Law School/LSAT Blog

NALP Clashes with the ABA

Stratus Prep — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:22:17 +0000

The symbiotic relationship formed by the American Bar Association (ABA) and the National Association for Law Professionals (NALP) has come to an abrupt end this week according to a law.com article.

In the initial partnership, NALP would have been responsible for reformatting their original questionnaire and collecting more specific detailed data from law schools. The NALP data was going to aid the ABA in its effort to collect more complete and accurate postgraduate employment data from law schools.

But last week, the executive committee of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar decided to require law schools to report the more detailed information directly to the ABA, dismissing NALP from the reporting process. James Leipold, NALP's executive director, believes NALP’s transparency on the state of the legal job market is the reason why the ABA has retracted their collaboration offer. He further elaborates, “I believe their intent is to recapture their ability to control the message to the public about the status of the job market. There’s a conflict of interest here.”

What To Do The Summer Before Law School

Stratus Prep — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:59:59 +0000

As the summer slowly draws to an end, what should you do to prepare for your first year of law school? Our founder, Shawn O'Connor (Harvard JD) shared some of his tips and to-dos for those entering their 1L year.

Prepare: Take Stratus Prep's law school preparation course

You can still register for the last section of Stratus Prep's Law School Bootcamp, starting this Sunday, July 24. The one week course will teach you real inside tips from law school graduates on how to excel in law school while maintaining a social life. You'll learn exam, outlining, and study strategies.
Over 75% of Stratus Prep Bootcampers end up in the top 25% of their 1L class.

Read: One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School

One L, by Scott Turow, chronicles the experience of a Harvard Law School student during his 1L year. While the book describes a traditional, more dated law school experience, reading the book will help calm your nerves and give a glimpse into law school.

Shawn shares: “Not only is One L a great read, the book will make you feel better, because ultimately you know your law school experience will be vastly different from the one described in these pages.”

Law Schools Get Practical

Stratus Prep — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:53:10 +0000

With only about 25% of last year’s graduating class gaining positions with big law firms, law schools are rethinking their curricula and how they are preparing their students to be employment ready in this tough legal job market.

A recent WSJ article discussed law schools' move to restructure their curriculum to teach practical skills. New York Law School went as far as hiring 15 new faculty members over the past two years. The new additions are working lawyers who will teach law students vital skills such as negotiation, counseling, and fact investigation. This represents a startling change for New York Law, which usually hires only two new faculty members a year.

Even top law schools, whose graduates statistically have much better luck finding jobs at big law firms, are responding to this wave of change. For example, Harvard launched a problem-solving class for first-year students while Stanford is considering making a full-time clinical course, which would entail several 40 plus hours a week of case work.

It is unclear whether the new approaches to teaching law, combining a legal education and practical skills, will impact the ability of lawyers to land jobs. "It could enhance the reputation of the law school...as places that will produce new lawyers who have practical skills," says Timothy Lloyd, a partner at Hogan Lovells and chair of its recruiting committee. "As to the particular student when I'm interviewing them? It doesn't make much of a difference."

Do you believe teaching more practical skills and courses at law schools is enough to help students find employment post law school or should law schools be doing more for their students? Please share your thoughts below.

Paralegal Happy Hour

Stratus Prep — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:00:50 +0000

Take a night off to network with like-minded professionals, share your experiences, and discuss your professional goals with the Stratus team at our first annual outdoor Paralegal Happy Hour.

Join us for a night of drinks, food, and great conversation at Lucy's Cantina Royale on Wednesday, July 13th. Guests will recieve two complimentary drink tickets and appetizers will be served.

Event Details:

Date

Wednesday, July 13th

Time:

6:00 pm

Location:

Lucy's Cantina Royale

1 Penn Plaza

Space is limited so RSVP for this popular event so RSVP below or email michelle.shapiro@stratusprep.com at your earliest convenience.

This event is free and open to the public so feel free to bring any fellow paralegals. We look forward to seeing you on the 13th!

LSAT Scores Are Out: What Should You Do Next?

Stratus Prep — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:29:01 +0000

After an extremely stressful period of waiting, refreshing the LSAC homepage, and speculating on score release dates, test takers finally received their LSAT scores on Monday. Some were pleasantly surprised, others were content, and, as always, some were disappointed. Whichever group you are in, here are the next steps you should take to ensure you gain admission to the law school of your choice.

“I got an amazing score and I couldn’t be happier.”

Celebrate, but don’t completely forget about your law school applications!
Evaluate the list of schools you are planning to apply to. Make sure you have a balanced list of schools that contains enough safeties and reaches.
Since you already aced the LSAT, you can devote more time to perfecting your applications. Create a schedule with deadlines so you will have ample time to craft your essays and edit them. Aim to hand in your application early.

“I did good, but not great.”

Look at your list of schools and determine where your LSAT score and GPA would fall within the accepted students. Would you be in the 25^th percentile or 75^th percentile? If your score is in the bottom half of the range at your dream school, seriously consider retaking the test.
No matter where your score falls in relation to other accepted students at a school, there are no guarantees. If you believe you have the time to dedicate to studying this summer, you should take the LSAT again. A small point increase could also mean the difference between acceptance and acceptance with a merit-based scholarship.

