Law School Discussion

any ABA school from Harvard-Whittier will teach you the skills to pass the bar . 

This, OP, is NOT true.

The top 3 schools, and possibly the entire T14, are well known to teach more theoretical approaches to law and you are expected to cover the black letter law on your own.

The state schools in particular and, if I remember right, all non-T14 schools cover much more black letter law in their teachings, and that black letter is geared towards the state they are located in.  Therefore a state school teaches with more of a slant towards what's covered on their bar exam.

All ABA-approved schools from Yale to Appalachian will, if you pass their courses, grant you a JD from an ABA-approved law school, and for most states that is the first requirement to be able to sit the bar.

It is worth it to go to Whittier if it is the only school you got into, if it is the best quality school you got into (and how you determine that is up to you, for me it's feeder market, attrition rate, bar passage rate, and on a lesser note, customer service up to that point), and if it is the best financial aid package you got.

My feeling is people should have more than one two acceptances though to be able to even make a choice.  If it's the only school it's not a choice is it cause you have no other option.

You can also consider retaking the LSAT (using improved study methods) in October of this year and using the better score to aim for a school with lower attrition and higher bar passage rates.

But even if you decide to attend this year, Whittier is a regional school and you need to be sure that where the majority of it's students end up practicing is somewhere you are willing to live and work for likely the next 40 years after you pass the bar.  If not, don't go, because where most of its graduates feed is where your potential Whittier jobs are.  Only nationally known schools can place virtually anywhere (except perhaps really small towns that they are not from, who won't trust the extent of their commitment/connection to the area).

If you would like to live and work in a certain area go to a law school that feeds most of it's graduates into that area.  If you KNOW where you want to live and work, you could even move there this year, take the test this fall and apply to schools for that area this fall, and be classified in-state by the time 1L rolls around.

For example, if you live in Cali there may be no cheap schools instate, but if you are classified as a Georgia resident Georgia State's law school is only about $10,000 a year...and if you go parttime it's less.

That's the other thing, make sure even if you decide to attend Whittier that you consider going part time so you can work, otherwise go get a McDonald's job if you have to in order to save up money this summer for your books (which, unlike undergraduate, you will need, from what I read, before the first day of class hits, and which are SEVERAL books not just one textbook per class).  Save up money for your first month or two of incidentals and the move itself if you will have to leave the state.

Cheer up, you sound a little depressed about the job/financial situation, I know that feeling, but as long as you have a plan to change your status, there's a way out of the mess.

And PD offices are more popular options with unemployed students, and are also on constrained budgets due to the economy, so if you know you want to be a PD, get off the law school campus and get involved in local PD associations, get connected in the PD world, talk to people writing PD blogs about how to get a job, talk to PDs in the PD offices of the state(s) you want to live and work in about the pros and cons of their job and the best ways to get a job in a PD office in this economy...get out there, and remember to smile and not sound depressed and don't tell them how broke you are.

Good luck whatever you decide!  Also asking the career center at Whittier (now, before you get there) for names of grads who went into public interest/PD work, and contacting them (if you can find out what state they went to, look it up on their state's bar's website), is a good way to get the truth about Whittier for people with your interests...straight from the horse's mouth, instead of from us who never been there.  Make sure to ask them about their experience with Whittier.

Hope this helps.

Affirmative Action does not do anything for black people but only hurt them. Affirmative Action reinforces racist notions, not decrease racist notions. If I were black and a company would not hire me, then I would not want to be in that company as even if I did get the job, the stress would not be worth it. There would be better, more friendly jobs out there for me. I think Affirmative Action is primarily for angry people who want to get back at the person not hiring them.

Also, sometimes an employer just does not hire you because your personality is not suited for the firm. That does not mean you go out and get AA. That just reinforces more racist notions. Your perception of why someone does not higher you is not providentially fact.

So it's this thread that started the love-hate (i keeed) relationship between you two.

Wow. 

Actually, going by your logic here, best thing for every black law student to do then is to only attend Howard or FAMU's law school and go to work for only themselves in solo practice or a black firm owner or a firm with majority blacks.

Hispanic ones to go to ones with highest concentrations of Hispanics...Asians go to that one in Cali that I think I saw was majority or significantly Asian.

Looks like segregation to me. Except small issue with that: the whites by virtue of historical advantage would then be the only ones with access to all positions of power since law is the biggest nepotism/legacy/ole boy network in the professional fields...and that means every other group would get marginalized.

And correction, as a white person (who is not an immigrant or first gen), there would be better more friendly jobs.  In your hypothesis, you forget that for blacks especially there many times IS no better or friendlier option.  Everywhere in this country the higher up you go in a career, the more white male it looks.  So scratch that. Imagine a world where you are not welcome ANYwhere if they can hire someone who does NOT look like you, and only when none of their own kind wants the job then they sigh and huff and take you, waiting to see you screw up like they expect you to. 

Toxic, ain't it?

But that's not the life of all minorities, nor is that the mindset of all whites.  Many minorities AND whites had working class families going way back, and many share the clean slate of the immigrant...
Law schools left to their own devices are not giving equal access to legal education.  Why should minorities be so accepting of your rather exclusive view yet you can't/won't accept that whites should be accepting of the opposite view?

