Law School Application Checklist

Seniors this one is for you!! Ok, well actually law school applications have been open for like a month now so if you're an eager beaver who has already submitted all of your apps and are just sitting around waiting for responses, then you probably don't need this post. So, Seniors with senioritis who are procrastinating or want one last try with the December LSAT, this one is for you!! 

Finalize your school list

If you want to throw down the cash and apply to 30 schools then by all means, have at it. But if not, now's the time for you to decide where you're actually going to apply. The short cut to this is ask yourself, would I be happy going here? would I be proud to have their diploma on my wall and their school on my résumé? Yeah sure it worked out for Elle, but just because you know someone who goes to a law school means that it's the right school for you. I'd say pick between 6-10 schools to apply to. Remember that some schools will have a quick deadline for you to pay a seat deposit if you're accepted so if you aren't quite sure where you want to go, you may get yourself in a sticky situation with those deposits.

Related: How to choose a law school 

Write down due dates

I know you're thinking that there's absolutely no way you could miss a deadline, *Gretchen Weiners voice* but you could be wrong. It's just better to be safe than sorry so double check those deadlines and mark them in your planner in a color that you normally don't use and also add it to your phone calendar with notifications 1 and 2 days out jusssst in case life happens and you don't get your apps in as soon as you thought you would. Knowing these can also really help you prioritize what to do first so that you don't end up rushed on one app in the end.

Find what the school wants from you

Ok, so once you've picked a handful of schools it's time to do some digging. I recommend you check both that school's admissions page and LSAC to see what they're asking for because I've heard stories of school websites giving extra explanation over what they want so it's best to just double check. This also might help you decide where to apply because if a school that you're just meh about is asking for a personal statement, 4-5 rec letters, plus an additional essay, with a video submission thrown in, then you might decide that the effort isn't worth your time and you'd be better off dedicating all that time to an app for a school that you really, really want to go to. If you do end up needing to do an extra essay, start brainstorming and making rough drafts.

Hunt down your rec letters

This turned out to be such a fiasco for me. At the beginning of the summer before my senior year, I chose who to ask for rec letters and asked them to write me one. I figured they'd have the whole summer to write them so they wouldn't feel rushed. Well one person completely forgot to do it and another person wasn't responding to my emails because turns out that professor took a job at another university and wasn't getting my emails! Obviously I had a mild major meltdown. The takeaway from this is give them a nice little reminder that you'll be needing that soon and then a week or two after that is when you have LSAC send them the link to upload it or whatever (it's been a while since I did this okay). Then give them another week or so and if you see that they haven't uploaded the letter, send another polite reminder that your whole future is depending on this or even go visit them in person.

Related: How to ask for a rec letter

Personalize your résumé

Remember how extra Paris was in Gilmore Girls and had like 30 different résumés? Be that extra if you can. Here's what I mean... if one of the schools that you're applying to has a great clinic that you want to be in, it'd be great if your résumé reflected that. So like if they have an animal defense clinic you could show how you are always down at the shelter playing with the dogs and then in your personal statement mention that you're an animal lover and would love to work in that clinic. When everything lines up like that, it'll help the admissions committee see you as being involved in that clinic and then wow magic that means they're already envisioning you as a student and what do ya know now they think you're an ideal candidate for them!

Related: What to put on a law school application résumé

Personalize your personal statement 

Here's what I was told— if you take the same personal statement, change out the names, and then send it to all your schools, then you're not being personal enough. I don't mean that you can't keep the majority of it the same, but you do need some personalization at least beyond changing out the names (and dear God plz double check that you don't send X law school a paper over how much you love Y law school). Basically just take what I just said about the résumé and expand some more and either weave personal touches throughout your PS if it'll work out or if not then add a paragraph in there about their school. Show them that you took the time to at least Google what they had to offer. But really, find a clinic or a program or something that the school offers and talk about why they're the perfect school for you and then how you're the perfect student for them because of whatever life experience would make you great to be involved with whatever it is. I mean heck, even just saying something like I saw that your school offers free counseling and student wellness support throughout the year so I want to go to X law school because I can tell that you truly care about our well-being would at least show them that you took the time to see what they're all about.