“I thought I did well, but I didn’t get the score I expected.”

If you scored more than a few points below your average practice test scores leading up to the exam, you should definitely retake. You have already proven your potential to do better. But first, take a break and relax! Don’t let your previous test experience dictate what will happen in your second attempt.
Start your preparation by carefully determining what could have caused your lower score. Were you distracted on the day of the exam? Did you find an entire section that gave you trouble, or just a reoccurring question type? Or did you feel you weren’t prepared enough?
After you asses the reasons for your score, alter your strategy. If puzzles gave you a hard time, then develop a new way of tackling these problems.

For those who decide to take the LSAT over again, make sure you invest enough time and energy for preparation. Taking the LSAT over again is a commitment and shouldn’t be taken lightly, as you will need to keep studying and taking practice tests until October. If you have taken an LSAT prepartion class already, invest in a tutor who can keep you focused throughout the next months of studying and help you develop specific strategies for the problems that are giving you trouble.

If you are still on the fence, do some research on your schools’ policies concerning multiple LSAT exams. Some schools average the two, others take the highest, and a few view both. Make an informed decision and then create a plan encompassing your study and applications schedule.

Whether you take the LSAT over or not, there is still a long road ahead before your receive that coveted acceptance letter in your hand. Make sure you plan ahead and stay focused; your hard work will be worth it. Good luck!

The Importance of Preparing for 1L

Stratus Prep — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:46:25 +0000

When you are accepted to law school, you think the hard part is over. All those hours editing and scrutinizing your essays, proofreading every word of your application, and obsessing over who will write you the best recommendation have finally paid off, and you're in!

Law School Is Not College

But the hard part has really just begun. Law school classes are nothing like undergraduate classes. There is no coddling, you are assigned hours upon hours of reading, and grades are often based on just one exam. Even if you manage to do all of the reading, you are not guaranteed a good grade because the exams are based not on memorization, but on your ability to apply what you have learned and "think like a lawyer."

Law school also has an added level of competition among classmates due to the forced curves that all law schools use for grading. The forced curve requires professors to hand out a limited number of each grade, so they may give 5% of the class an A, 10% an A-, 25% a B+, etc. The professors also grade all exams without looking at the name, so class participation or other factors will not influence your grade.

1L Grades Are Most Important

Your first year grades are by far most important. In the fall of your second year, you apply for the internship you will have the summer after your second year. That internship will likely turn into your first full-time job after law school. When you are applying for internships, the only grades the recruiters have to look at are your 1L grades. So your 1L grades essentially dictate the quality (or existance) of your job right out of law school.

Preparation Is Essential

From the first day of law school classes, you need to be ahead of your classmates. The secret to law school success is in our Law School Bootcamp, a weeklong class you take the summer before you start law school. Bootcamp is taught by recent law school graduates who give you not only a solid foundation for all the classes you will take in 1L, but also insider tips and tricks including exam, outlining and study strategies. This one-week course could translate into a salary difference of tens of thousands of dollars after law school. Now that is a worthwhile investment!

Can You Trust Law School Rankings?

Stratus Prep — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 22:11:11 +0000

They say never to judge a book by its cover, but how about judging a law school by its ranking? We all do it, checking the rankings to determine our top choices. Many prospective law students depend on the law school rankings of the U.S. News and World Report to put together their target list of schools.

However, these rankings may not be as reliable as you think. According to a Law.com article, the employment data reported by law schools to the American Bar Association (ABA) has been critiqued because of the possibility that schools may not elaborate upon data that presents them in an unflattering light.

This week, the ABA took its first step toward improving the quality of data submitted by law schools. On June 11, the ABA’s section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved changes to its law school questionnaire, requiring schools to report more detailed post-graduation employment and salary information.

Schools will be required to disclose:

The percentage of graduates who are employed
The types of jobs they have (this will be reported in greater detail than it is now)
Whether graduates' current jobs require a law degree, whether their employment status is unknown, and if they are in jobs affiliated with the university
If graduates do work in the legal profession and the nature of their job, whether they work in law firms, government jobs, judicial clerkships, academia or other industries.
Top three states in which graduates find employment and number of graduates working in other countries.
Salary data reported alongside the states in which these salaries were offered to prevent skewing of salaries

These detailed statistics will be compiled by NALP, which collects similar data from law schools already. NALP Executive Director Jim Leipold described NALP’s partnership with the ABA:

The obligation to report this information still falls to the law schools. NALP will prepare a custom report for each school in the way the ABA wants it.

U.S. News and World Report stated in a recent article that in light of the ABA's recent actions, they may change the way they compute legal placement rates for the 2013 edition of Best Law Schools rankings. The article expanded on the proposed change in methodology:

If the new ABA rules are implemented, U.S. News will use our own law school statistical surveys in fall 2011 to collect and eventually publish the entire new richer and more detailed set of employment and jobs data from each law school for 2010 J.D. graduates. When we gather this richer data set, we will be able to make a more exact determination of how our ranking methodology will change.

