For more on available workshops, please check out the Workshops page.
UB Law School Informational Session
Wednesday, October 10th, 3 - 4:00 p.m. 145 C Student Union
Learn about University at Buffalo Law School! Admissions officers will present on the application process, admissions, curriculum, student-life, and post-law school opportunities, and will answer specific questions you may have. An invaluable event for anybody interested in UB Law School and wishing to hear directly from law school representatives!
*********Please RSVP for this event by emailing Jon at bonebrak@buffalo.edu by October 6th.
Remember, if the law school you are applying to requires a dean certification, you can mail / fax / drop-off their form to me for processing. You can check this unofficial list to see whether your school requires a dean cert. This isn’t an official up-to-date list, but schools are very up-front our their requirements, so you should have no questions about applicatoin requirements. Be sure to fill out and sign the form before sending it off to me, as without your permission, I cannot distribute your academic information to the law school.
Please email me (bonebrak@buffalo.edu) if you are faxing or mailing your dean cert, just so I am aware of its imminent arrival.
My mailing address is:
Jon A. Bonebrake
Pre-Law Advisor
University at Buffalo
109 Norton Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
Fax: (716) 645-3042
Tomorrow Professor Charles Carr is holding a workshop on Law School Personal Statements. Your personal statement is a deciding factor for your acceptance to law school. This session will guide you on writing a winning essay that will positively impact your overall law school application. I encourage you to attend if you’re either struggling with your personal statement now or will begin working on it in the upcoming months (or semesters) ahead! It’s of course free of charge to everyone and you can just show up for the workshop time. See you there.
Perfecting the Law School Personal Statement, Wednesday, April 12, 1:00 to 1:50, 145C Student Union.
The American Bar Association has a relevant section devoted to Pre Law students. This page has a lot of “official” answers to typical questions Pre Law students ask. For example, their take on choosing a major as an undergraduate:
The ABA does not recommend any undergraduate majors or group of courses to prepare for a legal education. Students are admitted to law school from almost every academic discipline. You may choose to major in subjects that are considered to be traditional preparation for law school, such as history, English, philosophy, political science, economics or business, or you may focus your undergraduate studies in areas as diverse as art, music, science and mathematics, computer science, engineering, nursing or education. Whatever major you select, you are encouraged to pursue an area of study that interests and challenges you, while taking advantage of opportunities to develop your research and writing skills. Taking a broad range of difficult courses from demanding instructors is excellent preparation for legal education.
They also talk about academic areas that one should be somewhat skilled in, such as “Analytic / Problem Solving Skills and Writing Skills. Definitely worth looking at.
Link
Dom Deleo of Boston College has put together a companion piece for students looking to go to PART TIME law schools. This coincides of course very nicely with their Boston College Locator for all law schools.
Check out the Part time Boston College Locator
Check out the regular version of the Boston College Locator
Once you have your LSAT score and have your current undergraduate GPA (even if it is only through your Junior year, which is ideally ALL you’ll have if you’re applying to Law School early enough if planning to attend right after your senior year) then you can start researching schools to get an accurate sense of where you have a likelihood of being admitted.
There is an ‘official’ database with all of last year’s information accurately up-to-date, and there is also an unofficial - yet equally informative - website to turn to to get an idea of your chances.
The first and best source of information is of course the online version of the “Official Guide to ABA Approved Law Schools“.
When going to the official database, which is a searchable edition of the paperback version, you can search in any number of ways. When researching schools of course, there are a number of different priorities that should be foremost in your mind. The quality of education at that school, bar passage rates, attrition rates, region, cost, student life, internship and clinic opportunities, career planning and placement to name a few. Many of these factors can be searched for via the “ABA Data Detailed Search“. A good way to start your searching using this aspect of the database is to simply select a state as your search input. You’ll get a list of ALL the schools in that state, which is a great way to get started. From there you simply click on the school you’re interested in learning more about and you can look at statistics and number (the Data sheet) or learn more about the school’s education and possibly an admission matrix (in the description form).
However, if you want a quick and easy glance over what your admittance chances are from a scale of 0 - 100 based on your actual UGPA and LSAT score, the “Data Search” is a good first stop. Here you’ll get a scale indicating the range for LSAT and GPA scores of admitted students from last year at that school and show where you would fall within that range. Additionally, a summary calculation out of 100 is also given. Bear in mind that since there are many factors that go into the application process, you shouldn’t base your admission chances just on this scale. However, it will give you a “quick and dirty” look at your chances, which is in itself very accurate given how important your LSAT and GPA numbers are in the admissions process.
