The Law School Admission Game Play Like An Expert Third Edition

Learn everything you need to know to get into law school. This third edition (and completely re-written and updated) version of the bestselling law school admission guide provides detailed information on how to present yourself in the law school application process. Ann Levine brings 15+ years of experience in law school admissions (as director of admissions for law schools and as a law school admission consultant) to provide advice about writing the best law school personal statement and optional essays, how to choose people to write letters of recommendation, what to include in your resume, how to explain weaknesses in your application such as a low GPA or LSAT score, the best way to prepare for the LSAT, and how to choose a law school. Once you've submitted your law school applications, this book will continue to guide you on getting accepted from a waiting list, negotiating law school scholarships, and transferring to a new law school after your 1L year. The book includes an analysis of personal statement introductions as well as complete essays successfully used by applicants, tips on writing optional essays for law schools, and sample resumes and addenda. Topics include: - How will law schools view my credentials, activities, and work experience? - What is the rolling admission process and how can it impact whether I am accepted? - Will the fact that I am a non-traditional applicant help me or hurt me? - Why is the personal statement important and how do I select a topic? - How do I explain a low LSAT score, inconsistent GPA, academic probation, or arrest record? - Should I write an optional essay? - Should I share information about my learning disability? - Why was I placed on a waiting list and what can I do to increase my chances of acceptance? - How can I use scholarship offers to negotiate between law schools? - How do I decide where to attend? The tips and insights provided within The Law School Admission Game: How to Play Like an Expert is the second best thing to having your own law school admission consultant. Ms. Levine offers candid and tangible advice in a conversational tone with an open and encouraging (but brutally honest) approach. This book will change how you look at the law school admission process and help you create your strongest possible application package. This book offers strategies for all law school applicants, including specific advice for people: -Determined to attend a Top Law School -Hoping for the chance to attend any law school -Seeking an affordable legal education -Returning to school after being in the work force -Still in college with limited work and life experience -Considering how to build their experiences and resumes to strengthen their applications -Concerned about writing a compelling personal statement because they haven't overcome significant obstacles - Know the story they want to tell about overcoming obstacles in life but are not sure what to emphasize. No matter your life story or potential weaknesses in your law school application, The Law School Admission Game: How to Play Like an Expert will guide you through every piece of the application process. Both previous editions of this book have been Amazon.com bestsellers, and this one is the first to feature full-length essays used by successful applicants in the past, as well as a self-study LSAT schedule. If you're even thinking about applying to law school, this book is about to become your go-to resource.

Whether you're considering law school or are already committed, "The Law School Decision Game: A Playbook for Prospective Lawyers" explains your choice to enter the legal profession with the candor readers have come to expect from Ann Levine's Law School Expert blog including: -What lawyers do, how much money they make, and how hard they work.-What's important in choosing a law school. -What BigLaw is really like.-What to consider before taking on student loan debt in today's job market. -What you can do now to increase your likelihood of getting hired later.-What is important in choosing an area of specialization.-What you need to know and do in law school and in the first few years of your career to set yourself up for success."Law school admissions directors are going to hate this book, but it's critical for potential lawyers who wish to make an informed decision about their careers before they spend three long years in law school and potentially a lifetime paying off their debt. I know many miserable law students and even more unhappy lawyers who I am sure wish they had read this book before ever taking the LSAT." Spencer Aronfeld, Esq., author of "Make It Your Own Law Firm."

This Handbook provides a comprehensive guide for college students and high school seniors considering law school. It teaches how to build an undergraduate resume, how to gather information about law school and legal careers, how to prepare for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) and how to navigate the pitfalls of the law school application process. It also leads students through the law school curriculum, the central importance of the first year (1L), the roles played by Law Review, clinical programs, Moot Court, Mock Trial, interviewing, networking, summer associate positions and clerkships. Finally, it concludes with seven lessons to carry from law school into legal practice. This Handbook arises from the author’s two careers---one as a university professor and pre-law advisor, the other as a magna cum laude law school graduate and a successful practicing attorney. Along the way it conveys the author’s love of the law and admiration for the role of law in the United States. -Adopts a broader and longer perspective than any of its competitors, beginning with freshman year, and covering each year as an undergraduate, through law school admissions, the three years of law school, and into the beginnings of legal practice. -Provides useful, concrete and practical information including, lists of Dos and Don’ts, a Four Year Checklist, information about key resources, a step-by-step explanation of the law school application process, as well as a formula for selecting “competitive”, “safe” and “reach” law schools. -Presents detailed information about the law school curriculum each year, the importance of Law Review, clinical programs, Moot Court, interviewing skills, and summer associate positions. -Addresses current downsides to the practice of law in a more open way than any of its competitors, including the exhorbitant cost of law school, the difficulty repaying law school debt, the lack of opening legal positions in the wake of 2008, the high levels of job dissatisfaction in the profession, the stresses practice places upon a personal live. -Concludes with seven lessons to carry from law school into the practice of law.

