Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the legal learning podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the legal learning center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school. If you would like three free money saving strategies today, visit legal learning center.com forward slash money. Today’s guest is at the request of listener Bria, Mico. She wanted a simplified application checklist. So I asked founder of law school, expert and Levine to join me though.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thank you so much. My name is Ann Levine in 2004. I started a company called law school expert. All that I do is law school admission consulting. I started the company after working as director of admissions for two different law schools. And before that, as director of student services for law school, yes, I am a lawyer as well. I graduated from law school in 1999 and all I’ve really spent my career doing is helping people apply to law school. So that’s a little summary. I am the author of two books. One is the law school admission game, which is the bestselling law school guide book. It’s in its fourth edition. Oh, it looks like this in case you’re wondering. And I also have a blog and I give a lot of advice online, but my primary thing that I do is I work one-on-one with law school applicants as they’re going through the application process.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yes. I have been a big fan for a long time. You are just, yes. I have been praising you to pre-loss students for years. I love the law school admission game. I highly recommend it to anyone who’s applying to law school. You need to get this book. Okay. Just total plug there because for anyone who’s watching, I have a really old version of it. It is it just covers a to Z all the things you should really be thinking about from your major to gap years, to just a little bit of like self-reflection and yeah, everything that goes into the application process. So really good book. Now I know we had a listener specifically requests. It was Bria Mico, I believe is how the name is said. She wants to have a simple application checklist kind of covered on this podcast. And I thought you probably have that down in your sleep.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We can do that. No problem. We can do a checklist and timeline. And I hope that we help be helpful to her and to anyone else who’s listening. If you’d like me to kind of go ahead with that, I’m happy to go for it. Okay. So there’s an ideal timeline and we’re recording this at the end of October, but people may not be listening to this for years or different times of the year. So I’ll answer a little bit specific and a little bit general as we go through this. Generally law schools do operate rolling admissions. So the earlier in the process, you applied the better, but that’s not a strict rule. What that really means is for top law schools, if you apply in October, November timeframe or earlier, you’re considered more of an early applicant, you get the full benefit of rolling admissions.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
If you apply a little later than that, it’s okay. If you started playing January, February for top law schools, it’s probably pretty late in the process to get the same results you would normally get. Now, that being said, that’s not true, necessarily a more regional schools schools that are less concerned with ranking are really there to serve the local population. Applying later in the cycle may not have as much of an impact. So I want to be clear to differentiate that. And so as we’re putting together a timeline and thinking ahead about the law school admission process, that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Right now I’m getting a lot of questions, for example, cause this year the outset is given up October and again in November, and then not again until January. So I’m getting a lot of questions about, well, what do I do if I don’t like my October score?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Do I wait? Is it worth being a later applicant and all this anxiety that surrounds that? So what I like to say is this, if it’s a question of applying with the October score, November score, but your November score would be higher, a hundred percent, wait, get the best score for you. Get the most scholarships, get the best admission results, give yourself the best possible chance of success. If it’s a question of waiting until January, then I might say, let’s wait until next cycle to apply. So, so that’s where that line gets drawn. So let’s talk about all the things you have to do is you’re moving backward from those dates, knowing that ideally you want to submit your applications in the fall. Okay? So there’s a lot of things you have to do in order to get your applications in it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
It’s not so simple, a lot of components. So the first things I want you to think about ideally six to nine months out from when you plan to apply would be obviously planning out when you’re going to take the LSAT, which most people are spending about six months total on and taking it multiple times. And so you really do want to plan that in advance. So if you think you’d like to play in the fall, you want to start thinking about preparing for the outset early in January, February, March start planning that start sitting for the test in the summer early fall months. That would be ideal timeline a okay, at that same time that you start preparing for the outset it’s time to send your transcripts to ALSAC and start thinking about who you like to have. Write letters of recommendation. I usually have people attack those things first because they have the longest lead times.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You can control how quickly you write your personal statement to some degree or do your resume, but you can’t control how long it takes to process your transcripts or how long a recommender takes to write your letters. So if everything else is equal in the process, you’re not waiting to finish another class with this recommender. You’re not waiting for another semester to show up on your transcripts, go ahead and get all of that going. Especially for people who’ve already graduated. That’s step number one in your timeline next in your timeline is the things that are within your control. So that in addition to outside, what that means is things like your resume, your personal statement, any identity, which I’ll explain that desire. Any optional essays you might anticipate writing and all of those can be done without knowing where you’re going to end up applying to law school.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
