

When it comes to speaking to school representatives, again, the key is prioritization. You should know, generally, the schools which are in range for you. Speak to those representatives, ask questions with answers that aren't readily accessible on the school websites, and take notes so that they don't just blur together. Every representative that you meet there will be very friendly, but that doesn't change the fact that just by the nature of your LSAT score and GPA, there are some schools that you would never consider applying to. Time at these fairs is limited. Don't waste yours.

Ultimately, the best advice that I can give is that law fairs can be incredible resources, but you could attend every fair in the country, and it wouldn't be very useful to you if you don't already have a general idea of what you're looking for, and where you most need to focus your attention.

How To Do A Set Of Logic Games

It's come to my attention that the Logic Games (or Analytical Reasoning) section of the LSAT is pretty difficult for most people. I had the good fortune of getting a book of just logic games a few months before I started actually prepping for the LSAT, and I drilled them enough so that they're my best section. 

There's a simple enough formula to answering most of the questions, and I'll take you through it step-by-step below. The sample problem I'm using is from the REA 2nd Edition Logic Games book (found on Amazon here). It's not endorsed by the LSAC (Law School Admission's Council), and in my opinion, the questions can be harder than the ones you see on the LSAT. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though; when you're prepping for a test you might prefer to study to a higher level than what you'll need to do, so that the test itself feels a little easier. 

Here's a set up for the rules of the set:

So the first thing to do is to set up a diagram based off of what we've learned in the question. Each school will be ranked 1-5 in each category, and no school can have the same rank in a category, so we can set up a chart that explains what that means. 

Next, we need to write out the rules in short hand, so that they can all be easily referred to during the test. There are some that affect the chart no matter what, and are now set, so we can go ahead and mark those in.

The other rules are about order, and don't let the different wording confuse you. They're saying the same thing. It doesn't matter what symbols that you choose to use to represent the rules, it only matters that you'll be able to remember them.

Next, we move on to the questions. Question #1:

(Note: Question #1 reads in full: Which of the following is a pair that can have no number 1 rankings?)

This one is pretty simple. We know that O has to be ranked below W at all times, so O cannot be ranked 1 in any categories. We also know that A is fixed in 4 and 3 in terms of Cost and Location, and W is 1 in Quality, so A cannot be ranked 1 either. Therefore, the answer is D.

This is why you want to be familiar with the rules and have your diagram written out; otherwise you'd have to go through each answer and see whether or not it was possible for each option to be ranked 1.

Question #2:

This question is trying to trick you, but if we look back at the rules, we'll realize that the condition about Ts ranking is superfluous. W must always be ranked higher than O. It doesn't matter where T is. W cannot be ranked 5. Therefore, the correct answer is E.

Again, have your rules written out in shorthand, right by you. All it takes is a quick glance to remember that W must always be higher than O.

Question #3:

This is a tough one, because it really just requires us to plug in every option and see whether or not it works. There's no way to get around these, except to be quick and have the rules close so that we can keep referring to them.

This first diagram proves that W can rank 2 in Cost, so A is not correct.

This second diagram proves that W can rank 2 in Location, so B is not correct. 

These next diagrams proves that O cannot rank 5 in Quality.

Because of the rule about O having to be lower than W, and the positions of the fixed As, either the O in Cost or Location must be in position five, and since no school can have the same rank in different categories, the O in Quality cannot be ranked 5. Therefore, the correct answer is C.

Once we've found the correct answer, we can move on to the next question. It can be handy to keep the diagrams we've already done close by, in case we need them for another question.

Question #4:

Now that we've got a conditional, we need to diagram out that conditional. But we can automatically strike answer A, since we know from Question #3 that O cannot be ranked 5 in Quality.

The tricky thing about these conditionals is that they don't ask which could be true, only which must be true. So the first thing to do is fill in what we know has to be true, given the condition. We get the following as our answer. 

When we compare that diagram, which must be true, to the options available, we see that O must be ranked 3 in Costs. Therefore, the correct answer must be C.

Question #5:

(Note: Question #5 reads in full: If S is ranked 2 in location, which of the following must be ranked 2 in quality?)

Another conditional. Based off of this, we can fill in the whole diagram:

Because of the condition on the position of S, and the rules we were given at the beginning of the set, we can see that O must be ranked 2 in Quality. Therefore, the correct answer must be D.

Question #6:

As with the last question, we'll fill in what we have so far. Be careful with the wording, though; this question doesn't ask what must be true, only what could be. Here's what we can deduce from the question:

It's simple to go through and eliminate what we know to be false because of this. 