In my next post, I’ll mention some unofficial resources that you also without question want to check out as well, which include user-submitted data and their rates of admission at particular law schools.
Posted February 13, 2006 in LSAT, Tutorials
LSAT is now offering an online tool to help you improve your LSAT comprehension and readiness.
The LSAT is a paper-and-pencil test, but now there’s an online option for becoming familiar with the item types that comprise the test. LSAC’s new, online LSAT familiarization tool, LSAT ItemWise, lets you answer test questions of all three types—logical reasoning, analytical reasoning, and reading comprehension; keeps track of your answers; and shows you explanations as to why your answers are correct or incorrect. Although it is best to use our paper-and-pencil Official LSAT PrepTest® products to prepare for taking the LSAT, you can enhance your preparation by understanding all three item types and why your answers are right or wrong.
Link to LSAC online store
Posted January 17, 2006 in LSAT, Tutorials
LawSchoolNumbers.com (http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com) is a wonderful resource for Pre Law Students in the “research” phase of their application process. It’s basically a user-updated site that indexes all national Law Schools and records users’ GPA and LSAT information and their acceptance, rejection, and wait list data. All of this is then thrown into a graph that links applicants with their numbers and their status at that school. It’s anonymous, so applicants submitting information needn’t worry about confidentiality concerns, yet the information provided here will certainly be of use to students. This type of site functions on user-submissions (and accuracy) so I would certainly encourage UB students to participate but ensure you also keep your personal information private.
While there are also official, law school submitted matrices concerning specific LSAT and GPA information for each school (http://officialguide.lsac.org/docs/cgi-bin/home.asp), some law schools choose not to submit this type of specific data (X-Y coordinates of actual applicants and their status based on GPA and LSAT information). Hence, a website like LawSchoolNumbers.com can really fill in some much-needed blanks. (However, the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools should remain your number one data research tool as that database is entirely accurate with no fear of fudged-numbers or anonymously-submitted data!)
So when browsing this site, first click on the “All Law Schools” link to have a look at specific schools. Then click on “Top Users” to actually track folks who are currently in the admission process. This is usually quite interesting and some students provide some “blog” like information tracking their progress. Other things to look at are the indices for the Law Schools. That is the “magical number” that combines your academic information. Keep in mind that any “stat” site like this should be just used as a research tool, but certainly not “gospel” as far as where you should apply necessarily. I think I’ll have a podcast tutorial on this to walk people through it at some point, but for the time being, happy browsing!
Posted December 12, 2005 in Tutorials
For those of you currently applying to law schools, you will have noticed that you are frequently requested to disclose whether you have had any disciplinary infractions imposed upon you or have a history of misconduct. This is a sensitive issue that must be dealt with carefully and honestly.
Barbara Andelman from Case School of Law has some excellent insights on this:
Applicants really need to read the application questions pertaining to misconduct carefully, and make sure to answer each school’s specific questions correctly.
The questions vary widely from school to school. For example, the question on our application specifically states that expunged offenses must be disclosed. Another school may specifically exempt such matters. Precise reading of the questions on the application is a must.
Students will often seek advice from an attorney on whether an expunged matter needs to be disclosed and are told incorrectly that they need not disclose expunged offenses. Although this is true, for example, in the employment context, it is not true in the context of applying for admission to a school.
The effect on an applicant’s chances for admission based on disclosure of the offense is almost never as bad as the repercussions for failing to disclose. So I always advise folks: read the question carefully and respond honestly. (I’m the person at my school who signs off on our graduates’ character and fitness certificates for the bar exam, and every year I have graduating third-years who failed to disclose a matter that would have had no impact on our decision to admit them, but whose ability to take the bar exam is in jeopardy because of their decision not to disclose.)
Posted November 18, 2005 in Tutorials
There is an interesting post for what exam writing is like for L1 students. Here is the link. This is less “Pre Law” and actually more about law school, but it’s certainly a good idea to look ahead a little bit and see what life will be like once you’re IN law school. Really just another reiteration on the necessity of excellent writing skills. But as this blog entry demonstrates if you follow the link, there are various types of writing styles and assignments and you should be adept in all of them.
Posted November 17, 2005 in Tutorials
