Choosing Law School Classes Wisely

Hi guys! Long time, no talk! After I came back to blogging about this time last year, I've made it a goal to be pretty regular for you guys but then life happened these past few weeks. First I had a pretty tough midterm, then I've been interviewing for a possible externship (more on that later), then it was spring break, and oh yeah my sister is moving to my city (YAY) so I've been house hunting with her. But now my life has slowed down a bit so more posts are coming your way :) 

The time after spring break is when things really get moving and part of that whoosh that you're about to feel is registering for classes. You may recall that I kinda already did a post like this, See Registering for 2L Classes (haha a little Bluebook humor). But now I'm older and wiser so I have more to say about registering for classes. By the way, the post is more about planning classes, but if you want to know what classes to take, go check out that post!

Think ahead

Without trying to stress you out too much, the best way to go about thinking what classes you should take next semester is to go ahead and plan out all of your classes until you graduate. I know this is hard to do if your future is uncertain like mine was last year because I was planning on transferring and wasn't sure what kind of law I wanted to practice, but it really would've helped me if I came in knowing what all classes I aimed to take before I graduated.

Going off that, think about what you want to do your 2L and 3L years. If you are interested in taking a clinic at your school, try to take classes that are relevant to that clinic. If you're looking into getting an internship or an externship, same thing. Things like these are very competitive so it will help your application stand out if you can show that you're highly interested in this position and that you're prepared for it. 

Related: How to get in to a law school clinic and How to get accepted to an externship

Stock up on required classes

The last thing you want is to be denied from a program or have your graduation delayed because you forgot to take your required classes. Check with your school and see what classes they require you to have for graduation, and also if they have any time requirements (ex. must take so many per semester/year). Also, ask around to any upper-level students you know and see what classes fill up the fastest. This will help keep your whole planned schedule from getting thrown off if you go to register for classes and half of them are full.

Related: Classes to take in law school 

Take PR early on

Also, as a personal opinion, I would say try to take your Professional Responsibility class sooner rather than later. It's an ethics class that the ABA requires all law students to take and *surprise!* you have to take and pass the MPRE in addition to passing the Bar to get a law license. The good news is that you can take this whenever so if you get this class out of the way early, you can take this test as a 2L whenever it's convenient for you and have that out of the way.

Related: Everything you need to know about the MPRE

Besides all this, any job or program you get in to really likes it if you've already had this class. Sure they'll have you sign non-disclosure forms, but it also gives them a little peace of mind to know that you know what would cause them to be sued for malpractice and will avoid doing that. I'm sure you already know about lawyer-client confidentiality (which is different than lawyer-client privilege, bet you didn't know that), but there are a lot of other ethical duties that lawyers have that are super important to know. Oh and wondering why the ABA requires everyone to take the same class and has its own test for it? You can thank all of the lawyers who did some not-so-ethical things during the little scandal referred to as Watergate. 

Don't be afraid of summer classes

Let's have some fun (jk) and break down the math. You'll need 90 credits within 3 years to graduate. That's 30 credits a year. That's 15 hours a semester. This might sound do-able because you got about 30 hours done your 1L year, but how did you feel about it? Did you feel swamped with reading and as if you were always in class? Now think about how bad that will be trying to take 15 hours a semester in upper-level classes, where professors expect even more reading to be accomplished in a night and the material is even more complex. Sounds like a recipe for disaster doesn't it?

This is why I recommend you consider summer classes. Not only will it help alleviate your schedule for future semesters, it also can open up more possibilities for you later down the road if you don't have a cramped schedule. For example, I'm planning on doing a program in the spring of my 3L year that's 12 hours and doesn't allow you to take any other classes. If I didn't take a summer class, I would be stuck trying to take 18 hours the other semester to stay caught up. It also might give you a more flexible daily schedule so that you can work a few hours a day instead of going to a class. Or you never know, you might just get burnt out your 3L year and want to take only the minimum hours ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

A few answers to questions that I had about summer classes at first:

If I can barely keep up with the reading for a class that spans a full semester, how will I survive when that schedule is condensed? Am I going to be reading 200 pages a night to compensate? No, professors aren't that mean and so they don't just take a semester-long syllabus and cram it into a few weeks. Instead they modify it to be reasonable. Although, you probably will be in classes for a lot longer at once so don't think just because it's summer classes it'll be super easy. Maybe just a little easier.

What about a summer job? How would I have time for both?? Most employers are very understandable about you having a job, so it shouldn't hurt your job prospects. You can work during Summer I and take classes during Summer II (or vice versa). You could also agree with your employer that you take a Tuesday/Thursday class(es) and work Monday Wednesday Friday. Another option is to take all morning classes and then go to work afterwards. Just let them know upfront when you're interviewing and then be prepared to be flexible with your hours.

Related: How to balance clerking and summer classes

What about paying for all of this? I only got a loan to cover spring semester? There are loans for summer school, too. Don't stress too much about having to take out yet another loan because generally summer classes are a little cheaper.

