was this true when i took the test?

Only if there are 2 LRs in the first half. Or that's how it used to be.

oct

and yeah this is what confused me

my test was LR(25)/LG/LR(26)/LR(26)/RC

since the experimental had always been in sections 1-3, and I know that there can only be one LR 26 section (again, given history), the experimental had to be section 3....or so I thought....it was actually section 4

who knows where it could be now

is law school worth it?

i have a poli-sci degree with a good gpa. i havent taken the lsat yet but i expect to do pretty well (170+). i was planning on going to law school (poli-sci ldo), but started to question it my junior/senior year when i began to see numerous horror stories about the legal market.

my concerns are borrowing a ton of money and not being able to land a job when i get out, as well as questions about whether i want to be involved with biglaw and everything that comes with it.

i'd appreciate any thoughts

Read the thread, or at least the
last 15 pages. It is all hashed out there.

In summary; Do you want to be a lawyer? That's distinct from "Do you want to earn the legal salary you may have read about?"

lol if you expect to be 1% (assuming you've never taken a practice)


get a 170+ with a good gpa and you will most likely get a full ride to a pretty respectable school and if you don't and money is still a major concern then go down the rankings until you find a school that will give you one. ~3.7/170+ is money all over T2 and probably lower T1. then you wouldn't have to worry about 6 figs in debt

and as a poli sci major who's in their first year of LS..law school is a complete 180 change from anything you have done in undergrad. only thing close I can think of is if you took logic classes. I have my first final tomorrow (contracts) and I'd rather take 3 poli sci finals instead. there is no right or wrong answer (if you know what you're talking about)

I'm beginning to think that the ones who can't stop talking about the horrible legal market while in law school are the ones that dont make it. My classmate I started the semester with who "had so many connections and hookups" but worried all day about jobs dropped out last week because of the stress.



long story short...if you go to law school don't do it to become a big shot lawyer. take the lsat to get into law school...once there worry about saving face and ending 1L with a respectable class ranking. repeat this for 3 years.....then try not to kill yourself when faced with the bar...and then worry about a job. (at least this is the way I have started looking at it...and I'm around 1Ls/2Ls/3Ls all day as well as ~3 practicing attorneys who are representing my business in various pending cases)

back to preparing for my K final....I have a wonderful week ahead (K/civ/crim) then torts next week.

In law library now, trying to figure out how to convert 1L nerves into a source of renewable energy.

this is wrong. the legal market is absolutely horrible for new grads from top to bottom. even those who "make it" r working at jobs/firms that they wouldve never worked at 5 yrs ago

Isn't the job market in general absolutely horrible for grads anyway? I agree you should only go to law school if you want to become an attorney but a law degree is still a law degree.

edit: i'll probably look back on this a few years from now and lol but still

i've taken some practice tests and scored ~160 each time, but i would study for a few months before taking the actual test.

yes but it really boils down to this:

no job prospects and 200k debt and 3 years opportunity cost vs no job prospects

from a financial perspective it usually doesn't make sense unless ur going to an elite school or are in some kind of exceptional situation (full scholarship to TTT but mom and dad are important partners at biglaw firm)

If you start off scoring in the 160s without any prep at all you'll be straight

i read something on TLS about the pure cost benefit decision (so not counting if you REALLY want to be a lawyer, if your mom is a partner, that type of stuff) and pretty much the only people it made financial sense for were like liberal arts majors with <3.5 GPA. Of course this breaks down at the extremes, like a 4.0 178 heading to harvard or w/e, but in general unless you fit that profile law school was -EV.

yeah that sounds about right.

and let's not forget that the golden ring (at least for those attending for financial purposes) is the biglaw circle of hell. i've only been here for a few months and already can't wait to get out. so even for those who do make money it isn't all unicorns and rainbows.

Kinda misunderstood what I said. I'm not saying there's 6fig jobs just waiting for new law grads. I meant if you really want to do law just do it for the education and "make it" through the 3 years and the bar. I admit I go to a pretty low ranked school in SoCal but I already have a paid internship this summer and most likely a job at the same place once I'm done... I was lucky enough to have some fam connections and that I have a full scholarship. If I didn't have those yea I'd be pretty worried right now but if I knew I wanted to do law that bad I wouldn't sit around as a 0L/1L and worry about the job market. Would I rather be in the toilet as a lawyer or in the sewer with a poli sci bachelors?

invid,

Of course it's better in a vacuum to have a JD than to not have one. Full ride + family connections into a job makes law school a perfectly valid career path.

