I went to a top 20 law school. Law school is no joke, that's all I have to tell you. If it's just for more money, it's really not worth it, especially if you have other means to make money.
Yes and no. Perception is reality. People have consistently been told how bad the economy is, so they are scared. They tend to horde what money they do have so they can survive for a bit should something bad happen. Adding to that, when gas hit $4 a gallon and the price of other consumer good hit the roof, people had less money for things they didn't need for day to day life...like lawyers. One might think so. The problem is that after trying to pay creditors for as long as they could and other bad decisions in fighting that fight, they simply had no money to hire a BK attorney. I can't tell you the number of people I turned away on the eve of foreclosure because they wanted to pay me $500 for their Chapter 13. Of course, the credit counseling course is $50 and the filing fee is $274. You won't stay afloat for long taking cases for $200 with the hope that they make their plan payments long enough to get you paid.
Any reason why you wouldn't recommend a PR course? I was going to sign up for one at the Upper Kirby location that starts March 27 and runs right up until the June test. Dropping the $1299 is what is stopping me from doing so. I probably will wait to sign up until just before the class is scheduled to start. Downloaded the PowerScore Logic Games Bible and started going through it a couple of weeks ago. The Games section will give me the most hell.
spend a month with the logic games bible. take as many practice lsats as possible. you can make up for a bad gpa, you can't make up for a bad lsat. spend two months, do a practice lsat 3-4 times a week. just dont go to south texas or st marys paying sticker (unless you've got family that can support that). job prospects from those schools aren't that great. south texas with strong grades is probably not too bad, but still a struggle. plus you simply don't know how you'll do in law school. and this economy is scary. of course the positive is, these schools focus on litigation, which is useful when you practice since its not like any corporate work is around. but who knows i guess what the situation will be 4-5 years down the road. but glynch as far as your son goes, law school is a wonderful experience, law firm life blows. a big firm is just the path of least resistance, if you can get it, and one with a fat paycheck. otherwise its kind of hard to justify spending 150-200k on law school.
That is where I took mine. I liked my instructor (Alex), but I felt that that $1300 bucks would have been better spent on small group or one-on-one tutoring instead of class time which became really boring after the first half when the people who "didn't get it" kept slowing us down. My best advice would be to do self study with some one-on-one tutoring like once a week to keep you on track and give you targets to aim for... as the deadline gets closer start going more often to tutoring.
Ahh you make a good point. Could probably spend that much on a private tutor - I might look into that and set up some kind of schedule that intensifies the closer to the test date in June.
I think this is an over-generalization. I graduate with a JD/MBA next year. MBAs get a bad rep, but there is huge value in a MBA education outside of the networking. You learn a lot about the basics of business, about strategy, about marketing. I never realized how many bad business ideas there are out there until bschool. JD is very valuable - but that doesn't de-value the MBA. In fact, I think everyone should get a MBA. However, I think anyone that wants to get a JD needs to consider if practicing law is really for them.
I could highly recommend Alex at PR. He does private tutoring I'm sure. Email me if you would like his referral.
I currently changed majors from pre-med (heading towards orthopedics/sports medicine) to pre-law/political science. I realize that with the way the economy looks, it wouldve made alot more sense to continue pursuing the medical side of things but I simply lacked the passion to finish it, and my grades reflected my lack of passion. However since switching over to political science I've been doing excellent with a 3.8 GPA...the sad part is I went 3 years into my pre-med major with a sub 3.0 GPA before i changed majors....so the average of my GPA is 2.5-3.0 cumulative unfortunately. However I live in the Chicago market with some of the top law firms and schools, and I've been taking LSAT prep tests and doing well, and I enjoy politics/law/history and want to get into politics later in life. I've been doing the Powerscore series of books, and planning on maybe doing a couple private tutor sessions to knock out any kinks in my system. Anyone with anymore advice coming from any similar perspectives? Low GPA, switching majors, high GPA in new major, and high LSAT score? I'm hoping that a low cumulative can be overturned by a a trend upwards in GPA with a switch in majors, coupled with a high LSAT. Btw, I love the BBS for its variety of people/views/lifestyles/careers. Doesn't get any better. Thanks guys, have enjoyed reading your thoughts as always.
I live in Chicago too, currently working full-time for a consulting firm, but am looking into law school (have been out of undergrad since May 2007). Any LSAT prep courses you recommend in the Chicago area?
Are you going for Northwestern or Chicago since you're already in the area? If so, you obviously need to nail the LSAT. I think NU likes work experience, so maybe that could work in your favor. You can write a GPA addendum with your application and explain it.
I've heard the same thing about Northwestern liking work experience. My GPA was pretty crappy (3.4 from UT Austin -- majored in finance, minor in economics), so I pretty much need to nail the LSAT for Northwestern. Hopefully, my 3 years of work experience in litigation/financial consulting will help.
I'm looking into that myself as well. I've been doing the Powerscore book series as I've heard great things across the board about it, and I can feel it working and see it working, great strategies and ways to attack things that it explains fully and clearly. I've definitely seen a vast improvement in my abilities in regards to the logic games section. I also got the Kaplan GRE/GMAT/LSAT cd's but havent tried those yet (picked them up off of EBay for like $15). Where are you doing consulting work? I was looking into going the MBA route during my period of changing majors and was looking into stuff at Accenture and others. However I decided on law and it doesn't seem like a wise choice anymore to head in the consulting direction for experience. I've been working part time for a small business doing consulting and IT/webdesign/graphics work for the past 3 years. I took this semester off of school to work there fulltime and I plan on going back and finishing up 12 hrs of my undergrand this summer/fall. That has me shooting for Law School Fall of 2010, with LSAT prep throughout this year and multiple LSAT tries this Fall and next Spring. I'm looking at Northwestern and U of Chicago because like others mentioned earlier, for it to be worth it in more ways then one, it's always good to go to the top schools and those consistently are in top 10. Another factor is that I'm interested in going the dual MBA/JD route because I think it'll give me even more punch to the resume, as well as its combining my interests in business with law. Btw, what's a GPA addendum?
I'm finding it difficult to get into an LSAT study routine while working full-time..any tips? I work for Navigant Consulting, and am also interested in JD/MBA, Northwestern, and am hoping to start in Fall 2010...we're on the same track, bud.
Every school charges (or would like to charge) tuition as if all of their graduates are placed with big law and get $160K starting salary. Truth is, unless you go to a top 5 law school, there is really no assurance of that, especially in this economy (and even then it's not a sure thing if you land in the bottom 1/3 of your class). If your son can somehow graduate with minimal or no debt, that would really free him up to do a lot of things with the JD degree. So I guess whether the degree is still "worth it" depends on the price he (or you) have to pay. This link pretty much sums up what big law employees talk about and think about their jobs: www.abovethelaw.com.
