Official Law Student/Lawyer Thread

[mandimeoutof10]

Hey guys, I'm currently in community college . I plan on transferring and graduating with a business degree and from there enter into law school and practice corporate law.

Get stellar undergraduate grades then take both the GRE and the LSAT. Let the schools you get into decide if you should go get an MBA or a law degree (or neither). DO NOT go to a school without national prestige if you really expect to "practice corporate law." I've seen many dreams crushed.

[DamonX]

Get stellar undergraduate grades then take both the GRE and the LSAT. Let the schools you get into decide if you should go get an MBA or a law degree (or neither). DO NOT go to a school without national prestige if you really expect to "practice corporate law." I've seen many dreams crushed.

Thanks man, repped

[outdoorsofficer]

Hey guys, I'm currently in community college . I plan on transferring and graduating with a business degree and from there enter into law school and practice corporate law.

mandimeoutof10 is absolutely correct in saying you need to get stellar undergrad grades. Its important to remember that your gpa from community college is all going to be a part of that undergrad gpa. A guy I am in law school with was waitlisted to the University of Virginia (a fantastic law school) and having a 4.0 in community college was a big part of that. An lsat of a point or two higher and he would have been in. In community college there isn't much of an excuse to not have a 4.0 or close to it. Don't waste this opportunity. Had I known I wanted to go to law school from the get go I would have done my first two years at community college to pump up my gpa

[awds]

Just curious, since class ranking is so important, does this create a toxic atmosphere among students? Also, isn't it passr/fail at top tier law schools like Stanford?

[BrbGettingSwole]

Just curious, since class ranking is so important, does this create a toxic atmosphere among students? Also, isn't it passr/fail at top tier law schools like Stanford?

Depends on the school. At my school there was probably a feeling that everyone is getting a job, and that probably took a lot of the pressure off. But I've heard horror stories from lower ranked schools where students would actively try to **** over their fellow classmates.

And I only heard of Yale doing pass fail, not sure about other schools.

[MortyMars]

Wondering something. How are your schools in the states when it comes to giving grades? Do you feel its hard to get As for example? Bs? Cs?

I recently had an exam where the average grade given was D. Not one person this year from the entire school (the biggest university in Denmark - Copenhagen) got an A in that class. And this is pretty normal for a lot of the classes.

[mandimeoutof10]

Depends on the school. At my school there was probably a feeling that everyone is getting a job, and that probably took a lot of the pressure off. But I've heard horror stories from lower ranked schools where students would actively try to **** over their fellow classmates.

And I only heard of Yale doing pass fail, not sure about other schools.

I agree with this. Again though, this demonstrates the importance of getting into a highly ranked school with excellent job prospects. Also, every school has a ranking system. Even at HLS where they do low pass, pass, and high pass, there is a way to calculate rank based on the #s of high passes (buddy of mine goes there and received 3 high passes his 1L year and that placed him easily in the top 3rd, which at HLS is good enough to get pretty much any job you want).

Wondering something. How are your schools in the states when it comes to giving grades? Do you feel its hard to get As for example? Bs? Cs?

I recently had an exam where the average grade given was D. Not one person this year from the entire school (the biggest university in Denmark - Copenhagen) got an A in that class. And this is pretty normal for a lot of the classes.

American law schools are all based on a forced curve system. For example, if the curve is set at a 3.0, imagine a bell curve with the apex at the 3.0 (about 60% of the class falling close to 3.0, 20% falling above, and 20% falling below).

But yes, the numbers say that A's are hard to come by in law school. Also, the ppl at the top of the class tend to hog a lot of the As.

[Insanity247]

^ Exactly, I just terminated my financial aid, and my apartment lease for Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina last week. Its a nice campus, but I want to work in Texas and Im better served trying to get into University of Texas or Baylor or University of Houston. Better, more well known school, more jobs in Texas as well and no state income tax.