Now the question remains how exactly the ABA will be able to ensure the accuracy of the information reported by law schools and implement the new reporting data rules. What do you think? Will the new rules make a difference?

Learn more about the specific information required to be reported by institutions here.

Should You Cancel Your LSAT Score?

Stratus Prep — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:51:38 +0000

The June LSAT is over, and you can finally breathe again…almost. As much as you may want to just forget everything about this past Monday afternoon, you do need to evaluate your performance and decide if you should cancel your score.

If you have never canceled an LSAT score before, doing it once will likely not hurt your admissions chances. Canceling means that admissions officers will never see your actual score, only that you took the LSAT and then canceled. They know that bad days happen sometimes, so one cancellation will not make or break your application.

While canceling your score won’t count against you in the admissions process, it does still have consequences. You will need to continue reviewing, studying and taking practice tests all summer/fall until you retake the exam, presumably in October or December. For many people the score on the retake will be the only one admissions committees see, so it is even more important to perform well.

Assuming you will be able to commit the time to studying this summer, you should consider canceling if:

You became sick during the exam
You left an entire section blank
You misbubbled multiple questions
You weren’t able to focus properly because of testing conditions.
You believe you did worse on the June LSAT than on an exam you took previously

If you decide to cancel your score, you have to send a written cancellation request to the LSAC within 6 calendar days of the test.

LSAC only allows students to take the LSAT three times in a two-year period. Keep in mind that this cancelled score WILL be counted towards your three test limit.

Still not sure what to do? Don't second guess yourself. If you felt positive coming out of the exam room, you probably did well. If you are a Stratus Prep client and have further questions about canceling your score, feel free to call us at 212-307-1788.

For more information on how to cancel your score, click here.

Countdown to the June LSAT

Stratus Prep — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:24:11 +0000

If you are taking the June LSAT next Monday, you have already put in countless hours of work, from going to classes, to studying, to taking practice tests. To make all that hard work worthwhile and achieve your highest score potential, follow these simple tips in the days leading up to the test:

Friday before Exam Day:

If you haven’t already, begin your exam day routine every morning until Monday. Wake up, eat breakfast, and get dressed as you would on the actual test day. Familiarizing yourself with a routine before the test will help you remain calm and relaxed on Monday.
Only study a few hours each day from now until the exam. After preparing for months, you are as ready as you can be. Cramming will only make you exhausted and more nervous.
Take a full practice test starting at 1pm to get used to taking the exam at that time of day.

Saturday before Exam Day:

Practice your test day routine, including actually traveling to the testing location. Knowing how to get there and how long it takes will alleviate some stress on test day.
Review some of the questions that you have troubled you throughout your studying, as well as the methods you have learned to solve them, to ensure that you will be able to tackle them on the exam day.
Print out your admission ticket. You don’t want to put this off until the night before and find out that your printer or computer is not working properly.

The Day before the Exam:

This is the day for mental preparation, not intellectual preparation.
Take a break from studying and try to have fun! You want to go into the test with the utmost confidence, and if you study too much and confuse yourself, you will start doubting your abilities.

The Night before the Exam:

Prepare you test materials. Gather your admission ticket, a valid ID, a few number two pencils, and an analog watch in a clear Ziploc bag. Make sure you have directions to the testing center, if necessary.

Day of the Exam:

Wake up and eat a hearty breakfast with protein to give you energy. Try to avoid lots of sugar and too much coffee.
Do a few logical reasoning questions and games YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE to get in the LSAT state of mind, focused and ready for the exam. Absolutely do not take a full practice test before the real LSAT.

Good luck on Monday! For more tips leading up to the exam, follow us on Twitter.

Should I Apply to Law School?

Stratus Prep — Wed, 11 May 2011 22:32:00 +0000

Whether you are considering taking the LSAT in a couple years or already charging full steam ahead into the law school application process, you undoubetedly have asked yourself the question, should I really go to law school?

You may have studied the glossy images in law school brochures and pored over countless forums dedicated to prospective law school students, but you still wonder how exactly law school can benefit you and fit into your career goals.

Next week you can find the answers to all of your law school questions. We partnered with education and career resource Vault.com to plan an event centered on applying to law school, going to law school, and finding jobs after law school. Please join us next Wednesday night (May 18) for a panel discussion with New York City's finest:

Our very own Shawn O'Connor, Founder/CEO of Stratus Prep
Peter Samuels, Senior Partner and Co-Head M&A at Proskauer
Rebecca Gingold, Assistant District Attorney
Elnaz Zarrini, Fordham Law School Class of 2011

The panel will be moderated by Vault.com Law Editor Mary Kate Sheridan. These industry experts and the esteemed recent law school graduate will weigh in on the value of a law degree and the realities in the current legal job market, as well as provide tips on applying to law school.

Space is limited so RSVP as soon as possible here. This event is free and open to the public so bring any friends who are interested in law. We look forward to seeing you next Wednesday evening!