LSAT Courses

I'm curious about this too. When are you planning on taking the LSAT?

 

If you're in Austin, check out House of Tutors. They're a lot cheaper than the nationwide guys, and they raised my score 10 points.

Oh, and make sure to take your prep test right before you take the test. You want to peak on your test day.

 

i took kaplan years ago and they were very good. i think the bottom line is that the courses are all pretty good and you get what you put into it. my biggest tip is to do many practice tests, timed. time pressure is the biggest thing with the lsat.

i've been practicing law for 8 plus years now. the one thing that the lsat, law school, bar exam and practice of law have in common is time pressure. law is easy if you have an indefinite amount of time. but the reality is that you are asked to do a tremendous amount of work in a compressed time frame.

warning - unsolicited advice.

many young people head to law school for one of 2 reasons: they have undergrad degrees that aren't exactly conducive for making a living (english, history, psychology) and need a grad degree, and/or lawyers make a good amount of money.

do yourself a favor. take a college business law course. that is an intro/survey course that will give you an idea of what law is like and you can get an idea of whether you might like it.

do yourself another favor - if you go to law school, commit for 1 year, big time. if you bury yourself in the books for first year, and do well with grades, you're set. in the fall of 2nd year, you will interview for summer clerkships that start after your 2nd year. your first year grades will get you those clerkships. if you were on student loans like I was, the clerkships are key. they often pay $2K per week (yes per week, but before taxes) and can foot the bill for next year of school. more importantly, they lead to permanent offers of employment. In sum, if you kick ass during first year, you can get a great summer clerkship that pays well, and you can enter your 3rd year of law school with a good job offer in hand. drink all the beer you want in your 3rd year.

do yourself another favor - realize that big money means lots of work, not all of which is interesting, much of which is boring and dull. I graduated UT law in 1997. I worked for 2 big firms over the course of 7 years. I was lucky b/c I picked up mentors that made sure I didn't get stuck doing grunt work for my whole life. I got lots of good litigation experience. But many of my friends at big firms got stuck on document reviews and hated the work.

do yourself one last favor - if you go with a big firm, beware of the golden handcuffs. You'll get a 6 figure salary and the first think you'll want ot do is to buy a new car, house or other cool stuff. Think about what you really want. if you take on that new debt, that means that you HAVE TO stay at the big firm salary. You don't have the freedom to pick up and leave. Some of my friends have stayed with big firms doing work they don't like b/c of their BMWs, houses or other expensive stuff. They made that choice, but some of them wish they hadn't.

 

seems like a lifetime ago, but i took princeton review and thought it worked well.

 

You MUST BUY these BOOKS. PERIOD. Seriously, get out your wallet go the link below at Amazon and order these two books RIGHT NOW where it says "better together". They got me into law school, I sh*t you not.





http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...bs_b_2_1/103-5222726-5829400?v=glance&s=books

 

Good luck with that Hayes.

 

My nephew applied to law schools last year and unfortunately came out with a huge goose egg He applied to 4 schools (UT, UH, SMU, STCL). He was rejected outright by UT and SMU. He was waitlisted and eventually rejected by UH and South Texas College of Law. He had a 2.75 GPA in college and took the LSAt twice (got a 157 and 159). Since law school didn't work out, he is now working as a IT consultant. Any suggestions from the board on things he can do to improve his chances of getting into law school. That is his ultimate goal (being a lawyer). Any help is appreciated. Thanks

 

Hey man, I know this was directed at Hayes but thanks for the info! Anyone even THINKING about this after graduating should save this immediately.

 

I'm taking the LSAT on Oct. 1st. I highly recommend the Princeton Review courses. Also, the classes won't help unless you have time to practice on your own. If you have other questions, let me know.

 

He should definitely get in touch with someone at STCL Admissions to see how he can improve his chances. I am an ambassador for the law school and am at a lot of open houses. Persistence pays.

 

My advice:

1. nephew should make sure he wants to be a lawyer. ask himself why and what he wants to do with a law degree. money? courtroom? help people?

2. if he wants to work in the public sector, credentials may not be as important. (I think this comment sounds derogatory to the public sector attorneys and I hate that. But i think it's true). Perhaps he should apply to Thurgood Marshall School of law in Houston. He'll probably swallow a little pride in doing so, but if he want to do public service, it may not matter as much. besides, he would have an easier time graduating from the top of his class. Not trying to be a jerk, those are just facts. He might also try st mary's in San antonio. I believe some people start as a first year in those schools, and then transfer to "better" schools before 2nd year.

3. if commanding a healthy salary is a big motivator, he'll need to get into one of the schools he applied to, b/c the majority of the big firms do not take lesser schools seriously. As for how to do that, he can boost his LSAT by taking prep courses. If he feels like he has maxed out on that, the he may be best to build his application with job experience. That will help him with his non-lawyer contingency plan. But it may also help him get in. I knew many 2nd career people in law school. their quantitative credentials were not as high and perhaps their prior careers were qualitative factors that got them in.

4. He should go to some of the schools and talk with the dean of admissions directly. they will give better advice than we could possibliy give.

 

I'm in Austin right now and currently taking the Kaplan course and I'm glad I did. The most underrated aspect of these courses is the constant practice in a test-like atmosphere.

 

If he is serious about law school, he should apply again. Last year was one of the toughest years of admission to law school. A lot of people applied, which created a huge amount of competition. Economy has picked up a lot this year and the rumor is, it should be easier to get into law school this year compared to last year.

 

Good advice from above, it also wouldn't hurt if he tried being a paralegal, or if he does IT, is he interested in patent or IP? being a paralegal gets you contacts, can get you good advice and if really lucky, can even get the firm to pay for school and have a guarantee offer when you are done. Its important to at least talk to some lawyers, and have them be honest about it.

He shouldn't worry about LSAT or gpa, some people are better test takers and students than they are workers. Nor are they conducive to how you will do in law school or more importantly your work as a lawyer. My lsat was crap, and I'm closing in on offers in NYC in big firms, if you are willing to put the time into it, law school does pay off.

 

further to this point, Aggie Rocket, your nephew could easily consider doing IT for a law firm. Millions, and I mean millions, of dollars are being spent on IT issues relating to lawsuits. The vast majority of attorneys' fees in litigaiton is spent in discovery, whether each side asks the other for huge amounts of information to figure out who is supposed to win. Each side has to respond. In the email and electronic age, that means tons of electronic information has to be processed, reviewed and produced to the other side.

there are IT boutiques everywhere, in every major city, that specialize in litigation support. if your nephew knows his way around computers, he may have a future in this area. IKON, Medley, Ridgeways, Iron Mountain, and a ton of other companies do this. They specialize in being able to grab emails, process them for attorney review, and production. They specialize in maintaining huge databases of emails and other documents. Law firms are also hiring IT types to manage this stuff in house.

I have little doubt that your nephew could get in if he knows about computers.

 

I didn't have the money to pay for the course, I just used the books. I was in crunch time. I decided to apply to law schools had 2 months before the last LSAT available before applications were due. Studied all I could in my free time. Took EVERY exam that was available in that book under real test conditions and improved my score to 163 in practice. Took what was considered one of the hardest LSAT's in recent history according to test watchers and scored a 157. Good enough to get me into STCL.

 

Hayes, I think we are on the "same page" this time.

It's great you started this thread.