You don’t have to know where you’re applying or the kinds of schools you’ll be applying to when you start drafting these things, because your story is your story. It doesn’t change. So I usually have people start with the resume because it’s a great exercise and reflecting on how you’ve spent your time. And when you see how you’ve expressed those activities on your resume, it kind of frees up your personal statement to be a little more creative, because there you go. I already talked about that job, or you talked about that activity. You don’t have to repeat all that in the personal statement, they’ll see it on my resume. And I talk at length in the book. I think the resume chapter might be the longest chapter other than first year statements because the resume is really important. This is not the same resume you’re doing for you know, career related things, but the resumes, your only chance to tell the law schools, how you spent your time since graduating from high school, basically.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
So resume would be first. And then I would have people attack any, no negatives in their PR in their backgrounds. So there are some things you’re going to have to disclose to a law school. And those could be what we call character and fitness issues. So that’s criminal charges, that’s plagiarism, that’s dorm, discipline, stupid stuff, minor in possession charges. Like I know you just told me, you went to be like, no one leaves you a CSB without underage drinking ticket. Like there’s just no way. So I was going to, I have a friend who got a DUI for riding his bike drunk. That sounds like a very UCS B thing. Okay. So these are all things that have to come up in your application. So don’t, I usually tell people don’t worry about them. Just write them up factual. They’re usually for most people, just not big deals, but you are obligated to answer the question and candid way or also get in trouble later.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
When you apply for the bar exam, you weren’t candid on your applications as a whole big disaster after you spent however much you’ve spent on law school. So I usually tell people to the things they’re most worried about to attack first and for most people, those are the negatives, or it could even be something you’re not obligated to explain to the schools, but you might decide to in order to provide context. So for example, if you had one year of really poor grades and undergrad, or and you want to explain that you had additional family responsibilities at that time, something like that, I call that an addendum. I, and that would be something that would be appropriate to, you know, whatever it is you’re worried about. I usually say, get those done first, know how you’re going to adjust them, feel good about it.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay. I covered that and then move on and focus on the positive. And that would be a personal statement. I mean, I could talk about personal statements for the whole hour, so we won’t, but I’ll just give a few things about personal statements. Don’t read any samples. Okay. This needs to sound like you and be an authentic portrayal of you. It needs to be your voice. I shouldn’t be overly dramatic. Don’t worry about some hook. Don’t worry about how compares to other people. Okay. I know that’s all really hard things I’ve just said, but really I’m your personal statement for most schools is two pages, double space. It’s not much real estate, but it’s your only chance to really tell the schools about your endeavors decisions. You’ve made realizations you’ve come to that have led you to where you are today, applying to law school.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
It doesn’t have to be just one incident. It doesn’t have to be one aha moment. Most of us don’t have that. But really spend some time thinking about it. When, when you read in a book and you hear people say to avoid repeating your resume, it doesn’t mean you can’t talk about things on your resume. It just means if those are the things you’re going to talk about, you have to be a little more insightful, go a little deeper with it. So that’s your next thing on the timeline? Many people, but not all people will write a diversity statement and that would be next to attack. Although sometimes you can do that before the personal statement and the diversity statement, the way I kind of tell the difference between them is diversity statement is usually things that happen to you and personal statement is usually things you make happen.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