Related: Personal statement advice

Start on the applications

There are a lot of questions so go ahead and get started now so it's out of the way. The good news is that with LSAC is that it'll save your answers so it's really easy after you do one. On another note, after taking the MPRE and everything I will say this— disclose everything. It's better for you to disclose something and then the schools be like oh that's nbd than for you to not disclose and they later find out and now you're shady on top of whatever else you did bad. You might even need to write an addendum for that. If you're not sure, I suggest you check out this Should You Write a Law School Addendum post.

Request your transcript

My school took like a week to process my request (plus I had to pay for each one so that's always fun). So yeah this can kinda be one of the last things you start on but remember what I said about making sure you're good with your deadlines. But I will warn that even once you get an acceptance letter back that does not mean that you can give up on your grades. Some schools over the summer will require you to submit your final transcript before orientation and if you just gave up and got some D's that last semester well then you might be getting a fun little email from them wanting to talk about that!

And I made you guys a cute little printable checklist to keep track of everything!

Click here to download your law school application checklist

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Everything You Need to Know About the MPRE

Well guys it's been about a week since the MPRE so I guess it's time that I talk about it (and let's all collectively pray that I passed 🙏🏼). Fun fact about the MPRE— I did not even know it existed until I was filling out one of those "get to know me" questionnaires on the first day of Professional Responsibility (PR) and the first question asked when I was going to take it and I just kinda looked around like wut because I had no clue what my professor was talking about. Fun, probably frowned upon by the people who create this test, way to read this post is drink every time I say MPRE and maybe this won't sound so scary! (PG version is just to pronounce this like umpire and pretend like this is just a test over your ability to yell playyy baaaalllll!) Whatever floats your boat ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

What the MPRE is

Yay another $200 that law school is gonna cost you! And yay another test! Yes my friends, MPRE stands for the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam. It's an ethics exam. Not like the intro-to-philosophy ethics class you took about Kant and how many people you're going to kill with a trolley. No, this is more like attorney-client privilege and conflicts of interest. There's also ethical things that came after a little scandal called Watergate and this little guy called Bill Clinton. Basically, the TV show Suits is now ruined for you because they could be disbarred after like every episode. 

Anyways, it's a 60 multiple-choice question test that you have 2 hours to take. I was also really relieved to find out that you don't have to have the rule numbers of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct memorized because we definitely had to know those for my PR class. Also, you should know that this test is mandatory for everyone to take and pass just like the Bar is (except for Maryland and Wisconsin, idk what you guys do). Here's the official website for ya! The states vary on what the minimum score is for passing so I recommend going to their site and clicking on your state and finding that out because that's kinda important. 

Registering for the MPRE

When you go to register for the MPRE, you're taken to a website that will give you LSAT horror flashbacks because guess who runs both sites?? That's right guys, LSAC isn't done with you yet! But I guess the good part about this is you'll already be familiar with the site so you know how to navigate your way around things. What this means is that you get to go through the whole test-day admission ticket fun again! 

To any pre-law students out there reading this, you know how you end up getting 2 passport pictures for the LSAT? Well save one of those because you'll need it again. Yes that's right my friend, you get to pay $14 for a picture of you as extra ID on top of your license (see why Suits makes me roll my eyes when Mike takes the LSAT for people because like yo they triple check your identity). If you don't have an extra passport photo, I have found out that if you explain to the person that you only need one copy and it's for a test that your future depends on and isn't just so you can go get drunk in the Bahamas, sometimes they're nice and will find a different code to ring this up as so you can save a little money. Oh, and obviously this means that you should print out your ticket beforehand!

Another thing about using LSAC again is that it's nice that you don't have to put in all this background information and really you just have to put in your current law school. I feel like they save all your information like your name and email but also I registered for this like a month ago so I can't be sure (comment below and let me know!). This also means that there is a late registration fee so save yourself some moolah and write down the registration dates in your planner! Go ahead and add your test date as well because a girl in my class definitely found out on a Thursday in class that the test was that Saturday so that's always a fun predicament to be in.

Studying for the MPRE

Failing the MPRE is really embarrassing because 1) lol are you an ethical person? and 2) everyone says it's easy. Like the girl who started studying 2 days before most likely passed (although I personally know her and we took PR together so I know she already knew this stuff). What's nice about studying for this is that it gives you a chance to kinda test out bar prep companies since they all offer this as well. For example, if you follow Brazen and Brunette on Insta (and if you don't, boo you whore) then you saw how I was all excited to study with BarMax for the MPRE until I realized that their flashcard style just wasn't for me. I did get a free MPRE prep book from Themis when I was in PR but I couldn't remember where I stashed it so I won't review them. I ended up studying with the Barbri app and really liked it. 

