Law School Bound Grad Caps

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, just noticed that I only posted twice last month and yikes. This is my last week of classes and then my finals are for the next two weeks. I feel like my school's finals are behind everyone else so today I was thinking about all of you pre-law 0L's getting excited to come to law school soon so this is just a fun little post for y'all! I've seen some cute grad cap ideas for people heading off to law school so I thought I'd round up some cute ideas to give you lots of inspiration in one place if you're looking to decorate your mortar board for graduation! 

I wish I could've done this when I graduated college but for some dumb reason my school was very strict and didn't allow for any personalization or "non official" decoration, so if you decorate your hat feel free to comment/tweet/tag/email me a picture so I can live vicariously through y'all!! Oh and CONGRATS GRADS!

Legally Blonde 

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Greek

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Next Stop Law School

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Law School Personal Statement Advice

This one's for all you 0L's out there getting ready to submit your law school applications. I was already planning on doing a post on the personal statement because mine was a disaster and I always wondered if writing a stronger one would've kept me off the waitlist, so I wasn't surprised at all when the messages came in from readers asking for help on it. Because it took me a second time to get a PS that I felt comfortable with, I sent out a mass text to some of my law school friends to get their advice too. So I guess in a way this is kinda a guest post but not really? Anyways, here's what they had to say about their own PS.

Crystal 

You should tell them something unique about yourself that they wouldn’t know by looking at your resume so that they “can get to you know you better”. Also I feel like sometimes people think they need to have a crazy story to tell to make it good and thats not the case. You can find a good meaning in something small too.

Janet

If you want a great personal statement it helps to have an interesting life. Make sure to join organizations, travel, work, volunteer, and try new things. If you’re putting yourself out in the world you will gain experiences and stories that will turn into topic options for your personal statement. People don’t want to read about how you’ve always wanted to become a lawyer because you like to argue and watch law series on Netflix.

Jordan 

I would probably tell myself that I wish I had known from the start that it was going to take numerous revisions to get to what I actually sent in and that it is impossible to put your whole self in two pages. I got too attached to some of my first drafts because I was so caught up in the story I was telling that I forgot about the purpose of the personal statement: to connect the story to why you want to go to law school. While the story is important, it can only be half of the personal statement and I got too attached to those first drafts that were story heavy and therefore I became worried that the admissions committee was not going to know the whole me. The purpose of the personal statement isn't to put your whole self in two pages, it's to convince the admissions committee to accept you based on the singular experience that helped lead you to the decision to want to practice law.

JulieAnne 

I tailored my letters to each school. I remember researching the schools online to find what unique programs/clinics they had. Then I wrote about how I was excited to get involved in that program (and went into a little more detail).

Also, if I visited the school before applying, I made sure to write about the positive impact that visit had on my desire to attend that school. For example, I wrote about the students who led the campus tour and how helpful they were and how they told me about their involvement in XYZ  organization and how I'm now interested in joining that organization and getting involved on campus and in the community.

General Tips:
- Basically, make it seem like that school is at the top of your list.

- Write about how you plan to get involved with campus organizations, advocacy programs, clinics, etc. -- especially if it's unique to that school. (This requires a bit of research for each school.) Also, write about HOW your experience in these programs would help you after school (don't just say "it will be helpful in my career as a XYZ attorney.")

Online Advice

I also did a quick search through my Pinterest and found these helpful articles on law school personal statements

Writing a Personal Statement for Law School

What in the Heck am I Going to Write About

Choosing a Topic for your Personal Statement

Four Tips for Writing the Perfect Personal Statement

How to Write a Law School Personal Statement

Law School Personal Statement Tips

Personal Statement Advice From a Past Berkley Admissions Committee Member

The Top Five Mistakes in Law School Personal Statements

Final Thoughts

Hopefully by now you'll feel a little better about writing your PS! I stressed so much when writing mine, so I really do feel y'alls pain. If you have any advice you'd like to share about the personal statement, please comment below or email me so that other readers can benefit from your insight :) Good luck out there to everyone applying!!