Fawk working on the East Coast, unless i went to Columbia or NYU or Duke

[EvilPoptartLift]

Subbed for later

[mandimeoutof10]

^ Exactly, I just terminated my financial aid, and my apartment lease for Charlotte School of Law in North Carolina last week. Its a nice campus, but I want to work in Texas and Im better served trying to get into University of Texas or Baylor or University of Houston. Better, more well known school, more jobs in Texas as well and no state income tax.

Fawk working on the East Coast, unless i went to Columbia or NYU or Duke

Not going to a school like Charlotte is the best decision you ever made! There is simply no best case scenario graduating from there, even if it was 100% debt free. Are you transferring or are you just postponing law school?

[Hyruliangoat]

I go to UT (just transferred in) and know a ton that go to all 3. Sup?

how do they like em? and how do you like UT? those are the 3 im aiming for but UH is my main goal since I dont want tomove ( i go there now) but if I get accepted to UT or SMU i wouldnt mind lol

[mandimeoutof10]

how do they like em? and how do you like UT? those are the 3 im aiming for but UH is my main goal since I dont want tomove ( i go there now) but if I get accepted to UT or SMU i wouldnt mind lol

My take on the big 3 (plus baylor) is this. Only go to Baylor if you wan't to be a litigator and even then, I'd suggest going to UH/SMU depending on your ties to Houston/Dallas. SMU is a good, well respected school FOR DALLAS. But it is by no means a non-regional school. It will place you almost exclusively in Dallas. Same with UH, except in Houston. Disregard the ranking difference. They are for all practical purposes, the same schools (prestige wise). They're just in different cities. Also, I am obviously biased because I just transferred here but UT is far and away the best school in the state, hands down. The employment #s out of UT are better than at least 3-5 of the T14s. They place largely in Texas (mainly Houston, Dallas, then Austin and maybe San Antonio, etc...) but this is a rebuttable presumption if you can show that you have strong ties to whatever city it is that you're applying to. One last factor is cost. SMU is stupid expensive, even with a decent scholarship. This is where UT and to some extent UH beat out SMU. UT/UH offers a much better cost/benefit than SMU IMO. However, UH's employment numbers are skewed as far as the biglaw job #s are concerned because they have a really good IP program so a lot of the ppl landing the biglaw gigs out of there are ppl with a hard science background going into IP. Thus, if you see 15% getting biglaw gigs out of UH and you're top 10%, DO NOT think you are guaranteed a market paying job from there. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask if you have any more specific questions and I'll do my best.

[Hyruliangoat]

My take on the big 3 (plus baylor) is this. Only go to Baylor if you wan't to be a litigator and even then, I'd suggest going to UH/SMU depending on your ties to Houston/Dallas. SMU is a good, well respected school FOR DALLAS. But it is by no means a non-regional school. It will place you almost exclusively in Dallas. Same with UH, except in Houston. Disregard the ranking difference. They are for all practical purposes, the same schools (prestige wise). They're just in different cities. Also, I am obviously biased because I just transferred here but UT is far and away the best school in the state, hands down. The employment #s out of UT are better than at least 3-5 of the T14s. They place largely in Texas (mainly Houston, Dallas, then Austin and maybe San Antonio, etc...) but this is a rebuttable presumption if you can show that you have strong ties to whatever city it is that you're applying to. One last factor is cost. SMU is stupid expensive, even with a decent scholarship. This is where UT and to some extent UH beat out SMU. UT/UH offers a much better cost/benefit than SMU IMO. However, UH's employment numbers are skewed as far as the biglaw job #s are concerned because they have a really good IP program so a lot of the ppl landing the biglaw gigs out of there are ppl with a hard science background going into IP. Thus, if you see 15% getting biglaw gigs out of UH and you're top 10%, DO NOT think you are guaranteed a market paying job from there. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask if you have any more specific questions and I'll do my best.

good post. yeah UT is def the best and id love to go there but again UH is ideal overall because I dont want to move ever from Houston and everything I want is here, despite UT being the better school.