What if I'm planning on going back home for a few weeks during the summer? Your school probably offers some classes online so that won't be a problem.

Related: Tips for surviving an online law school class

Final Thoughts

This is just another post of me overthinking things, but once again I'd rather y'all be over prepared rather than have a mental breakdown because you didn't plan out. Also, remember these are all just my little musings so in no way think that you're doing your scheduling wrong or are behind if you don't do it exactly how I do it. Hope y'all get in to all of the classes you want for next semester 😊 

PS - I also think this is a great post about Choosing Law Classes. I really agree with them and honestly in hindsight I think I would've been fine not taking Family Law and instead just learning what I need to know in a Bar course. Then I could've taken a class that is more relevant to what I want to do or at least one that I think would be a harder subject on the bar for me.

Six Steps to Transferring Law Schools

Wow so much to celebrate in the past week! Yesterday I finally got the news that I've been hoping to hear for over a year—that I've been accepted to my dream school.

I'm so excited to announce that I'm moving back to Lubbock to attend the wonderful Texas Tech School of Law!! ❤️🔫🆙

A photo posted by Nikki (@oh.nikki.you.so.fine) on Jul 26, 2016 at 2:13pm PDT

Being as obsessed with blogging as I am, one of my first thoughts was ooh this will make a good blog post haha. I'm pathetic. The whole process turned out to be easier than I expected, but definitely made me cry stress tears along the way.

Choosing to transfer

I always wanted to transfer after I found out that there just wasn't a spot for me to be moved off the waitlist. The quote that I always kept in the back of my mind was sometimes a No is really just a Not Now. The main reasons why I wanted to transfer is that my new school is cheaper, closer to my friends and family, and truthfully is a higher ranked school. 

I thought about applying after my first semester but talked myself out of it because 1) I didn't know if you even can, and 2) if I had another good semester then I'd have some solid grades to support my application. Luckily, back in May I got a letter from the Dean of Admissions inviting me to apply to transfer. I'm assuming that this is a something they do for the waitlisted people because we are more on the Maybe list than the No list. 

The hard part is that my school didn't release our grades until late June and our ranks until Mid-July so I wasted a few weeks seeing if I was even eligible to transfer. I read somewhere that supposedly some schools do this to make it harder for people to transfer out because of deadlines. 

But as soon as I got my grades back and was happy with them, I called the Dean of Admissions to personally let him know that I was interested, and explained that I had been waiting for my grades before applying. He reassured me that I wasn't late in the process and informed me that they make transfer decisions fairly quickly because they review and decide your file as soon as it comes in because they know that we have to move and whatnot if we transfer. 

GPA/Rank

Obviously this is the most important thing that you need to have down if you want to transfer. Your goal should be at least to be in the top half of your class rank if you want to transfer. As a general rule, the bigger the difference in ranks between your two schools, the higher you should aim for. 

Being in the top half of my class wasn't as hard as it sounds because I just tried my best in every class and ended up with my lowest grade each semester being only one C+ (thanks curve). Having the goal of transferring already when I began my 1L year was a great motivator for me because I knew that I had my 2L and 3L years to get the grades for a job, but only this first year to get to transfer.

LSAT

The great news about transferring is that your LSAT is not as big of a factor as the first go around. When I mentioned that I was considering transferring to one of my professors, he told me this and it really gave me hope.  My professor explained that this is because schools don't have to count transfer student's LSAT in what they release, so your meh score won't hurt their reputation. 

Now I'm not saying that a 120 will get you in, but if your score was borderline the first time you might still get in. This is because they still consider it to see if you're capable of doing well on finals and the bar, because these scores do affect their reputation.

Rec Letters

Going to a professor asking for a rec letter to transfer is awkward, not going to lie. I felt like I was indirectly telling them that I didn't like them or thought that I was too good for them, which was definitely not how I wanted to come off. Luckily though, they understood that it's common for people who do well their first year to try to use that to their advantage to move up the law school ladder. 

What really helped was that law school forces you to participate in class so your professors will actually have something to say about your class performance. Another thing that helps is that the classes are smaller and you have some professors for 9 months so they really get to know you. I just scheduled an appointment with them to go over my final and then at the end brought up about how I was considering transferring and asked if they would write a letter for me. 

One thing to definitely bring with you is a school résumé with your class rank and GPA so that they know your strong points to address. And make sure that you give your professors a deadline of when you want it in before your personal deadline because they will most likely have to submit it through LSAC and wait for that to be added to your file, which takes time. 

Related: How to ask for a rec letter

Personal Statement 

The first go around, I wasn't all that confident in my personal statement. My theme was basically "why I want to go to law school," and I felt like SpongeBob trying to write about what he learned in boating school. When I started to write a new one, I instantly started to have a theme of "why I want to transfer" and it ended up sounding very forced. 

Related: Personal statement advice

Finally I decided that I hated it and wanted to start all over, and for some reason I just sat down and started writing it like I was writing a blog post, and it sounded much more like me. Once I treated the admissions committee like y'all, the words started flowing and I came up with a new theme. I took this girl's advice and used this as an opportunity to explain how I've grown this past year. 