That’s kind of a simple way to see which bucket to put things in there’s often overlap. You know, something that happened to you when you were younger, could have spurred action. You’ve taken later and that’s absolutely fine, but you can separate the buckets because your personal statement really should be about adulthood. There should rarely be mentioned in childhood and a person statement or adolescence. So diversity statement is a way to share obstacles, overcome socioeconomic disadvantage membership in a marginalized historically marginalized or excluded group. Th th those things go in the diversity statement bucket generally. And so those are the initial things that people can work on. The timeline, how this all works in the timeline is if you’re planning to take the offsite in the summer months, which is what I call ideal or early fall months, then the idea would be to get these done kind of around the same time.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So as soon as your score comes back in the fall, you’re ready to apply. So whether you get your score back in a September date or October date, so different it’s November date, but basically have everything ready. So you’re in that funnel. And also do plan in your timeline backup outside date cause all kinds of health can wreak havoc. With ALSAC especially online, Al’s not flex. And the proctoring system is pretty horrific. So just plan on the fact that that probably will take it more than once. And so that, that would kind of be how I loosely frame the timeline. So the application timeline time list that you’re asking me for checklist transcripts to ALSAC register for the credential assembly service get letters of rec underway, work on your resume, work on your personal statement. [inaudible] Diversity statement that makes your letters of rec get sent in, make sure transcripts get processed, like really be on top of things. You have to be proactive because mistakes happen with ALSAC processing and things. So that’s kind of that’s, those are the basics. Those are the basic to-do lists and timeline.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Okay. That’s beautiful. And it really shows the overlap and the flow. And I think something, a lot of students don’t realize these days is for people like myself, who, and sounds like yourself. When you played back to law school, we didn’t have access to other people’s personal statements. Really, you kind of, you know, maybe your pre-law advisor had a sample or something, or you had a friend and you could always definitely buy a book at the bookstore if they had one, if you had a big bookstore, but really we were kind of on our own. We did just write our own story and it wasn’t like we went on the internet and found every sample on earth and you know, copied them, you know? So it’s sounds like we’re going back to the stone ages, but
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Certainly that, but I think that the key is I don’t see a lot of value in sample personal statements because how someone chooses to tell a story that’s completely different from your own, how is that relevant to you? And in fact, most of them samples out there in the internet are old. So they’re from an era when we were writing very creative, catchy openings, narrative devices. And that’s just not really the current trend right now. You know, your, my philosophy is you’re applying to law school and you should sound like someone who’s going to be a lawyer in three years. I’m not meaning you use big words because actually lawyers don’t use big words in their writing if they’re good writers and the lawyers the idea isn’t to, to show me how impressive your vocabulary is, but rather to show me how well you express yourself with brevity in a succinct and compelling way. And that’s, that’s what a good lawyer does.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. It makes sense. I love that. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So we got our checklist fully. We’re doing things timely and now we know, okay. If we are off to January regionally that’s okay. Otherwise probably should be waiting. Okay. I really should. I had a guy say he was taking the June Elsa for that year, that his school is willing to wait.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Well maybe, and maybe they’re just willing to take this application fee. It just kind of depends. But here’s the thing like, think about what makes sense, right? Like if your numbers are super strong for a school, they’ll happily take your application late. But then on the other hand, is that really the school you want to go to? Are you going, because it’s the one school that will take your application that late? And if so, I’ve, I’m a big believer in kind of asking people to consider where the, whether they’re making good long-term strategic decisions or whether they’re making short-term decisions to please someone because their parents don’t want them to get gap year because they feel some other kinds of pressure. And then that person, the person who does that is the person I found. Who’s more likely to be really unhappy with the decision that they’ve made and who regrets their choice.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And then they’re desperate to transfer, but they’re not doing well enough and multiple to transfer. So just, I believe in making good long-term decisions because this isn’t just a question of, this is a long-term decision. This is definitely, it’s not when you can really undo. So if you have to wait a year, so be it. And to be honest with you, although I know people, especially people applying to law school, like they’re very ambitious and they’re very accomplished and they just are, and I charged to keep going. But sometimes setbacks are actually really good. They teach us a lot and we make better decisions once we have them. So it’s just an interesting to me. I am a parent to two teenage daughters in high school. And you see how, when something like COVID or, or something else happens and their lives are kind of thrown for a loop in a way that’s completely frustrating.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Cause they didn’t see it coming. They didn’t think they’d have to take a leave of absence from school, for example, for health issue or whatever, how in the end it ends up working really well because they realize they can do hard things. And this, this kind of translates just like, okay my Alside didn’t go as planned. My timing, didn’t go as planned. Can you step back and rework things so that they do go in your favor. So you retake the offset, you regroup, you, you make smarter decisions. And sometimes that comes into play here.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah. And you just, you never know how things are gonna work out when you delay law school, by that year, you might meet your best friend or your soulmate or who knows. I mean, it doesn’t all have to be bad just because everything got delayed.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