7 Things To Do to Prepare for Law School

This time last year, I was a mess. I had finally realized that I couldn't just wait around all summer to see if I got pulled from the waitlist and accepted that I would basically have to call the one school that did outright accept me and basically beg them to let me have my spot back. After that, I was in full-on panic mode as I rushed to get everything situated for the fall with only a little over two months until orientation began. If you're like me and tend to put things off until the last moment, here are some things that you'll need to start doing.

Housing

Now is the time that you need to find a place to live. You'll need to consider if you want to live in on-campus housing like a dorm, or if you want to get an apartment, or even if you want to rent a house. You'll also need to think about location, like would save gas living closer to campus or maybe consider nicer apartments further away from your school that aren't cheaply made for students. Do you want roommates? Because if so you'll need to find them. If you think you might end up wanting a pet, you'll also need to be considering that. The neighborhood you live in might also be important because if you're planning on studying at your place, then you might not want to live by a bunch of loud college kids. You'll also probably need to set up mail forwarding from your last house to your new one to make sure that you're still receiving all of your mail.

Related: Apartment hunting tips

Loans

This was absolutely the #1 thing my mom was always on my ass about. Unfortunately, there's not really a lot of scholarships available for law students except what your school can offer, and there's also no law school grants available either.Most likely you're going to have to figure out how to get a loan. The nice thing about a loan is that whoever you get your loan from isn't going to be running out of money anytime soon so I was able to put this off until August and still get my money in time.

Check Law School Website

Your professors might have posted the syllabus for the class already or at least the first few reading assignments. Don't assume that this will be like college and they'll send you nice little emails letting you know what to do because most assume you already know how to check for assignments already. This will also be how you'll know what books you'll need for class and how to buy a parking pass, etc. 

Buy Books

In college I always waited until after the first week of class to buy any books because I wanted to find out which classes I could get by without even having the book. Not the case here. In law school you'll use your books in every class, every day. If you're ordering your books online through Chegg or through Amazon, you'll need to order them early enough to make sure that they arrive before the first day of class (or maybe even orientation, if your school gives assignments for that). 

I'd personally recommend NOT renting your books, because if you highlight for your IRAC, then chances are that you'll end up paying fines for writing in them too much. However, there's nothing wrong with buying used books—just as long as you make sure that whoever had it before didn't practically turn it into a coloring book.

Related: What law books to buy new, buy used, rent, and get for free 

Visit the Campus 

You might've already toured the campus when deciding which school to go to, but you need to go back for another visit. Figure out the fastest way to get from your apartment to class and remember how long it took you so that once school starts you know how early to leave. Even though law schools are tiny compared to a college (mine only has like 10 classrooms), you should still figure out where your classrooms, mailbox, and locker will be.

This is also a great time to stop by financial aid and see if there's any way you can negotiate your scholarship. One girl from my section didn't receive a loan initially but after finding out that the rest of us did with similar GPA/LSAT scores, she marched herself into financial aid and got a little scholarship out of it. Or if you did get a scholarship, you might see if there's any way they could bump it up just a little. 

Related: How to find law school scholarships

Talk with Current/New Students

Whether it's someone you ran into while on campus or someone you've met through your school's admitted students' Facebook group, it's great to start meeting people from your school. Even though incoming 1Ls likely don't have any advice to give like the upperclassmen, they still can answer questions like Where do we meet for orientation? or Who knows our professors emails? The more people who can answer your questions, the more at ease you'll be on the first day of class. 

Book Flights

If you're going to law school far enough away from your family that you'll be flying home, now is a time to consider getting flights for holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any major family events like your parents' birthdays or a wedding. I've heard that the best time to book domestic flights is 6 weeks before because of pricing, but I completely forgot to do this last fall and ended up having to pay a lot more for a last minute ticket home for Thanksgiving because I was so busy with finals just around the corner. Another reason you might consider booking flights in advance is that if you have proof that you've already had something booked for a while, you're more likely to get an extension for a deadline or days off work if you need it.

Final Thoughts

These are a lot of little details, so make sure you don't get overwhelmed trying to figure everything out all at once! Think of what needs to happen ASAP and what can wait until later on in the summer, and work on getting everything in order a little at a time. Of course, if there's ever anything else that you're unsure of as you get ready this summer, ask away and I'll try my hardest to help you!