To be honest it was tempting to mention Brazen and Brunette as an example of what I've accomplished since last applying, but I finally decided against it because I didn't know if this would make them take me less seriously since I didn't know if they'd actually come check this out or not. 

Application

Luckily LSAC saves all of your application responses for 5 years, so the application part was easy peasy. Just make sure that when you go to fill it out, you choose a transfer application instead of a regular one. Oh and of course make sure you update your information so they have a current email and mailing address for you since you've probably moved since last time. 

Another thing to remember for your application is that you'll have to send in a new transcript from your current law school. I had to email them to get them to add my law school because at first my only options were high school or undergrad. Speaking of undergrad, if you were accepted into law school before your final grades from undergrad were posted, make sure you get an updated transcript from your undergrad sent in. It took about 4 business days for my school to mail off the transcript, and another business week for LSAC to add these to my file, so get this done ASAP.

Related: What to put on a law school transfer résumé

Letter of Good Standing

This was something that I didn't even know I needed until the school emailed me telling me that it was missing from my file. I'm assuming that this means that you have no holds, have paid all of your tuition, and are still a student at your current school. I had to visit Dean of Student Records to get this. At least at my school, before I could even get this letter I had to speak with our Assistant Dean for Law Student Affairs and be approved. 

All this involved was scheduling a meeting with him to explain why I wanted to transfer and my thoughts on the school. I made sure to request that my class rank be included in this letter because my transferring school required it and I wasn't sure if it was already included on my transcript. The hardest part of this was that I was transferring at prime vacation time so it did take over a week to get all of this done. 

Acceptance

Since all my application was waiting on was this letter of good standing, I went ahead and asked that a copy of the letter be emailed to the admissions people at my transferring school. Apparently Tech had already reviewed my application and all but accepted me because within 20 minutes of this being emailed out I got an acceptance email!! 

Registering for 2L classes

Wow wow wow wow this came fast. I swear this semester feels like it was more like a mini-mester. Signing up for my 2L classes was a different experience because I didn't have an academic adviser to tell me what classes I should take. It was also different because I still haven't decided what type of law I'm drawn to. The good news is that this meant that I wasn't dead set on getting into any specific class. The bad news is that this gave me literally no direction of what classes I would be interested in.

Choosing a Class

To get an idea about what classes I should take, I did some research on what classes hiring lawyers want their employees to have. They were:

1. Evidence
2. Intellectual Property Law
3. Federal Courts
4. Administrative Law
5. Patent Law
6. Conflict of Laws
7. Copyright Law

With honorable mention for:

• Secured Transactions
• Individual Income Tax 
• Corporations
• Accounting and Financial Reporting
• Securities Regulation
• Mergers and Acquisitions

I shared this information with my moot court partner, and it turns out that she did some interesting research too. She looked up the most important classes needed to pass the bar. When she told me this, I felt dumb because I hadn't even thought to look into that! Her list was:

1. Evidence
2. Administrative Law
3. Corporations
4. Complex Litigation
5. Pretrial Advocacy
6. Corporate Finance
7. Law and Accounting
8. Intellectual Property
9. Federal Courts
10. Patent Law
11. Conflict of Laws
12. Copyright Law
13. Secured Transactions
14. Individual Income Tax
15. Accounting and Financial Reporting
16. Merger and Acquisitions

You'll see that there's some overlapping ---> very important classes! I took these lists into consideration as well as some advice I got from one of my favorite professors. He told us that law school is all about being strategic and one strategy that he did was find a professor that he liked and did well on the tests, and took every class that professor offered so that he knew he was locking in a high GPA.

Signing Up

Our registration opened at 8am this morning, so the night before I made a list of all of my first choice classes. What was nice is that my school releases the Fall finals schedule with the class schedule so you can plan to have your finals spread out. After making a list of my first choice classes, I wrote a backup for each class just in case it was already full by upperclassmen. 

Although I didn't have to register right away, I knew that a lot of people in my section were wanting to be in many of the same classes that I was wanting to get in to. Although I wasn't dead set on getting into any particular class, I was dead set on not taking a professor that has bad ratings on rate my professor.

The only class from my first choice class that I didn't get in to was Advanced Legal Writing, but that class had a cap at only 16 students. So here's what I'll be taking this fall :) For Secured Transactions, Evidence, and Law and Economics I'm going to have the same professors that I have this semester.

Final Thoughts

My school has two law journals—the official law school one that you're invited to on based off your grades, and one you can write-on for that focuses on social justice issues. Both of my moot court judges were on the latter journal and encouraged everyone to apply. I was really interested in it until I heard about how much writing you have to submit each week and was really afraid that my grades would suffer, so I ended up not applying. Then when I was looking at what classes to take, I discovered that the journal was actually a class! So I could've gotten credit and had time to write, but too little too late. Moral of the story, take every opportunity you can and don't talk yourself out of them! 

Be sure to read part 2 of this post, Choosing Law Classes Wisely!