Law School Discussion

I don't know if there is really an ABA bubble it is more of a California law school tuition bubble many ABA law schools outside of California have very reasonable tuition rates I.E. Florida International Law School, CUNY, South Dakota, North Dakota, all are $10,000 or less per year in tuition.

However, California law schools can charge as much as they do because people keep enrolling and many students nationwide want to live in California so the tuition keeps getting hiked up. With that knowledge perhaps to graduate with an ABA degree you might want to consider a law school with cheaper tuition rates outside of California. I don't know if that is a possibility, but I think having an ABA degree is better than a CBA one all things considered.

Right or wrong there will be doors closed to you without an ABA degree it doesn't mean you can't succeed, but many firms, agencies, etc will only consider ABA grads at a minimum. On top of that if you go into private practice or start your own firm potential clients will look you up and if they see you went to an unaccredited school they probably won't choose you. I personally know the educational difference is minimal, but when selecting an attorney people like hear the word accredited. On top of that if your a Solo you will be competing for clients and other attorneys from ABA schools to help themselves may say oh she went to an unaccredited school. Kind of shady and certainly many lawyers do not do that, but it is a competitive business and something to consider.

By analogy if you were choosing  a doctor to perform you surgery and you heard one of them went to an unaccredited Medical School you would be more hesitant to choose them over other doctors that went to an accredited law school. Does that mean you can't succeed from a CBA school?  Absolutely not the Mayor of L.A  graduated from a law school that was not even CBA accredited and he is bossing around Harvard Grads.

In the end since your halfway down the ABA path I think your better off staying there, but I am just some guy anonymously posting on the internet. Also on the flip-side when you pass the bar whether from a CBA school or ABA school you are a lawyer in California with the same rights, responsibilities, etc that a California Lawyer from Harvard has.

Hey guys,

So I passed APs for two of my courses in high school, and the college equivalents are listed as a "P" grade representing passing on my transcript. The problem is that for one of the courses I also passed the IB class for so they took away the credit earned for the AP test. For the other course credit, I retook it in my university, so my university took away the credit for the test. They're still listed as P grades on my transcript but have no credit attached to them as well as a COURSE (not grade) notation that states that I received no credit for passing the test. My question is will LSAC take these two Ps and mark them a zeros or ignore them for the GPA calculation?

Just keep practicing and learning from your mistakes. If you have been scoring between 168-174 consistently, you should try to figure out what you are consistently missing.  There must be a group or a difficulty level that you are hitting the wall with. Figure that out.

How did this work out for you?

With the way the rankings work, Hofstra might gain back just as much next year...

Living legend makes a a bunch of great points. I would add one more.. If you are likely to live is Charleston after law school, find out what the local market is like for practicing law. Go to the career center at the school and ask about placements in Charleston. Talk to some local law firms and see what they are projecting for 3-4 years down the road.

The reality is that most students do have limitations on where they are going to go to school and where they are going to live and work.  If you want to practice in Charleston, then there might not be any advantage to getting a degree somewhere else.

This is true in most cities and states, i.e. if you want to practice in Indiana then going to school in many other places does not get you a leg up.

You can promote yourself and all the services that you offer. You can share your experience and services by writing blogs and articles about the services that you provide and also get involved in the same type of discussion.
Everything works if you know:
1) Your focused audience
2) How did they think on legal aspect?
3) What type of media they use
If you have a clear understanding on all the three aspects of marketing, you can get relevant and can select the ideal phase of media to reach your client with the appropriate message.

It's very risky going to a new law school.

I would not go to law school if my only choice were Widener.

Hofstra has fallen from 89th to 113th in the 2014 US News & World Report Law School Rankings. Don't be surprised if Hofstra falls further next year as existing students transfer and potential applicants go elsewhere.