<p>I need some advice on law school counseling service.
(1) Would it be beneficial if I use some law school admission counseling service? How should I find a good one?
(2) Has anyone ever used Anna Ivey's counseling service? How is it?
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Personally, I think these are a waste of time and money. The law school admissions process is just not that complicated. You can find out pretty much everything you need to know online.</p>
<p>Anna Ivey has a book and a blog--those might be a cheaper way of getting her advice.</p>
<p>if you do have the money to spare, i've heard good things about anna ivey, and considering that she used to be dean of admissions at University of Chicago law, she certainly has the experience to give good advice.</p>
<p>You would be better off spending the money on a prep course for the LSAT. Most people will tell you that law school admissions is very numbers-based. To get into the top schools, work on your GPA and nail the LSAT.</p>
<p>The only part of the law school application where I think you would need advising/editing on is the personal statement. You could have professors, advisors, friends, pre-law advisors, or just about anyone else to read it.</p>
<p>I can save you hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on law school counseling with two simple sentences.</p>
<p>1) Get a high GPA
2) Rock the LSAT</p>
<p>any questions?</p>
<p>I can save you even more. Seriously reconsider whether you want to go to law school. Law schools are producing far more graduates than the market can absorb and the realities of private law practice are not what many would be law students want to hear. Many graduates of excellent law schools are unemployed or underemployed, and many who are employed in private practice are miserable. I know from whence I speak. I am an attorney in private practice and my firm gets good resumes every week from well qualified law school graduates who can't get jobs. I sincerely don't mean to burst your bubble, but think about it carefully before you take the plunge.</p>
<p>agreed, gbesq...i'm at a law school where it's not hard to get a job after graduation...but even here most of the jobs are either 80-hour-a-week firm jobs, or public interest jobs that pay about as much as you could earn with just a bachelors. </p>
<p>I think a lot of people get sucked into the "I don't want to be a doctor or go to business school/I like to argue/Law & Order is a pretty cool show/I read and write well....I guess I'll go to law school!" trap. And believe me, 3 semesters in and tens of thousands in debt, it is a trap (a gilded cage, perhaps, and one you can escape from with a few years living frugally while working at a firm, but a cage nonetheless). </p>
<p>OP, I'm not saying you haven't thought about what being a lawyer is really like (i don't even know you!) but I see it in my classmates and sometimes in myself. Being a lawyer is a great way to get where I want to go, and I'm doing fine in law school, but there are lots of other options that I didn't fully consider.</p>
<p>To gbesq and stacy - please elaborate. It's creepy...this sentence sounds way too familiar:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't want to be a doctor or go to business school/I like to argue/Law & Order is a pretty cool show/I read and write well....I guess I'll go to law school!"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Also, is the job market really bad?</p>
<p>I think that this CC thread is reasonably accurate: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=329111&highlight=lawyers%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=329111&highlight=lawyers</a></p>
<p>Another viewpoint, largely accurate: <a href="http://www.nd.edu/%7Endmag/legl2f99.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/legl2f99.htm</a></p>
<p>In fairness, I should note that there are many successful lawyers who make a very good living and enjoy what they do -- but for many law school graduates, the reality is something else.</p>
<p>thanks for the link</p>
<p>The market isn't that bad, depending on where you go to school you can snag a job at a top firm or public interest. Mind you that a biglaw firm may pay you 160,000 but you will be working 80 hour weeks. If you want the 40 hour weeks go to public interest, but you will be making around 50/60k. It's a tradeoff. I can tell you that the top 50% at any top 15 school will have the option to get into the biglaw jobs (providing you're not socially retarded when interviewing). If you go to a school ranked 120 or so you're gonna have a hard time finding this.n</p>
<p>I'm thinking about Anna Ivey. NEVER get a prep course. I'd pay for Anna Ivey x3 before I'd waste my money on a TTT prep course. Study yourself.</p>
<p>re: is the market that bad? yes and no. </p>
<p>at my law school, more than 99% of graduates have jobs within 6 months of commencement. If you want to work at a firm, you pretty much can--even if your grades or personality are mediocre (some cities/practice areas/firms are harder to break into than others, but you can find something that will pay over $100,000 a year). Or, you can do non-firm work. Some opportunities are pretty competitive (Skadden or Equal Justice Works fellowships, some of the federal agencies, professorships, high-level clerkships, etc.) but there are lots of state-court judges or public defender's offices who'd be happy to have a T14 grad, especially if you're willing to work in rural or depressed areas. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my aunt just graduated from a lower-ranked law school on Long Island. She failed the bar her first time and, like many of her classmates, has had a hard time finding a job. The few offers are contingent on her passing the bar (small firms can't support you while they wait for you to pass) and rarely offer health insurance or retirement benefits or anything. The salaries are barely enough to pay off student loans and live in the New York metro area, and the law school she attended has little name recognition in other regions so she'd have a hard time going someplace else.</p>
<p>As for "I don't want to be a doctor or go to business school/I like to argue/Law & Order is a pretty cool show/I read and write well....I guess I'll go to law school!"....</p>
<p>a) there are other jobs out there other than doctor/lawyer/business. Talk to recent alums or the career office at your university, make a list of all the jobs you encounter on a typical day. look at the graduate programs at a large university. </p>
<p>b) being a lawyer isn't much about arguing. that's part of it, but a lot of it is keeping your clients from getting to the point where you have to argue. there's customer service (you need to get and keep your clients!), management consulting (helping clients do their jobs in a way that keeps them out of legal trouble), negotiation (SO much better usually to settle than to go to court), etc. Even if you end up as a litigator and go to court a lot, you'll still spend much more time in your office pushing papers than you will in front of a jury.</p>
<p>c) Law and Order isn't real. Most lawyers don't do criminal law. Those who do, tend to spend most of their time with people posessing small amounts of drugs or who have shoplifted or driven drunk. They're not exactly putting away mass murderers. There are hardly ever surprising tearful on-the-stand confessions. And if you are a public defender or a prosecutor, you're probably not going to be able to afford those fancy clothes that the characters wear. </p>
<p>d) A lot of people read and write well. But legal reading and writing is a lot drier and more formal than other types, and a lot less fun. It's kind of a different skill to be a good LEGAL reader and writer, and while being good at the more general type of reading and writing is a good start, you probably won't know if you're good at the legal type until you get to law school and try it out. A lot of jobs out there (journalist, editor, speechwriter for politician, literary agent, public relations/advertising, teacher, grantwriter for nonprofits, just to name a few) have more interesting stuff to read and write than lawyers do. </p>
<p>ok, that was pretty long-winded, but I hope it makes you think. If you try to reach out to lawyers and see what they really do, and you like it, then law school can be worth the time and money. But it's a big investment and not something anyone should take lightly.</p>
<p>thx for the post stacy.</p>