But absent those, I would counsel the guy with a poli sci bachelors NOT to go to law school.

The amount of debt you rack up + the opportunity cost of the three years you lose is worth way way way more than the benefit your JD gives you in the job market as against the Poli Sci bachelors guy.

No one is arguing that JD isn't > no JD. They're just arguing that it's not by enough.

My story I have somewhat shared before, but the main thing is that I have been pretty hell bent on going to law school since I was ~18. I am 22 now, and I have a horrible undergrad GPA (2.05)...I have not graduated yet but I am transferring to a state school where I will be two more full years of coursework. I feel like the "smart" thing to do would be to finish my undergrad with better grades, and try and establish a working career in the legal community (something like a paralegal or something) before I take the plunge and try to go to law school. Is there anything wrong with going to law school when you are 28 or 29? Any insight is helpful.

some more info:

studied Poli Sci at UC Davis
Major GPA is closer to 3.0 than cumulative which is 2.05
SAT scores were lol bad
Generally really lazy/not disciplined in things that don't interest me
Took off school 2 years and played poker professionally
Transferring to Sac State as a Government major

Also, it is a good idea to get involved in extra-curriculars the second time around in undergrad, is it not?

-Julien

Julien,

I started law school at 28, so I'm going to say there is nothing wrong with it. At my school 25+ isn't a huge percentage of people but I'm hardly the only one (we even have a 60 something guy). With that said, the difference between us and you is that we almost all worked full-time jobs in the interim between UG and law school (which is pretty much a golden ticket here), whereas your application is going to make it look like you just struggled through school for 8 years with a two year break and no work history. Not trying to bash you, it's just the facts. Bringing up your grades and trying to get some work in the legal field will help, though.

so I am correct in assessing that I should probably work full time after I graduate to string together some loose ends?

edit: It looks like I will have finished my undergrad at 25 after beginning at 17. Sounds SO loltastic, jesus I just typed it for the first time and WOW does that look....staggering.

re-edit: I have maintained a part time job at Target since I was 20. (lol) Not sure if it helps, but when I go into my interviews one day they are going to say, why the huge break in undergrad? I am not going to say anything about poker and I don't really know how to approach that debacle.

re-re-edit: I have 2 quarters before I can graduate from the UC. I have little credit and my mother wouldn't co-sign a loan for me to finish school. No financial aid. Have a 5 figure amount locked up on FTP.

Why kind of law school are you hoping to get into? Do you wanna practice in California? Northern California?

Saying you've been hell bent on going to law school seems pretty silly considering your path thus far.. I don't tell you that to dig at you but rather to say you shouldn't take that approach when applying to schools/going through interviews.

I have no idea what my shots at T-14 schools are so I am going to assume thats pretty low. I want to practice somewhere that is massively populated, not in a rural place. Northern California is ideal if I am in Sacramento/SF, but I am open to ideas. I would more than likely want to practice in California.

I went back and forth on career aspirations in college and had no direction or self discipline, but I think now is the time to stop making excuses and actually do something for myself. I understand that ascertaining this idea can get me in severe financial debt, however it is something I constantly think about. At the end of the day I just want to be happy in a chosen career path. I love how intricate society is in everyday happenings, and I love the history of people and war and politics. I enjoy seeing how law is supposed to reflect the difference between right and wrong and dish consequence for wrong-doing. It interests me immensely. I like picking apart what people say or do and finding flaws in them. That could just be me being a senseless prick though, lol.

The point is, I really effed up the first time around, and if I do what I can to amend it from here forward, will they look at the overall picture and say to themselves "Wow he really cleaned up his act" or will they say "this guy is a social malcontent with a disdain for education". That is what I need help deciding.

Finals week is a bit busy to be asking law students stuff that requires thought

Real quick. Get the best grades you can obv. If you can land a full time job do it for a couple years so can see something from start to finish. The spend some of your wages and free time drilling on the LSAT. If you don't have pressing obligations you'll have an advantage in taking all of the prep time that you want.

I'm going to guess so, but I couldn't be sure. We're a year apart and I'm unaware of anything that was new about when I took the test.

The test is always 2 LR/1 RC/1 LG. Whichever section type has an extra obviously has an experimental, but I'm pretty sure that you can't know for sure which one. And actually yeah if you have 3 LR then you probably can't narrow it down.

The experimental thing ****ed with me when I took it because I hated RC more than anything, and my first section was RC. I could tell I did horribly on it and it really rattled me during the next couple of sections. Yep; that was an experimental section.