What do you mean by IP? And I planned on doing the joint degree plan at UH that would let me get a masters from the UT school of public health (gonna do something public health related in terms of policy or whatever or epidemiology) so its funny that you bring up the science background thing. Elaborate on that if you could. and thank you for the quick response

[outdoorsofficer]

good post. yeah UT is def the best and id love to go there but again UH is ideal overall because I dont want to move ever from Houston and everything I want is here, despite UT being the better school.

What do you mean by IP? And I planned on doing the joint degree plan at UH that would let me get a masters from the UT school of public health (gonna do something public health related in terms of policy or whatever or epidemiology) so its funny that you bring up the science background thing. Elaborate on that if you could. and thank you for the quick response

IP= Intellectual Property. You need certain science/engineering degrees to be able to sit for the patent bar.

[mandimeoutof10]

good post. yeah UT is def the best and id love to go there but again UH is ideal overall because I dont want to move ever from Houston and everything I want is here, despite UT being the better school.

What do you mean by IP? And I planned on doing the joint degree plan at UH that would let me get a masters from the UT school of public health (gonna do something public health related in terms of policy or whatever or epidemiology) so its funny that you bring up the science background thing. Elaborate on that if you could. and thank you for the quick response

IP= Intellectual Property. You need certain science/engineering degrees to be able to sit for the patent bar.

Ya, this is correct. Also, While I believe UH is a fine law school, what are your career aspirations? I would definitely not limit yourself to Houston for schools. Frankly, if you got into both UT and UH and you chose to go to UH, you'd be a fool unless it was a full scholly guaranteed for all 3 years. Even then, it'd be a tough call. Aim bigger. Shoot for the T14 or UH with a lot of scholarship money and if you don't get that, think long and hard about whether it's worth going or if you should take some time off, work, and study/retake the LSAT.

[BusterHymen69]

Dat feel when awaiting bar results

[Future24]

Just started 1L, though I took a class over the summer to get an early start (crim law). Somewhat excited but more terrified.

[jcook996]

Just started 1L, though I took a class over the summer to get an early start (crim law). Somewhat excited but more terrified.

Outline early, do timed practice tests and you'll be fine.

[MortyMars]

In 2nd year of law school now. In Denmark law school takes 5 years. But the grades from the bachelor are really important if you want to become a lawyer who can go to court and work for the big law firms. So I'm really going to try my best this semester and hopefully get some good grades from now on.

[Future24]

Outline early, do timed practice tests and you'll be fine.

Yeah outlined somewhat late for my crim class. Definitely regretted it. Doing it after every section we cover.

Love contracts. Hate torts.. Legal Writing is a bitch.

[mandimeoutof10]

I snagged a biglaw summer associate offer and am stoked! Random reps ITT!

[Jagwired16]

I snagged a biglaw summer associate offer and am stoked! Random reps ITT!

congrats brah. just started 1L. hope to be in your shoes someday.

[BrbGettingSwole]

I snagged a biglaw summer associate offer and am stoked! Random reps ITT!

Congratz bro, what market?

[Jyeatbvg]

Any Canadian 1L's in here?

[Future24]

I snagged a biglaw summer associate offer and am stoked! Random reps ITT!

Congrats man. Where at? Any tips?

[jcook996]

Yeah outlined somewhat late for my crim class. Definitely regretted it. Doing it after every section we cover.

Love contracts. Hate torts.. Legal Writing is a bitch.

Loved Torts because of the stories, loved crim for the same reason. Could never quite grasp contracts but it's not like I work with everyday or anything.......shyt.....

[studleymajo]

Dat feeling when other lawyers are just as good as you. Dat feeling when you find out that they may be better.

[mandimeoutof10]

Congratz bro, what market?

Congrats man. Where at? Any tips?

I don't want to out myself but it's a market paying firm in TX. I couldn't be happier. As far as advice, no, not really. I busted my ass. That's the only advice I'd give. That and don't do study groups except with a few ppl who you value and only occasionally. Also, prep as hard for OCI as you did for finals.

[BrbGettingSwole]

don't do study groups ever

Fixed

[mandimeoutof10]

Fixed

haha.

fair enough