Top 10 Tips for Parents of Future Law Students

1. Don’t accidentally contribute to mistakes in your child’s strategy through your own ignorance of the law school admissions process.

“Just take the LSAT. See what happens.”

“You’ll be going to law school straight from college.”

“I’ll bet you can get into this (fourth-tier) law school. Just go there. It can’t matter too much which law school you go to, can it?”

“The deadline for applications is tomorrow. You’ve still got time today to apply.”

“Don’t worry about getting a job now. Just go to law school.”

I regularly hear from parents who’ve pushed their child (they belatedly realize) onto the wrong path for LSAT preparation, the wrong timing for submittal of the applications, the wrong school choices, and the wrong developmental steps before law school. Parents, please spend some time at my website, PrelawAdvisor.com.

2. Understand your child’s need for law-related work before law school. Don’t rush your child off to law school too early.

You want your child to have a successful year during the critical first year of law school. Law-related work--after college, before law school--can greatly contribute to a law student’s competitiveness in the first year. It can also benefit the student in second-year job hunting, post-second-year job performance, and in the transition after law school to the graduate’s first attorney position. Help your child by getting information about suitable law-related work choices before law school.

3. Don’t push your child into the LSAT prematurely.

Don’t push your child to take the LSAT in college. For many, the LSAT can be a beast. People can need time, energy, resources and the ability to focus extensively if not exclusively on this challenge. Often this cannot occur in college, and if it can, LSAT prep and work still can come at too high a price. The college years should be spent on uniquely college-related activities--study, service, sports, volunteer work, and internships. There is plenty of time after college for the LSAT. In contrast to the unique time and place for college, the LSAT is given four times per year, every year. It is always available.

4. Understand the market served by any law school you propose to your child.

Where does your child want to work as a new attorney, immediately after law school? Once you know that, ask yourself if a proposed law school is really good at projecting its graduates into such market(s). You want a law school that is effective in helping your child reach his or her geographic goals.

5. Understand the ranking of any law school you propose to your child. Understand the reality of local, regional and national law schools.

Think of law schools as essentially three types: local, regional and national. Local law schools are easiest to get into, but serve a narrow job market. Their graduates can struggle the most to get jobs, in some cases. Regional law schools may be very well respected in their region, such a state, but not as effective in the broader national market. Regional law schools can be difficult to win an offer from, particularly in the case of public law schools, which make admission decisions in great measure based on the applicant’s GPA and LSAT, as well as legal residency. National law schools are the most prestigious. They can be very difficult to win an admission offer from, but they offer they students the widest range of initial job opportunities. Think of US News & World Report’s (2008 edition) top 18 law schools as national law schools. (Recognize that many law schools claim to be “national.”)

6. Brainstorm with your child to help him or her understand the riskiness (or lack of riskiness) of the proposed strategy.

I’ve seen applicants who refuse to apply to any law school but one. This is bold, but risky. Brainstorm about other acceptable choices as well. Today applicants may submit ten or more applications. (I’ve seen as high as 25!)

7. Brainstorm about ways to reduce law school cost.

Two ideas: (1) Winning numbers—coupled with strong applications—can result in aggressive scholarship offers from some lower-tier schools. I’ve seen law schools make full-scholarship offers—with lavish additional perks in some cases—to applicants they really want (those with a great story, a high college GPA and a high LSAT score). (2) Going to law school at night can both reduce the challenge of getting into a law school, while allowing the student to work during the day (ideally in law-related work) to make money while becoming a lawyer.

8. Don’t seek to be the editor of your child’s law school personal statement and related documents.

Such writing may be too personal for your child to share with you. But if you are invited, fine. Still, it’s probably going to be difficult for you to be objective and dispassionate about your own child’s life, work, and story. You can be certain that the admissions reviewers at top law schools will be tough and demanding.

9. Celebrate admission successes. Be consoling when rejections happen. Gently suggest time and thought before the final decision is made. Encourage visits to several of the law schools offering admission.

