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Topics - viyer00

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Oh Canada! / A Quick Synopsis of Canadian Law Schools?
« on: July 04, 2011, 11:28:36 PM »
I am giving very serious thought to leaving the US permanently because this country is run by monkeys. I do have some questions on the nature of the Canadian legal system though. Is it similar to the adversarial US form or more similar to European -- i.e., French -- forms? I wish to practice criminal defense law, any ideas where I should apply? What are salaries like for criminal defense attorneys? I will have completed 2 years of college French by the time I graduate, so I could perhaps consider Montreal, but legal French sounds intimidating (especially the Montreal variety). My GPA is a bit of a long story, but the distilled version is a 3.6 (should be a 3.7+ by graduation). In my diagnostic LSAT, I scored a 160 and the subsequent practice tests have yielded a 165 and 170 and I still have several months of studying left. Does any site like lawschoolnumbers exist for Canadian schools?

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Law School Applications / Question About GPA...
« on: June 26, 2011, 10:40:19 AM »
I started university at 2004 when I was 18 and was a math major for 2.5 years until I more or less dropped out for roughly 4.5 years in order to travel the world and play poker professionally. I made a substantial amount of money in this time, so I feel I can easily justify the decision if asked. In any case, my GPA at my first institution was 3.28 because I didn't really care too much and was preoccupied with poker. Anyway, in 2010 I returned to school at UNLV (technically as a transfer), a lowly ranked, but local school (and super cheap). I switched majors to Spanish with a minor in Latin American Studies and there is a strong chance I additionally minor in French, Political Science and Classical Studies (Latin/Ancient Greek) and I have a 3.96 GPA here. My overall LSAC GPA right now is a 3.6, but when I graduate in a year it should be between 3.7-3.8. Yet for applications I will have to present a 3.6 GPA, which is pretty meager for the US schools I am interested in (NYU, Columbia, Stanford, UTex, Duke, UCLA). I have yet to take my LSAT, but my first diagnostic was a 160, so I think I should be able to close in on 170 with some practice. Anyway, I am just wondering how much my GPA will hurt me given that there was a pretty radical shift between the first and second time that I went to college. Do law schools even care or are they just interested in the distilled LSAC GPA? Any idea on the sort of LSAT I'd need to be able to get into this range of schools? How are language majors viewed? Should I perhaps wait until I graduate to apply in order to have a bit higher GPA? I am not a URM.

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