O cannot be ranked 4 in Quality since it is already ranked 4 in Location, so B is incorrect. W cannot be ranked 3 in Location, since it is already ranked 2 in Location, so C is incorrect. T could not be ranked 3 in Cost, since W is ranked 3 in Cost, so D is incorrect. A cannot be ranked 4 in Quality, since it is already ranked 4 in Cost, so E is incorrect. There is only one answer remaining. Therefore, the correct answer must be A.

Question #7:

The first thing to do here is to figure out what the board looks like if these conditions are met. We can determine the whole board from them:

The only important thing to remember here is that 'lowest' really means numerically, not in the sense that a 5 would be the lowest ranking a school could get. That being said, you add them all up and you see that:

T = 5 + 1 + 4 = 10

S = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6

A = 4 + 3 + 5 = 12

O = 2 + 3 + 5 = 10

W = 1 + 2 + 4 = 7

So the school with the lowest score is S. Therefore, the correct answer is B.

I know it seems like a ridiculously frustrating method, but with practice, these questions really do get easier. You just have to remember to simplify the rules, build your set-up diagram, and mark the constants that are true no matter the question. Keep in mind that the questions are designed to trick you, so always look for the simplest solution first.

Law School and Mental Health

It's time to reveal a secret about myself: I am not omniscient. I depend on a lot of research to help me figure out what I'm doing with my life, and one of the sources I've been turning to frequently this past year is The Girl's Guide to Law School, a blog that has a lot of useful advice for both guys and girls who are applying to, are attending, or have recently graduated from law school. 

Recently they posted about the stigmatization of seeking help for mental health issues while in law school. They talk a lot about the way the structure of law school has become mechanized, and about how the Socratic method is a very useful way to teach, but that there is never going to be a 'one-size fits all' approach to education, and the fact that trying to force students to fit molds that do not work for them can increase mental health issues as stress levels rise.

Too frequently, when students do reach out for help, they're told that 'That's just the way it is' and that they have to toughen up, or perhaps consider that law school is not for them, which could cause talented people to quit when really they just need a professor who's willing to sit down with them and work a few things out. This mentality is a double-edged sword, though, in my opinion. Of course we want to accommodate people who aren't the cookie-cutter 'ideal', because that's how we ultimately attain diversity, which is so important in the legal field. 

At the same time, there is a legitimate argument to be made that if the stress of law school is too much for you to handle, the stress of a law firm would be equally as high. Isn't it better to figure out that this isn't the life for you when you're in 1L, rather than when you've spent three years earning a degree which you now can't use? Then again, plenty of people seek law degrees without planning to work at a BigLaw firm, and shutting them out of their education on that premise is just unfair.

There has to be a middle ground between maintaining a tough environment, and driving students into crisis.

One of the things I was surprised that the article didn't mention was the bar exam's mental health questions, which I know influence a lot of students' decisions to seek mental health or substance abuse assistance. The American Bar Association claims that the only disclosures required on the mental health section of the Character and Fitness Requirements are based around conduct or if an applicant has a serious disorder that would actively impair their ability to practice law, but when each section starts off with a reminder that a lack of transparency is grounds for dismissal, a lot of applicants feel pressure to disclose any sort of mental health issues they've ever experienced.

Recently, there has been a push to remove or heavily revise this segment of the bar exam. Multiple studies over the years have shown that the questions, which were initially intended to judge whether or not an applicant was capable of fairly representing their clients, actually have ended up driving law students away from seeking mental healthcare, for fear that they'd have to disclose the counseling.

Taking this into account alongside the issues raised in the Girl's Guide post, it seems that a structural overhaul is necessary for the sake of the mental health of prospective and current law students throughout the country. Professors can't be telling students that they need to suck it up when they're overly stressed or a class style for which there is no alternative isn't working for them. The bar exam needs to provide a way for students to seek basic mental healthcare without having to disclose the details of it during the bar exam, or being afraid that their disclosures will result in them being found ineligible to pass.

I do want to stress that no matter what your situation is, it's always better to seek help rather than to try to struggle alone. Even if you're afraid of the impact it will have on your Character and Fitness section, if you're struggling with mental health issues, you show maturity and responsibility to choosing to address them, and maintaining mental stability is more important than the potential repercussions.

If anyone here is struggling with mental health issues, here are a few resources and hotlines:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1-800-487-4889
• RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network), 1-800-656-4673

There are always options available to you.