Related: 5 ways to spend the summer before law school

Click here to download your law school back to school checklist

First Law School Legal Research Assignment

The Assignment

This was part one of an assignment for my legal research and writing class. Our assignment was that we were given a client who had called off an engagement after her fiancé wasn't loyal, and she wanted to know if she could keep her ring. We had questions that we had to turn in such as identifying the legally relevant facts, identifying what it is that our client wants us to do, and where we could look. The first part of the assignment was strictly books only—no WestLaw or Lexis. This was a real pain because I started to do this assignment one night after I got done reading, but I realized I would have to go to the library to do this so it got postponed another day.

The Research

Even more problematic, was that my entire class all needed the exact same books so once I got to the library I sat around waiting in line for books which wasted a lot of time. The research part was frustrating since we had to do it old school. First I had to find the Descriptive Word Index of the Texas Digest. This is basically just an index for all of the cases for Texas; it's so big that it's separated alphabetically into books like an encyclopedia. So first you have to find your book, then your word, then look for any cases. It's very time consuming. 

Texas Digest

I looked up conversion, broken contract, broken engagement, engagement ring, reclamation of a gift, and finally while I was in gift I found conditional gifts and in that section I found engagement rings. Then I found a Texas case about engagement rings and had to go find that case summary in the Southwest Reporter. This is a similar system of multiple books alphabetically but you get the exact book and page number from the DCI so it's much simpler.

Shepardizing

But since this is an assignment over research, I then had to go online to Lexis and Shepardize it. This is basically where you check to make sure that this ruling hasn't been overturned by a more recent case. So then I had to use the Green Book, which is a book over how to cite Texas-specific cases, to cite the case I found and then the Blue Book, which is a general citation book, to cite two cases that had mentioned this case when they went against the ruling because these cases weren't from Texas. Originally I had thought I could get by without these books to save money, but there really was no way I could not buy them.  

ALR

Lastly I had to look up annotations in the American Law Review. This was the same research process all over again, just with a different species of books. Instead of dealing with real cases, ALRs deal with scholarly writing over cases. This was time consuming because the pages on just engagement rings went on and on with different rules and their cases and exceptions to those rules and their cases. Again I had to cite this using my Blue Book, but I'm not quite sure I did this correctly so I guess I'll see when I get my paper back to do the corrections. 

Final Thoughts

This seemed the closest to what I've been used to doing in undergrad and high school. It can feel like busywork but I understand that it's practice because this is what I'll be doing in the real world as a lawyer. Just faster because I'll have WestLaw or Lexis. My next assignment is to write up a memo using the information I've found. I'm pretty confident about this because in undergrad I ended up taking two writing classes, Professional Report Writing and Technical Writing, that were basically just how-to-write-a-memo classes. These were required as part of my legal studies minor, and I'd definitely take them if you can because they're super helpful for almost any career. 

How to Prepare for Law School in College

Here's a handy little list of some helpful advice I received about law school, and some advice that I wish someone would have given me when I was an undergrad.

Related: Law School Admissions Timeline

Pick your major wisely

Most importantly, your major should be an easy A and should be a good fallback in case law doesn't work out like you thought it would. As impressive as a super tough degree might sound, a 4.0 from an easy major will help you more in the long run because it will pretty much guarantee your acceptance into any school and also a damn good scholarship.

Just as important, you need a relative major. I ended up with a BA in Spanish and seriously considered taking off a year to teach English in a Spanish-speaking country before I decided what I would do about law school. Make sure that you don't pick a blow off major that would be useless if you end up not being a lawyer. 

Related: How to Choose a Pre-Law Major

Study for your LSAT in the summer

To have the best luck with getting into law schools, you're going to need the highest GPA and LSAT score possible. Trying to juggle both at the same time will most likely cause you to half-ass one area. Study for the LSAT like you have a 2.5 GPA and study for your tests like you got a 138.

Diversify yourself

A former lawyer once told me that in regards to getting into law school, the worst thing you can be is a straight, white male. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and get involved with something unexpected to wow the admissions committee, such as volunteering at a suicide hotline or working with at-risk high schoolers.

