<p>I am a Biology major at an lac and was wondering about a few things regarding health law. </p>
<p>First: Do I apply to the health law department specifically or the general school of law? Do separate departments of law make their own offers or does my app get included with every ones?</p>
<p>Second: Would it be harder to get into law school having a non-english/govlaw/psych degree?</p>
<p>Third: What would I have to do to get in? Is getting one of those LSAT practice books enough to do well on the LSAT?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There is no health law department. There’s only the law school, so you apply the same way everyone else does.</p></li>
<li><p>Nope. They don’t care what your major was.</p></li>
<li><p>You’d have to get a high GPA and LSAT as well as complete all the other administrative matters. There are people that do well from practicing on their own but I personally found a course helpful.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Bear in mind that “sub-field” rankings, as published by USN, are not useful. The overall rankings are what matters when pursuing employment, even in a sector where USN tries to offer a “sub-field” ranking.</p>
<p>Also, what do you mean by “health law”? Do you mean compliance work? HIPAA? Health care regulation? Medical device and pharmaceutical law? Policy or advocacy work?</p>
<p>Depending on which one of those you want, you would do well to get some pre-law school experience.</p>
<p>There are law schools that offer certificates in health law, just as there are schools that offer certificates in tax law, litigation or other practice areas. Seton Hall, the University of Maryland and St. Louis are examples. After your first year of law school, you enroll in the certificate program and start to take their classes. You can research the programs, and the potential classes (for ex., seminars on Medicare law or biotech IP). It’s not a big deal. There are also law schools that offer a dual degree of J.D. and Masters of Public Health. You’d research the schools’ application process and apply to both programs at the same time.</p>
<p>Many schools started health law certificate programs a few years ago, when health care was being reformed. It never turned out to be a hot area for new grads as hoped, so the health law certificate programs may be phased out eventually in favor of another area of the law that could be perceived as hot at the moment, such as certificates in energy law or bankrupcy.</p>
<p>Certificate programs are a mixed bag. If you are using your elective credits to work towards a certificate (law school doesn’t have that many elective credits), you are missing classes in other subjects that will appear on the bar exam, or which might generally help your marketability as a new law graduate.</p>
<p>Although I do agree that people should generally go to the best law school they can get into, having a concentration that you want and like will help you enjoy your studies and provide for better grades,which are also important. Nova Southeastern Law School has a concentration in Health Law.</p>
<p>If you’re determined to go to law school, go to the best school possible. Everything about legal jobs starts with your law school’s reputation, and some schools use certificate programs to entice students.
For example, per USNWR: Nova Southeastern Law School is an unranked law school(USNWR ranks #1 through #144); per USNWR, for the Nova law school graduating class of 2011"Careers Employed at graduation 15.6%". I would urge you to check out the employment stats of every school you are considering.</p>
<p>As I said, I would focus on the best school that you can get into. However, I have a son at NOVA who has attained very good grades. He has several job options available to him. Don’t just look at the rankings. I would say that if you can’t get into at least a tier 1 and maybe tier 2 school, the rest of the schools are about even for job prospects. Even attending a top school won’t be that helpful if your grades are mediocre.</p>
<p>You also specifically suggested NOVA b/c it has a “strong” concentration in health care law. So it’s pretty important to know that the employment rate at graduation for that school is 15.6%.</p>
<p>cranky, a lot depends on grades from law school . If you go to a top 20 school and graduate in the middle or below, you will have a VERY tough time being hired by any firm. Clearly graduating from a Cornell or NYU will open more doors nationally than a NOVA. No argument there! However, assuming all rankings for similar schools are equal or the best school that a person can get into will be tier 3 or below, going to a NOVA or some other equivalent place that has the concentration he wants might not be a bad idea. You are right, if he gets 165+ on the LSAT, go somewhere else that has a health law concentration and is highly ranked. However, if his LSAT in the the low to mid 150s, going to NOVA might be a viable option. Of course, you could argue that going to any law school that isn’t a top 15 school won’t result in good job prospects. However, I am not going to go there.</p>