Encourage your child not to rush to judgment when the offers come in. “Try on” different schools. Take the time offered to you by the schools to consider the pros and cons, before the child picks the winner. And if a school waitlists your child, find a prelaw advisor.

10. Encourage your child’s use of a prelaw advisor, well in advance of the start of the process. An experienced guide can really help. For more information about my work for law school applicants, please see my website www.PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to BradDobeck@aol.com.

Ten Reasons Why People Fail the LSAT

Gary Ryan Blair is the creator of a website I strongly recommend. It’s called “The Goals Guy” (www.goalsguy.com). I particularly find Mr. Blair’s Goal-Setting Tips, Techniques and Ideas useful.

In one area, “Ten Reasons Why People Fail,” I realized that Mr. Blair offered powerful insights into why some people struggle miserably with the LSAT. The LSAT is hugely important to your plans for law school, because the US News & World Report ranking system has enormously inflated the importance of the test. Law schools want the bragging rights to the highest LSATs they can get. I’ve seen law schools discount their tuition to zero, and even offer lavish stipends and other perks, just to draw in new students with high LSAT scores. The LSAT is your enemy. You must defeat it decisively in order to move forward into a law school that the marketplace of employers will respect. But how to do this? Consider the lessons offered by Mr. Blair, as they relate to the LSAT.

1. Taking Action Without Planning
Taking an official LSAT without careful planning in advance is what I call “the sucker punch.” I see it all the time. People say, “Well, I thought I would just try it to see what happens. Maybe I’ll get lucky.” Luck. As if LSAT results were a lottery. Then they end up with a 137 (an 8^th percentile score that shouts to the law schools “Unqualified”).

Do not, do not go down this path. Instead, start here: Taking the LSAT.

2. Planning Without Taking Action
Sometimes, people, driven by their fear of the real LSAT, spend endless amounts of time (and large amounts of money!) in LSAT preparation classes and in the exercises of LSAT preparation books. They comfort themselves that they are preparing effectively for their future, but they never engage the enemy. If this is you, test your current level of readiness, now, by taking a complete practice test. I mean by this an old official LSAT, under true timed conditions, and then score it. What’s your score? What’s your target score? What should your target score be? Feel free to contact me with your result and your thinking about your goal. I’ll let you know if you are on track, or wasting your time in an ineffective approach.

3. Unrealistic Timeframes and Expectations
“I’ve got two weeks free. I can prepare for the LSAT in that amount of time, right?” Maybe, but probably not. The score results from old LSATs—taken under true timed conditions—will reveal your readiness. If you are truly an LSAT “prodigy” (only about 4% of test takers, in my experience), your first practice test will reveal a strong score. But if you are like the overwhelming majority of people (the remaining 96%) you will need time to master the LSAT. It can be mastered. But you may need a considerable amount of time. Don’t give yourself a short, artificial timeline. That can be a formula for failure. Listen to your practice LSAT results.

Here’s my favorite LSAT preparation story:

"It took me about half a year to prepare for the test since I was still in school and had other exams to cope with. What I did was really simple! I took a test under simulated conditions on Monday. On Tuesday, I went over the test again, problem by problem, and analyzed the answers and marked the questions I didn't really understand well, without any time restraint. On Wednesday, I took a break. Thursdays through Saturdays I repeated my Monday through Wednesday schedule. On Sunday, I restudied the difficult questions in the two sets I took in that week. The entire process took me 17 weeks. I took two weeks off to deal with school exams. In total it took me 19 weeks. At first glance, you may think I spent a great deal of time preparing for the LSAT. I took 34 practice tests! But counting the hours, it's not that much. I believe I spent an average of six hours on each test, including two review sessions. That adds up to around 200 hours in total. My score improved from 151 on the first test to low/mid 170s on the last five tests. My actual test score was 177.

