Greetings!
Law School can be a great cap to any undergraduate degree even a liberal arts education. Go for it!
A big consideration is the cost of law school. I got through 4 years of undergrad USC owing less than 4 thousand dollars. But law school at 30k+ a year was a different story and I ended up having to borrow most of it. Bottom line is you better want to take on that kind of cost (or consider a cheap alternative like an accredited part time program, etc.) If you go to an unaccredited school or program you might be required to take the pre-Bar exam first.
I can't tell you anything about prepping or applying for schools etc. since I only applied to one, USC, my undergrad alma mater, and only did some casual studying for the LSAT for a couple hours a night the week of the exam after my full class schedule and working 30 hrs a week at the same time and going to meetings of course :-)
The only thing I remember about taking the LSAT was that my girlfriend gave me a great BJ (so I could be relaxed of course) in the morning just before I walked over to campus and sitting in the room and chuckling at all these guys and girls who had rows of #2 pencils lined up as they needed 14 pencils and who looked like they were about to faint. Since it didn't really matter to me and I have always been a gifted multiple-choice test taker I was just kicking back. I don't know if it has changed since but it was 3 parts plus the writing section. I remembered being very pleased with my writing answer after the exam and I think I still have a copy of that somewhere.
I was unprepared for what to expect in law school, being the first in my family to even graduate from a university, and not knowing anyone personally who was either a lawyer or had gone to law school. People were talking about working on their outlines from day one and it took me days to figure out what they were referring to. I always saw doing outlines as a complete waste of time and only did them as actual prep for the exams which was the wrong thing to do.
I have always been a loner in life (not helped by being a JW in college) so while I was friendly with everyone I never developed a tight study group from the beginning and that was probably my biggest mistake in law school. Having a small group of persons that you get along with and who are sharp (on par with yourself) will help tremendously when it comes to learning the material. Just bouncing things off in discussion can help you pick up things that you might have missed or correct misunderstandings.
The second biggest mistake that I made is that I completely didn't care about grades and sadly that is all it is about in law school. Especially for big time law firms who come and recruit for summer jobs. The 1L is the most important year. Get off to a bad year and you will never improve your class standing in the GPA race. Do well and you can practically coast from there.
Of course if you have a job waiting for you or relative lawyers that are going to employ you for the summers then maybe your grades won't be as important.
My whole law school experience was different than anyone I know because going to law school was a whim for me, a last minute decision, and while in law school I tried to have as much fun as possible AND of course my whole perspective on life was at that time still heavily filtered through the lenses of being a JW. (Sadly during my three years I had two steady girl friends so I didn't have as much fun as I wished I had now.) Unfortunately, I had to work to support myself and was still putting in about 30 hrs a week which if you can avoid working at least your first year you should try and do.
Even though I was completely casual about the experience, I was still one of the biggest participants in class - a fact which always perturbed me was that there were many persons whom I had never heard one comment from in class but who did fantastically on the exams. Unfortunately, there are no points awarded for classroom partcipation in most classes and most law schools (though in a couple of classes the prof did make sure to call on everyone at least once in the socratic method). So keep in mind that it is all about the exams.
(By the way, I give credit to being a JW that I could stand and take a position or orally discuss a point without fear or anxiety unlike many of my peers in the class.)
I don't know about other law schools but at USC when I attended there was only one single final exam. No midterms, no homework, nada. Everything rides on that final exam. I only had one class in addition to the actual law writing class, where the grade involved a researched paper. Mine was entitled "Personal Jurisdiction in the Context of Computer Mediated Communication" (i.e. jurisdiction over the Internet) and I got an A on the paper and for the course. My only one in law school. Another class on litigation had some minor stuff that was unusual but mostly the classes are lecture, learning and the final.
Take advantage of the social things in law school, we had this thing called "Bar Review" every Thursday night which was to meet at a different bar and get sloshed. Since I didn't drink then, I never went to one of those or a lot of the other social events but these things are important for developing your network which will help in and after law school and for decompressing of course.
The most important thing to remember is unless you are dedicated to getting hired by a big firm who is going to look mostly at your grades and whether you have any extra honors then just keep in mind that law school is mostly a rite of passage and not much else. Very few law schools actually prepare someone for law practice. Your success in law school is proven to have absolutely no correlation to your earnings as a lawyer or success as a lawyer. And finally keep in mind that all of the law school exams are actually just quizzes. The only real exam is the one after law school, the bar exam.
Good luck!
-Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq.
