law review is awful...a total waste of time imo

if you have the grades to be on law review you don't need to do it...it is unspeakably awful

Damnn, I thought it might be fun. Don't we just research and write scholarly articles about the law?

People keep saying the employers will ask whether you did moot court or law review, so I guess I better do one of them.

If you are on the actual law review you spend like 20 hours a week blue-booking/editing notes during 2nd year, somewhat less 3rd year. This is my understanding anyways...

being a good blue booker really makes a huge difference in your career as an attorney. I only practiced for about a year, but I was in the litigation department and I still never bluebooked anything. I didn't even own a blue book.

Oh, and reviewing the shiit cited in an article to make sure that it actually says what the author says it says is paramount to your legal effectiveness. I used that skill tons at my firm.

You're just acting as the author's biitch but you do it b/c people tell you it's important. The world works mostly out of self-interest, right? Well, law review is in the prof's self-interest so they have students do this biitch work for free that nobody would ever in their right mind volunteer to do. It's in the law review student's best interest b/c they can brag that their on law review. Hence, law review continues...

Does anyone have experience w/ not buying books for multiple classes? I am simply not paying over $100 for a book that I will open less than 15 times...I figure when I'm on call I can just figure out what cases are being covered and get them on the web, then pay like $30 for a good commercial outline at the end.

dude that is super standard

if you were coming straight out of undergrad, made ~$100/hour from poker, and were accepted to a T-14 school, would you defer for a year for the sake of sanity and re-motivating one's self?

I really don't know if the 1.5 month break I'd get would be enough to get prepared/motivated for a task such as 1L...maybe I'm just a slacker.

The rigor of 1L is greatly exaggerated. You can be very lazy and do quite well. It comes down to clever preparation and the ability to write well under pressure. Grinding your life away studying for a whole semester doesn't help much in a 3 or 4 hour exam.

If I was making $100/hour playing poker I would defer law school forever.

Ah, don't say that...that is something I am also afraid of...I've always been in school and been quite busy with social events, extracurriculars, etc. so I've only averaged 15 hours or so of poker/week, in which I have averaged right around $100/hours...

So another potential issue for me is getting overly comfortable playing poker for a 'living' and then not wanting to go to law school in the end...ahhhh

Take year off to travel and play poker. Give yourself and the economy some time to breathe for a bit before heading in.

my reactions to the part of the thread i read:

def take time off before law school. i took 3 years and felt like it was perfect for me to be reinvigorated by learning going back.

law review >>>>>> moot court imo.

lol at big law. i'd rather shoot myself than grind that much. maybe it helps to be good at the pokers though.

and lol at "law school gpa." no grades. i never realized how much it would matter, but i just had the least stressful exam period EVER.

fds - where did you go?

I actually went to law school straight from college and liked it b/c I was used to the academic environment and liked graduating at 25.

I agree that law review > moot court, although I think moot court is actually useful for potential litigators and law review is useless.

GPA: I went into law school thinking that I'll accept whatever grades I get as long as I put it in a decent effort. I finished my first year with a 3.96 so I was glad we had grades since I went to a tier two school and needed to be top of the class to get a biglaw job, which at the time I thought would be sweet. Obv if you read my posts I regret that. I worked at Debevoise & Plimpton.

Rutgers

Now I just need to make sure they'll let me...

"Dear admissions office,

I would like a deferral because I am lazy and can make money playing online poker.

Semi-interested in attending your school,
xxxxx"

Hey Vanessa. How's the pokers going while in law school? Have you managed to still get in a lot of hands as a 1L? I'm pretty restricted to the weekends cause of the workload, which makes me sad. I guess after 1L there will be more time to play though until bar review.

To travel and work to make money so you can decrease your need for loans.

Yea...hope it works...

Definitely not very much room for poker... it's a huge sacrifice that you have to be OK with. I couldn't go down to PCA even because of a final on January 8th, and I wasn't happy. I find that on all my breaks I wind up doing catch up work for DeucesCracked, and I wind up pulling some long weeks to fulfill my obligations there, just because of time constraints. If you're not prepared for a HUGE lifestyle change if you're used to playing a lot, then you're not prepared for law school. Of course, I have no idea what it's like at other schools - but at Yale, it isn't even very competitive and there is still SO much to do, all the time.

Damn you hoity-toity HYS bastards and your no-grades grading system. Least I didn't have tests after Christmas though.

All B+s for me first semester. So meh. Guess I don't have to worry about how much law review sucks.

I know it's a cliche, but I hate getting the same grade in contracts, which I liked and read everything for, and civpro, where I fell asleep everyday and basically just read Glannon for the two days before the test.

Glannon came and shilled his stuff one day at lunch, came off like a total tool.

This might be a dumb question, but do you think including "Enjoys playing poker" on my resume (I'm applying for a PT judicial internship in the summer) would hurt me in some way?

yes.

unless.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsJ3VXL59zc

lol man, I used to have poker on my resume and didn't get **** for job offers until I nixed that whole (activities and interests) section.

You think a potential employer of a clerk gives a flying **** about what you do in your spare time? Show him or her that you can do some research and aren't a total social ****** like many lawyers are. That's all that matters.

My law school application results are starting to come in...

so far accepted to 4 schools, 1 unranked (newer school) and 3 tier 2s. One of the tier 2s (a lower ranked tier 2) offered near full tuition. Pending scholarships from the other 2, and I also received $$ from the as of yet unranked school.

Wait listed at two top 45 schools, including one of my top choices (I have 2, really).

Still waiting on results from all the top 25s I applied to, including another one of my top choices.

This is honestly one of the most painful waiting processes I've ever gone through in my life, haha.

[flywf]There really is no "tier 2" at least as far as US News rankings. only "Top 100" then "Tier 4"[/flywf]



ps- good luck

Do I really wanna live in god damn Ithaca?

When I say tier 2, I mean 51-100. Tier 1 meaning 1-50.