My improvement from the low 150s to the low 160s was quick, about seven to eight tests. But it took me 15-20 tests to go from 160 to 170. Once I broke 170, I stayed in the low to mid 170s for the remaining seven to nine tests. It seems to me that about three weeks and six to eight tests are needed to consolidate a level. That's why I think it's important to take as many real tests as possible (at least 25, 30+ is preferred).

I graduated from a college in northeast and am going to law school in the same region next semester."

He was admitted to Harvard Law School with his 177.

4. Reasons “Why” Are Unclear
Why do you want to go to law school? What basis in life experience do you have to make such a decision? Are you being pushed to go by someone else, like your parents? Are you secretly trying to torpedo your chances by failing on the LSAT? If so, you need to have a frank conversation with those around you. Get your life on a solid course. Make ambitious, achievable goals that are in line with your heartfelt desires. LSAT preparation and law school will be absolute misery for anyone not truly desiring to become a lawyer.

5. Denial of Reality
Are you operating solely on your own theory about how to achieve excellence on the LSAT? If so, stop immediately and test it, by taking a timed practice test on an old official LSAT. Score it. How did you do? What do you need to earn? What’s the gap?

6. Conflicting Values
This relates to item 4 above. Who is driving you to law school? Your own ambitions? Or someone else? Is law school your main vocational objective now? Or is it someone else’s? If your values about this project are in conflict, you won’t be able to do your best.

7. Diffusion of Energy
“How can I study for the LSAT? I’ve got school, a job, family members to care for, my car payment to earn, problems from my past to solve (etc.)!”

One can make endless excuses—and often good ones—to avoid the often painful investment of time to master the LSAT. But if you want to win admission offers from respected law schools, you are going to have to restructure your life in order to defeat the LSAT. Don’t let schedule pressures push you by default onto the road of poor performance in the LSAT. If you do, you won’t reach the law schools—or in the future the legal employers—that you really want.

8. Lack of Focus
In your time of LSAT focus, you have to make LSAT preparation your “weird hobby”. You’ve got to give it a large, measured, consistent amount of time and effort, regularly including practice tests. Hold the image in your mind of the e-mail you will receive in the future from LSAC, with your name on it and your targeted, high, LSAT score. Work towards that steadily as part of your schedule, six days each week.

9. Trying to Do It All Alone

Get help if you need it. After you take and score a practice test, come to a 100% understanding as to why each correct answer on the LSAT is correct. If you can, great. Then move to the next one. If you cannot, you may need the help of an LSAT tutor or an LSAT prep class. But remember, no tutor or class can substitute for you proving to yourself, over and over through timed practice tests, scored by you, that you are truly ready for the LSAT. Consider these Top 15 LSAT Tips.

10. Fear of Failure
“I’m not preparing very much for the LSAT because I’m afraid I will fail it.” But then your lack of preparation assures your failure. Stare your opponent straight in the face. Attack it regularly, in practice test after practice test. Learn from every mistake you make. Track your practice test score results. If you practice diligently, extracting the maximum possible learning from each practice test, you will climb the LSAT learning curve.

For more information about my work for law school applicants, please see my website www.PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to me at BradDobeck@aol.com .

PrelawAdvisor.com Advisee Wins Full Scholarship to Law School

A very successful advisee of mine, admitted to an Ivy League law school as well as seven other excellent law schools, was just offered a full scholarship for three years plus a stipend of $5,000 from a respected New York City law school. This applicant’s history of hard work and achievement, combined with my experience and perspective on winning the battle for top law school admission offers, has created a wonderful dilemma for this future law student: Pay full tuition for an Ivy League law school education, or accept a full scholarship offer and pocket a $5,000 check from a lesser, but still highly respected law school in the city of this advisee’s interest? That’s a great problem to have!

For information about how I can help you achieve your law school admission goals, please see my website www.PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to BradDobeck@aol.com .

Law School: A “Maddening” Experience?