Whether you’re is a college junior facing the LSATs, a senior sitting with disappointing test scores, or someone who has always dreamed of a career in the law, there is too much at stake not to ask the hard questions about what lies ahead. In How to Get Into Law School, Susan Estrich lends her unique point of view and far-ranging experience-as ace law student, tenured professor, renowned legal scholar and analyst-to the life and career questions applicants will face, and answers them in the frank, no-nonsense manner that is her trademark. Featuring anecdotes from admissions directors, professors, veteran attorneys, and adventurous students alike, this is your indispensable how-to guide.

Going to law school has become a very expensive and increasingly risky gamble. When is it still worth it? Law professor Paul Campos answers that question in this book, which gives prospective law students, their families, and current law students the tools they need to make a smart decision about applying to, enrolling in, and remaining in law school. Campos explains how the law school game is won and lost, from the perspective of an insider who has become the most prominent and widely cited critic of the deceptive tactics law schools use to convince the large majority of law students to pay far more for their law degrees than those degrees are worth.DON'T GO TO LAW SCHOOL (UNLESS) reveals which law schools are still worth attending, at what price, and what sorts of legal careers it makes sense to pursue today. It outlines the various economic and psychological traps law students and new lawyers fall into, and how to avoid them. This book is a must-read if you or someone you care about is considering law school, or wondering whether to stay enrolled in one now.

Offers one hundred rules that every first year law student should live by “Dear Law Student: Here’s the truth. You belong here.” Law professor Andrew Ferguson and former student Jonathan Yusef Newton open with this statement of reassurance in The Law of Law School. As all former law students and current lawyers can attest, law school is disorienting, overwhelming, and difficult. Unlike other educational institutions, law school is not set up simply to teach a subject. Instead, the first year of law school is set up to teach a skill set and way of thinking, which you then apply to do the work of lawyering. What most first-year students don’t realize is that law school has a code, an unwritten rulebook of decisions and traditions that must be understood in order to succeed. The Law of Law School endeavors to distill this common wisdom into one hundred easily digestible rules. From self-care tips such as “Remove the Drama,” to studying tricks like “Prepare for Class like an Appellate Argument,” topics on exams, classroom expectations, outlining, case briefing, professors, and mental health are all broken down into the rules that form the hidden law of law school. If you don’t have a network of lawyers in your family and are unsure of what to expect, Ferguson and Newton offer a forthright guide to navigating the expectations, challenges, and secrets to first-year success. Jonathan Newton was himself such a non-traditional student and now shares his story as a pathway to a meaningful and positive law school experience. This book is perfect for the soon-to-be law school student or the current 1L and speaks to the growing number of first-generation law students in America.

The Law School Admissions Guide was written with the intention of creating a concise and authoritative step-by-step guide to help make the entire admissions process one that is understandable and manageable. Having applied to numerous schools, the author provides his hindsight 20/20 perspective so that you may benefit NOW?before you apply to law school?from the lessons he was only able to see and learn in hindsight. Included in the Guide is a timeline to help you stay organized. The tools to increase your chances of getting admitted into law school provided in this Guide cannot be found elsewhere. Do not take the risk of sending in your application until you are enlightened to the ways in which you can increase your chances of acceptance. From tactics to help you do well on the LSAT to pitfalls you should watch out for when requesting letters of recommendation, this Guide helps you to create and finalize an application that law schools will evaluate as truly significant and worthy of special notice. Find out what you can do TODAY to help you increase your chances of getting admitted to law school!

I WISH I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW! Don't get to the end of your law school career muttering these words to yourself! Take the first step toward building a productive, successful, and perhaps even pleasant law school experience—read this book! Written by students, for students, Law School Confidential has been the "must-have" guide for anyone thinking about, applying to, or attending law school for more than a decade. And now, in this newly revised third edition, it's more valuable than ever. This isn't the advice of graying professors or battle-scarred practitioners long removed from law school. Robert H. Miller has assembled a blue-ribbon panel of recent graduates from across the country to offer realistic and informative firsthand advice about what law school is really like. This updated edition contains the very latest information and strategies for thriving and surviving in law school—from navigating the admissions process and securing financial aid, choosing classes, studying and exam strategies, and securing a seat on the law review to getting a judicial clerkship and a job, passing the bar exam, and much, much more. Newly added material also reveals a sea change that is just starting to occur in legal education, turning it away from the theory-based platform of the previous several decades to a pragmatic platform being demanded by the rigors of today's practices. Law School Confidential is a complete guide to the law school experience that no prospective or current law student can afford to be without.