Law School Discussion

I think it would be difficult, but devilishly blue, you and a couple other smart people could bang this out in a few weeks.  

What makes a good lawyer?  Would that google engineer develop the skills he needs?
Would a bagger develop communication and critical thinking skills?
Would you have to learn important skills in order to be an inredible waitress?

I've read books on management that break careers down by the attributes that are needed to succeed, and I don't think it would be impossible to do that for the legal field.

I'm sure you could identify a few attributes that would be beneficial off the top of your head.  
Organization, networking ability, sales skills, communication skills etc.

GPA and LSAT don't necessarily reflect your abilities in those areas.

Well, but then you get back to the basic problem: how exactly do you measure soft factors?  Do you just score them 1-10?  Do you have the same evaluator do every single applicant, just so that there's no arbitrary differences?

PS: Duke pride comes from undergrad days.

I figured that after I clicked on your LSN link.  All of the schools you've been accepted to probably have enough amazing applicants.

It wouldn't take that much time for a few smart people to come up with an evaluation system.  I'm sure it would have to be unique for each school.

I would probably evaluate their work experience based on a few factors:

Length of time:  This shows loyalty and trend.  This could be evaluated easily.

Promotions: This shows that they impressed their employers.  Easy to evaluate.

Mental Difficulty of position. This would be hard to evaluate, but no harder then evaluating the strength of an undergraduate institution.

Performance:  I would ask on my application for resumes to focus in their success in relation to the rest of their company. If I could verify that they were the best salesperson in a company with 300 employees then I would give that high marks.


Some schools have taken my 60 bucks and 4 months of my life to make a decision. They could make a couple phone calls.

I think that should change.  I think it sucks that you have to go to a T3 or T4 school if you want them to emphasize in real world preparation.  I'm going to law school to improve my career. 

And there is a major difference between a resume that says "Worked as a bank teller" and a resume that says, "Closed 7 million in acquistion and development loans last year and another 3.5 million in the first quarter of this year"

1/3rd?  How are you going to measure this?  Just grade them all 1-10?  By some standards, you could already argue that most law schools use soft factors as perhaps 20% of their decision, in that a pure numbers process would probably change their student body by at least 20%.

How do they measure it now?  just take the current evaluation of work experience and expand it to 33%.
People on ad-coms should be smart enough to tell the difference between meaningful work experience and wasted work experience.  If my resume is great, then that should go a long way. 

The important question is whether or not you think that good work experience will prepare you for a career in law.  If you don't, then it shouldn't be worth anything.

I don't think anyone was saying you were stupid, I think they just disagreed with you. Anyway,

1) Possibly
2) Absolutely
3) Somewhat --> Depends on your major
4) No

I think ad-coms should use soft factors as 1/3 of their decision.  Some people do indeed think that idea is stupid, but maybe they don't think I'm stupid.

Thanks for your answers.