<p>Why would anyone who couldn’t score above 60th percentile (154) on the LSAT want to enter a life-long hyper-competitive field? Would he/she expect to somehow start performing better later on?</p>
<p>On another note, I would love to know how many people with a 154 LSAT actually pass the bar. Talk about your uphill climb. Maybe Mississippi’s bar exam isn’t too difficult.</p>
<p>In picking a law school, the general rules are:
(1) Attend a T6 if you get in. If not…
(2) Go to the T14 offering you the most money. If none…
(3) Go to a T28 offering you a full-tuition scholarship and in approximately the right geographic location. If none…
(4) Make sure you really want to be a lawyer. If yes…
(5) Pick the premiere school in the region in which you want to work, and make sure to get very, very good grades while keeping your debt burden low.</p>
<p>I do not recommend using sub-field concentrations, sub-field rankings, or available certificates at ALL in this decision.</p>
<p>The only change I would make would be to add that if no T14 has offered you money, you still go to a T14 instead of a T28 if a want-to-be lawyer is wedded to the idea of attending law school at any cost and regardless of the life of debt repayments they may lead for up to 15 years thereafter. We both know that job opportunities for a broad spectrum of the class dry up pretty rapidly outside of the T14.</p>
<p>You are correct about leaving the T14, though. If I am advising someone I care about, I would not suggest that they attend any law school outside of the T14 unless they are committed to the region near that law school for the long term. </p>
<p>It is simply not always possible to keep your debt burden low if you are absolutely wedded to the idea of attending law school.</p>
<p>Agree with BDM. If you are deciding between schools with equally good prospects, consider various speciality rankings, eg, Cardozo over Brooklyn for IP law. If you want health care law, do not go to a school that one’s not offer any courses in it, or has one token course. But do not start with sub-rankings and develop your list; use them as tie breakers. And be really sure you want a particular field (as in, work in it before law school), before choosing a specialty.</p>
<p>Just because a law school doesn’t offer a certificate or specialty area in law, don’t write off that school. Examine that school’s course (and any other school at that university’s) offerings. I was very interested in health care law (primarily from a compliance and transactional perspective) when I attended law school. My law school offered many health care law classes, and the graduate business school there offered extensive health care courses related to its concentration in the business of health care. </p>
<p>I received a top notch law school education, coupled with coursework that, if nothing more, proved to potential employers that I was seriously interested in pursuing a career doing health care transactional work.</p>
<p>Agree with the others saying that you choose the best school and do not factor in the sub-fields. I would not recommend attending any non-ranked school for any reason, even if parents are providing the tuition. See if they will give you the cash instead.</p>
<p>Obviously, anybody interested in being a lawyer in this climate should attend a top Tier-6 school, or alternatively a school where they can avoid significant debt. As for NOVA, it may be an unranked school, but it places a lot of lawyers in the South Florida market, or at least it did until a few years ago. I don’t believe the school is looked down on so much as there are simply no jobs out there right now.</p>
<p>Realistically, law is not only obsessed with prestige, but also age. It is much harder to get an older associate to work eighty hour weeks at the beck and call of a partner than a 24 year old. So there is significant age discrimination in the law, and it is hard to move anywhere after a few years in practice absent networking based on contacts you have met through the practice of law. At that point, ability hopefully trumps law school pedigree. Where do all of the big law guys booted after five years end up in this climate?</p>
<p>Some of them are sitting at home. There are plenty of former biglaw associates who are unemployed. I get their resumes every day. Some of them were too picky for too long and the more time that passes, the harder it is to find a job. Some are not able to consider relocation, so their options are very limited. Others are with small firms they would not have considered when they left law school. Some are with the government for a lot longer than they thought they would be. They thought they would put in their 3 years and walk back out into another firm. Some are temping. No one has been left unscathed in this market. Very well-credentialed lawyers have it easier than others.</p>