How to get a Full-Ride Scholarship at a California Law School?

Graduate School Law School
21

beachy, with all due respect, I think you are being naive. The only reason to attend a professional school is to find a job. And the great odds that attending a crap law school – even for free – will not get you a legal job.

Sure, you may have fall-back plans, but why waste 3 years of your life? Head for the fall-back plans today.

Alternatively, keep up that GPA and study your butt off for the LSAT. Being first gen and low income is a nice soft factor, but that only matters when you have the numbers. Apply broadly to good schools and see what happens.

Good luck.

22

Are you saying that NO graduates from 205 ABA schools do NOT get law jobs after graduation? None of the lawyers I’ve talked to have gone to Tier 14 schools. It can’t be that 190 law schools churn out graduates who do not become lawyers. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, I’m just skeptical.

I’m not going to give up law school bc it could be hard to find a job. Experience is more important than where a lawyer went to school unless you want BigBucks or BigLaw. I don’t want BigLaw… and I don’t want the other career, either.

23

BeachyLaw, yes, experience does become more important than law school attended, over time. When you’re a fresh graduate of a low-ranked law school, unfortunately you won’t have experience, and so the law school’s name and your grades will matter a lot, and the name alone could lock you out of getting desirable jobs.

Rankings may not matter to you, but they matter to employers, and they impact and reflect employment and other outcomes.

Think long and hard about the advice you’re getting, please

24

@BeachyLaw‌ : let’s back way up.

If you want to be a solo practitioner, my advice is to graduate from law school in a good position to be a solo. That has nothing to do with where you went to school and everything to do with the network and skills you have built up.

If you want to go solo, it’s best to have enough savings so that you can live off that while you get clients, do the work, and wait for your clients to pay the bills. Operating a law firm has a lot of overhead. You will either have to take on expensive loans for the bar exam or pay out of pocket for the prep classes - plan on $5,000 or so, plus living expenses.

Solos have to wait until they are licensed. You will graduate law school in May, take the bar in July, and will not get bar results until November.

Before you go to law school, get those credit cards paid off. That will help your sanity, your ability to go solo, and your bar background check.

All of that points to a definite way forward for you: spend the next few years working, networking, building legal skills (paralegal position?) or non-legal skills that you would transfer to your solo (ex working at a start-up, with the state, etc.), and saving up a pile of money.

25

I estimate that I should be able to pay off the cards in a year or so from VA benefits per month from attending school full-time. (ch 35)… if It takes me 1-2 years to pay off $5-7k, I can’t imagine how long it would take to pay off law school debt if I went w/o a scholarship. Once they are paid off, I could use the rest of the benefits for savings.

(I’ll be using Cal Grant, Pell Grant, and Supplemental University Grant to pay for the rest of my 2-3 years of undergrad education debt free).

I didn’t know bar prep classes could amount to $5k, that is a large amount.

I could see myself needing to take a loan to pay that after law school, unless I started working as a paralegal or something else in the meantime (after getting that paralegal certificate from the degree).

I think people can work as Law Clerks in law school and some other examples, also. I’m not sure what legal work is available out here without any credentials… most of the undergrad college students I know of don’t do law (I only know of one person who wants to be a lawyer, and I don’t think they will be successful getting into law school w/ their GPA, but I don’t deter them), and most of them do min wage (like retail work) or un-paid internships, ect…

There’s a 50/50 chance of becoming an employed lawyer according to national statistics. I’m willing to take that chance especially if I can go to law school free or nearly free.

My 3 interests growing up were 1) medical, 2) lawyer, 3) business.

My Fall-Back plan for a career would obviously be nursing :(, which I spent 3 years prepping for along with undergrad GE (my B’s for my 3.8 were in Microbiology, General Chem 1, Group Discussion, and a B+ in American Literature)… it’s just disillusionment and many other major reasons (it’s really just sad) deter me from the medical field, also it’s very easy to get into RN school even with just an A.S in comm college…
I also took a practice MCAT to see how hard it is, and I had to guess on every Q! (pre-rn doesn’t prep you At All). It’s impossible I think. On contrary, the LSAT I don’t guess on, can think reasonably about the Q’s, and I can answer the majority of Q’s right away. With study, I think I can get a good score on the LSAT unlike the other.
They’re completely opposite ways of thinking and I think more like a lawyer.