Prepare for your personal statement

Keep it in mind and be thinking about why you want to be a lawyer and how your super interesting life has helped you come to that conclusion. Also, think of this as talking your way into law school, or your elevator speech, and really sell yourself to the admissions committee. Absolutely don't forget to mention why this particular school is perfect for you and how you are perfect for them. Make sure you get someone who's really good at reading, writing, and editing to look over your personal statement, preferably by a professor and someone who is familiar with the law school themes you're talking about.

Related: Personal Statement Advice

Start on rec letters early

Every semester, starting as early as possible, look at the classes that you're doing the best in (B's and A's) and drop by your professor's office hours. After a few meetings, show your interest in going to law school; it sounds really good for a rec letter to say "She's been working towards this dream for the last 3 years." Eventually, mention that you would eventually like for them to write you a rec letter so that they can be thinking about what to say. Bonus points for professors for your major, professors that have taught you an undergrad law class, or professors who are really good at writing (English/ Literature). Have these locked in the first few months of your senior year. Also, let them know that you will have to request for the LSAC to email a recommendation form to your recommender and they will most likely have to upload that without your help at all.

Also, if you get a really cool internship somewhere, don't bother asking a state Representative or someone to write a rec letter for you. Yeah a high up official seems impressive, but not when they take the same letter and just replace your name from the last person who asked for one. If a law school gets the same letter for 8 different applications, then you're not standing out like you could be. 

Related: How to ask for a rec letter

Join a Pre Law organization

Through Phi Alpha Delta I got to hear advice from a variety of lawyers, law students, law school admissions counselors, and law professors. I also found a lot of helpful tips from my fellow members. On top of that, this organization provided me with great résumé builders such as two different leadership positions and volunteer experience.

Remember quality over quantity

Here's the thing about student organizations- people fall for the misconception that the more organizations, the better because you look involved. It's best if you join a few worthwhile organizations and get really involved. Being President of the Retail society and Secretary of an Honors society is better than just a member of the Paintball club. You only get to submit a one-page resumé with your application, so fill it up with meaningful involvements.

Related: What to Put on a Law School Resumé

Try to visit some schools

And make sure you let them know you're coming! A tour, a conversation with the Dean of Admissions, attending an open house, a sit-in of a class, and talking with current students are all a great way to show interest and decide what you're looking for in a law school. When you're writing your personal statement, you can include a paragraph talking about how this visit made you want to go here. This is also a good way to potentially get a voucher to waive your application fee for a school. 

Get your school visit checklist here

Save $1,500 for the LSAT

While the test itself is actually only (ha) $200, your average prep course is about $1,300. The sheer price of the investment I had put into this test gave me major test anxiety. Luckily I had a Kaplan discount through Phi Alpha Delta, but it was still a lot for a test considering that the ACT was only around $50. Also, you have to pay a fee for the Law School Admissions Council through which you'll be applying to schools and registering for the test. And then an additional $175 for this stupid thing called CAS. And then you also have to pay for your application fees so yeah, this process is expensive from the get go.

Be careful with grade replacements

Fun fact that I found out after it was too late – when you retake a class it will increase your undergrad GPA by replacing a D or F with a higher grade, but for law school admissions they will calculate your GPA as you took the class twice. So if you get an F and then retake it and get an A, your undergrad GPA will probably jump like .5, but that F will stay on your transcript for law school and really pull your GPA down. You're better off not getting into the "I can just retake it" mentality. 

Your school doesn't matter

When it comes down to it, law schools don't factor in your undergrad school as much as you'd think. People can get into law school from taking online classes from a community college. So don't think that you have to choose what college you go to just because you think it will look impressive on your application. I'm not saying that universities that also have a law school don't consider this, I'm just saying it's not everything.

What you do in HS doesn't matter

If you're putting anything from high school on your law school application, you're doing it wrong. Your undergrad accomplishments should be so that they overshadow your HS accomplishments, unless it was something major like you started your own business or you can say you've been doing mock trial for the past 8 years throughout college and high school. But law school admissions are looking for more than just President of NHS. Be involved in high school to look good for your college applications, but know that law schools probably won't even care about what you do.

let's be friends!

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