I like the idea of running my own show versus kissing up to someone who doesn't want me there, actually, but for one, I like and need the option to work for someone else, for two, I am not willing to think that every white person would stay away from me given the choice, and the ones that actually care about life outside their own little world should be able to have a wellrounded higher learning experience, and for three with the increased earning power of the growing middle class of minorities, it is simply good business sense to be able to send representatives out at all levels and in all facets of the law that look like the newcomers and speak their language (culturally, linguistically, literally, figuratively, whatever).

It's not just the kindness of their hearts why they do it.  It all comes down to money...schools that don't take federal funds can be as racist prick as they feel like.

And for four, you can't assume that every minority in the class got in because of AA.  That's your thinking why you even say things like this.  What about the ones whose scores and whole app. package are equivalent to the white ones present in their 1L class?  They should miss the chance to attend a school possibly nearer to them or more geared towards their interests than an east coast school, for example, simply because the profs, admin, and students will not like the colour of their skin or the look of their eyes or hair or accent? 

I would think it's obvious then that the problem is in whoever thinks like that, not the URMs.  The world and people's hearts are not perfect, so adjustments have to be made for those known imperfections.

Think of it as a form of legacy admit.  From the legacy of injustice and prejudice against minorities as opposed to "oh my daddy went here."  There are many brilliant minorities whose daddies COULD have given them traditional legacy status, had they not been barred by law from attending the same school...had their ancestors not been penned up like goats instead of working to establish a future (Japanese)...the kids whose parents are not just rich but wealthy now did not get that way in one generation...it is a building up from subsistence level over time, over generations...think what happens when someone's family is actively prevented from getting past basic.  Their kids will be behind no matter how bright they are, same way a hurdler whose hurdles are nearly twice as high as the majority of runners' hurdles is THAT much more likely to hit one of the hurdles and fall.  They fail out of the race, their kid gets the crappy lane to start the race and the one whose parents had no such hurdles and won the race, that kid gets the nice inside track and normal hurdles.

And, people don't "go out and get" AA.  It's a federal mandate that businesses, esp. those with >50 employees, have to live by.  Often if you don't put your race down, some of them will note it for you when they see you.  It's supposedly optional and it's not suppose to be associated with identifiable info in your file, but it always is.

Anyway, I am going to give this a break cause this debate will never end as long as everyone has breath left in their body.

When I saw this thread, I immediately started to laugh. Employer: "well, I see we have more applications today. This one is interesting, nice, nice, nice, college of law... SOUTH DAKOTA!!! LMFAO!!!" That is exactly what an employer would do when seeing such a resume. Do yourself a favor and go to another University like Chicago, or something within the top 300.

ouch. Why so mean?

I sent my Student Aid Application, Federal Tax return and W-2 in early March of this year.  I finally got news back today from my law school saying that they received my Application and FAFSA but not my Tax Return or my W-2.  I do not understand how this could happen.  I sent all my documents in together and they obviously got my application just not the documents that were stapled to it?  On top of that, I have been calling the financial aid office all day and cannot get ahold of anyone.  I tried to find an e-mail for the financial aid office but was unable to.  My plan currently is to make copies of my W-2 and Federal Tax return and sending them a copy everyday until they admit that they have received them or tell me what is wrong with my application.
I am upset and frustrated.  Has anyone else had similar issues with their Student Aid Office?  This seems super fishy to me.

Um, I see you sent them a snowstorm of the white stuff...I was going to say a simple solution is to scan everything you mail to them, so you have a copy saved in a neat little folder called "Law School Fin Aid Docs"...and email them replacements when they try to act ignorant.  Or at least have them ready to print and mail.

Don't piss off people in the financial aid office.  People who handle/prepare your money and your food should always be treated VERY nicely. 

lol just fyi

Thank you Legalized.
I recently moved to Denver from Toronto and I live in a smaller town a bit outside of Denver.  In the beginning it was rather difficult to get used to a smaller town but I absolutely love it.  That is the reason why I would like to chose smaller towns versus bigger towns in California or New York.
I am interested in criminal law but the problem is that I do not have much experience in the legal field, therefore I am not sure if that is the field that I would like to get into after I graduate from Law School. 
After I take the LSAT I am planning on visiting the school in order to get a better idea.  Right now I am solely concentrating on getting a good score.

No problem.

Here's how you find out what the real criminal law is like without begging a job right now:  go to the Denver Bar's and the South Dakota Bar's websites.  Then do an Attorney Search (every attorney admitted to the bar is listed...in my state they are italicized -- but still listed! -- if they are deceased.

Search for criminal lawyers if it allows you to refine the search that much.  If you can, narrow it down to ones in your zip code. or in a downtown denver zip code or area like Cherry Creek or something.  If you like small town practice and living though it's best to search within your town.

If not, just head to the good old yellow pages, find the criminal law section, and "let your fingers do the talking!"  I've started my own mini-campaign to get it from the horse's mouth advice lawyers in the fields I am interested in--what they wish they had known when trying to get into law school and during law school, best things to do while in law school to get a leg up on the job thing, pros and cons of my field(s) of interest...I did one formal interview so far, but once I am done with my LSATs I'll be getting at least one done every week.   I will have them organized by what school they got their JD from.  I am tired of the lack of information in the news outside of "biglaw's sky is falling! RUN!" and "PD work has waiting lines a mile long; gov't wants to see biglaw exp. on your resume (loop back to the first quote)"...the minor percent of legal hiring sources are getting the major percent of news coverage. Over. and. Over.  Apparently if I want actual news I have to go get it myself. /sarcasm