Due to events in the past year and a half, I don’t want to be anywhere near a hospital. Also, I don’t want to invest in a year of Bio, another Chem class, ect for pre-Physican Assistant (another choice I was thinking in the past) which could reduce my undergrad GPA lower than the 3.8 if I get B’s…
That would Eliminate any chances at getting Full-Ride at a law school. Also, many people who go these routes are older, career changers who go into this due to the Recession, not bc it is their first choice, either. It’s very boring to me, i.e., push meds with bad side effects and listen to orders from the dr… There isn’t much brain-work required and I got disillusioned by seeing/experiencing bad “treatments,” hence why medical malpractice/lawsuits ect. It’s all skill-based, also I don’t like some of the required rotations. It disgusts me… I think I’m basically banned from that field. People may quip about lawyers being “ambulance chasers” but what about ambulances chasing people? No preventative care/nutrition aka, go to hospital over and over, bad docs and providers? 400,000 deaths a year from medical mistakes?

I’d rather get my BA in Poli Sci:Legal Studies w/ paralegal certificate, try to become a Lawyer, and if it doesn’t work out, do that at The Very Last Resort… Hopefully, never. Some schools have no pre-req deadline, meaning, it can be 5years, 10 years+ since taking them, but can still enter the school.

Being a Lawyer gives autonomy, an ability to be a Solo Practitioner, i.e., you are own boss, and you’re at the top of legal hierarchy with the most knowledge. I could start a firm with a partner (maybe another classmate?) and if successful, could hire other people and staff. That’s a contribution to the economy, too. There’s always room for improvement, too. A beginning salary at a small firm could be $50K as an associate, but can grow over time as you move up. There’s flexibility. There isn’t flexibility or as much opportunity in the other field to move up (no way of moving “up” actually).

50/50 is risky, but I think it is worth it to see if I can succeed as a Lawyer.

26

Not only is 50/50 “risky,” it is wrong. The odds are more like 20/80 from crap law school, and 80/20 from Top tier law schools.

btw: a PA is a great job, great quality of life/work hours. Given the trends in medicine, PA’s will likely become the main care givers for millions. IMO, much better career potential than an solo JD.

27

50% or 20% employment rate for law school grads is abysmal.

I’m not getting into a top school anywhere for any field I choose, so I use the lowest statistics… Murphy’s Law.

Hearing all this makes me think twice about law school.

It’s ridiculous that I know a field where even Foreign Grads can make it at about the same stats as law grads from low tier, but in the end, make a higher salary after entry, actually could be double. Those schools are considered “lower” than US schools and slightly easier to get in than US schools.

It’s possible I can prep for this other field, and also consider being a lawyer, too, since major doesn’t matter for law schools. And also risk a lower GPA (:/)… It’s just there’s no bachelors which lines up for both and I’ve already done 3 years prepping for another program, which doesn’t apply to a degree. Maybe I can major in Legal Studies, and 2 Minors in Science - Bio and/or Chem? lol. I have no clue…

Maybe in 3 years or 6 (actually when grad in projected situation), the economy could be better? Will the trends ever improve and make going full-ride or almost no loans worth it? It could be worth it now at the gamble, but also with back-up plans… I don’t see why it would be worth it with $150K debt even if at higher tiers bc of the salary and statistics of unemployment. Sometimes people burn out or get fired from BigLaw, so I don’t expect that to be a sure bet, either.

28

I dream of Cali as well. But Cali doesn’t have a lot of awesome law schools.

29

^^huh?

Two in the top 10, 4 in the top 20? What other state can match that?

NY has 3
IL has 2
TX has 1 as does CT, MA, PA, VA, NC…

30

Take a look at TopLawSchools.com. There is an enormous amount of empirical information on that site, along with a number of discussion forums. Read, read, read. You will come away with a much more realistic and insightful idea about how best to approach decisions regarding which law school and whether law school at all.

Absolutely understand that as other practicing attorneys have tried to impress upon you: you will not graduate law school with the practical knowledge or understanding of how to open, run, build your own practice. That comes from practice and experience. Hanging out a shingle does not mean ‘they will come’.