A good study plan is to start about two weeks out before the test, studying one hour a day the first week and then up it to two hours a day the second week. I started by reviewing my PR outline to refresh my memory since I took my PR final in May but took the MPRE in November so I was a little rusty. Then I watched the videos and took the quizzes. What I liked about Barbri is that the way their quizzes are set up is if you are missing a lot in a section then they'll give you like 4 quizzes in that section but if you're getting everything right then you only have 1 or 2 quizzes. I really liked this because there were some areas that we briefly went over in my PR class so the extra quizzes gave me an extra chance to review and practice. And I'd always make sure to read their explanations for why I got my answer wrong and why the right answer was correct. The last thing to do is go through real practice problems and test yourself. Barbri also had an outline that I'm guessing is fill-in-the-blank because the guy in the video kept saying "we fill out is..." but I didn't bother printing that out.

Taking the MPRE

The MPRE really feels like the LSAT2.0 (or 3.0, if you retook the LSAT). Again to my little eager college students, just go ahead and save your gallon baggie because you need it again. What I packed: gallon baggie, jumbo eraser, wooden pencils, pencil sharpener, lip balm (I bite my lips when I think), admission ticket (with photo!), ID and car keys. It sucks but you can't use mechanical pencils (yes they check your bag so don't think you can sneak them, they're specifically listed on the no-no list), or earplugs (my law school gives these out at finals and they're a game changer, I swear. i'm not exactly sure how they think you could cheat with earplugs), or even an analog watch (pray you get seated in viewing distance of the clock). One thing on the time though, they do give you a warning at the half mark (1 hour), 30 minutes remaining, and 5 minutes remaining. 

Related: What's in my bag for law school finals

What's weird is that our MPRE was given at a different building than the law school so I was glad that I went here for undergrad and knew where the building was. On our Saturday, it was actually game day so we had to park at the law school and walk over and it was weird seeing people out setting up tailgates. It was also great because we walked past the freshman dorms and I saw a girl doing the walk of shame and I felt old AF and then wondered who was having a worse start to their morning... 

Here's how the MPRE is different from the LSAT. Before the LSAT, everyone just sits in the room awkwardly quiet because chances are that you don't really know anyone except like maybe a person or two from a random poli sci class plus the fact that you're nervous AF. In comparison, the MPRE is definitely a more chill test so the nerves aren't really there this go around. Even better, you'll know like half of the people there because you've been in class with them already. So overall the atmosphere is a lot more relaxed. One of my friends was told not to smile for her picture and she has RBF so she was passing around her photo and we were all laughing about how her picture accurately reflected our attitudes about being up at 8am on a Saturday. I liked this because any nerves I had coming in to it were completely gone. Another silver lining to taking this test is that it's two hours long so after being used to the LSAT and law school finals, it was nice to have a test that is only two hours. 

If you want to get a feel for what the questions are like on test day, here ya go.

My advice for the MPRE

Because basically everyone has to take this test, your school will probably require you to take PR sometime as a 2L or 3L (you can read my thoughts on PR in this post). The most common thing to do is take PR one semester and then take the MPRE the next semester because the MPRE is offered throughout the year like the LSAT is. I do have a friend who took the MPRE as a 2L before she had taken PR and she passed, but unfortunately for her this didn't test her out of PR so she still had to take it even though she already knew the information. 

My advice to you is to take this as a summer course! You can take it after your 1L summer but most people wait until they're at least 2L's. It's definitely not as mentally demanding as something like evidence so you won't feel overwhelmed trying to get this in while you're working. And the MPRE is offered every year in like August so then you'd take the class for a month, study for the final, then do a quick refresher in a few weeks and you'd be good to go. Seriously guys I wish I could go back and do it this way because I think it's just easier. If your school offers it as a Maymester, Life in Law and Coffee has a whole post about her experience with that, and I highly suggest you read that.

Update- I passed the MPRE!!

Passed the #MPRE 🙌🏼🙌🏼 I'm ethical you guys 😅 so glad I don't have to awkwardly delete the post I wrote about studying for it!!

— Brazen and Brunette (@brazennbrunette) December 5, 2017

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