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today (6/8/07) of a study just published by the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Entitled “Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-Determination Theory,” the study, by University of Missouri psychologist Kennon M. Sheldon and Florida State law professor Lawrence S. Krieger, examined the corrosive effect on well-being of the modern law school culture. The authors argue for a law school environment that enhances student “autonomy.” By “autonomy”, the authors mean that students need to have an opportunity to do what they enjoy, or at least believe in. It might be thought of as having immunity from an arbitrary exercise of authority, having the freedom to act independently.

Professors Sheldon and Krieger have produced a creative and insightful study about the consequences of bad institutional culture in the modern American law school world. They correctly found it to be a place where, too often, it overvalues arcane, abstract, theoretical scholarship, while undervaluing teaching. They challenged law school teaching and testing methods as unsound. Law school culture can force students to suppress their own values and moral compass, undermining their identity and self-confidence. The result can be law student cynicism, which speaks loudly of an institutional failure in law school design and culture.

The authors argue for a law school experience that encourages and develops competence, promotes personal choices in line with personal values and beliefs, and contributes to a worthwhile connectedness to other people in the community. I couldn’t agree more.

As you contemplate a future law school for yourself, or if you are reflecting on your dissatisfaction with your current law school, consider these points:

o Don’t hand over your happiness to a law school. Don’t let a law school define your mental state.

o Demand that law school professors respond to interesting, current, real-world disputes, cases and law-related events. They will happen every day of your law school career. Law school by all rights should provide you as a student with valuable insights from experienced lawyers and professors about the conflicts, issues and challenges of the day.

o Does your law school promote student interests and priorities?

o Does your law school enhance good teaching by systematically challenging its professors in teaching skills seminars?

o How does the law school reward excellence in teaching? Is student satisfaction with teaching performance measured? Responded to?

o Does your law school offer practical skills training?

o Is the work of the theory professors well integrated with the teaching of the practical skills professors?

o How does the law school work to assist students with stress and mental health concerns?

o How does the law school work to assist its students in passing the Multistate Bar Exam and the bar exam(s) taken by its graduates? Are they transparent with all passage rate statistics?

o How does the law school measure success?

o Seek out and contribute to the best values in law school: kindness, civility, compassion, truth, clear thinking, excellence, modesty, and loyalty. Use the law school environment for good. Participate. Lead in the areas of your passion. Personify the law school you want your law school to be.

o Give feedback about poor teaching to the law school’s senior leadership.

o Law school should be a fertile ground for personal and professional growth, with many interesting, creative, value-enhancing choices for students. Does your current (or proposed) law school measure up?

o Don’t let the law school experience dent your self-image. Absorb and apply what is genuinely constructive and positive. Toss the nonsense over the side.

o Law schools do need to teach you to think in a whole new way, but don’t let the law school detach you from your common sense.

o “Fire” a bad school. Win a transfer to (or at least a visiting year at) another law school, one that is a better fit for your needs.

For more information about my work for law school applicants and transfer applicants, please see my website www.PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to BradDobeck@aol.com .

Your Multiple Law School Deposits May Shortly Become Known to Your Law Schools

Law schools that participate in LSAC's "commitment overlap reporting service" receive periodic reports "detailing the number of their committed applicants who have submitted seat deposits or commitments at other participating schools." What's new is that starting on June 15, 2007, these reports will include the names and LSAC account numbers of all candidates who have deposits or commitments at multiple participating law schools.

According to LSAC's Statement of Good Admission and Financial Aid Practices, "every accepted applicant should be free to accept a new offer from a law school even though a deposit has been paid to another school." (See page 6 of 9 of the SGAFAP.) But now, law schools are encouraged to communicate their policy on multiple enrollment commitments. I expect you'll see law schools withdrawing their offers if they see, through the "commitment overlap reporting service" that a candidate has a deposit paid to a more prestigious or desirable law school. This new policy could create some ugly moments for candidates who've paid multiple deposits, so act carefully in this area.

For more information about my services to law school applicants and transfer applicants, please see my website www. PrelawAdvisor.com or send an e-mail to BradDobeck@aol.com.