So
Speaker 3 (16:25):
You mentioned something that I did want to touch on. You said that yeah, there are, there’s some issues with transfer students, but yeah. I have searched high and low for admissions advisors who can help transfer students. It seems like once you’re in law school, it’s kind of like you’re on your own. And I saw that you actually do provide assistance to transfer students. So what does that look like?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, so a couple of levels to it. I mean, I do help people transfer applications. People transfer after the first year of law school. So generally people should reach out for help with that. After they’ve received their first semester grades, because when you are transferring law schools, the thing that’s the most important is how you performed in law school. So your undergraduate GPA, your undergraduate offsets your Ellis, that scores who are applying were used by the law schools to predict how you would perform in law school, but nothing demonstrates that like how you actually performed in law school. So it’s really law school grades, the quality of law school you attended and a law school professors letter of recommendation that come into play when you’re applying to transfer. So that’s the number one. So let me step back a little bit because oftentimes people ask me about transferring before they even applied to law school because they know their assets for GPA.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Didn’t put them in line with schools they’d want to attend, but I’m going to transfer. Well, here’s the thing. That’s usually the person who had very low. And if you had very low numbers, especially low GPA undergrad, it is very hard to predict with any certainty that you’re going to be the person to get very strong grades in law school. And often people say to me, well, I’m just going to work hard. I’m going to be in the top 10% of the class. Well, you’re going to show up to law school. Every single person there is saying themselves, I’m going to work hard and I’m going to be the top 10% of my class, but 90% of you won’t. So it’s very important to, to not start attending a law school, unless you’d be happy graduating from that law school. That’s number one, if you’re not going to be content graduated from that law school, don’t go there at all.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Okay. Because transfer is a little bit of a unicorn little bit, not like real unicorn. Like it doesn’t ever happen, but like it should be. Here’s how I want people to approach transferring. They get their first semester grades back and they’re like, wow, I, I killed it. Maybe, maybe I should think about transferring that. That’s how it should be. It should be like a bonus that lands in your lap. Okay. It shouldn’t be an expectation. So if that happens and you get great grades and you have an indication, okay, like this is probably not that you have your ranking, then you won’t. But this is probably going to put me in the top 10, top 15, top 20% of my class. Maybe I could think about transferring. Now. Some things to think about if that’s you, that you only get one shot at the transferring train.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
I’m like, am I going to use the bite apple metaphor? I don’t know. Let’s go with you. Get, you get one chance to jump on the transferring train. You have to take it. So you have to cast a wide net of schools. You have to apply to all the schools you might consider transferring to. You have to understand that they’re not going to be scholarship funding. So you’re walking away from any scholarships you might’ve been given and you have to decide it’s going to be worth it to you. To do that, you also have to be willing to have those difficult conversations with people at your current law school that you’re transferring. You have to keep in mind that some professors, as a matter of policy, won’t help people to transfer. So you, you might run into issues, finding someone who will write you a letter of recommendation from your law school, which you will need.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
So, you know, you have to kind of put yourself out there to do it, but if you want to do it, you only have one shot. Sometimes it will come back to me. After the two, all year, I want to transfer. It’s like, that’s, that’s not how this works. You have one shot, so you have to take it if you want to take it. And then you can decide whether you want to transfer or not transfer. There are great things about transferring and there are some kind of lame things about transferring whether that means how you get on a large view versus automatically walking onto a larger view at your school, whether that means the scholarship situation. If you’ve pulled your transcripts to transfer your school might punish you by not letting you do OCI. Like you kinda gotta be careful with it. So I would say just really think hard about it. Think about it once you get that first semester grades and then go from there.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Wow. That’s a lot more to think about than I ever thought of. Yeah. I do know a few people who’ve transferred, like when I was in law school or other friends and it’s always, yeah, it’s been like a unicorn. Like how did you do that? What happened? And I never actually asked them,
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But it all came down to their grades and it came down to trying you know, you have to put yourself out there and try now people applying to, as a transfer, the personal statements, a little different, it’s going to be much more career focused, so much more focused on why you want to transfer. And so it’s, it’s a different thing. It’s I do help people with the personal statement and resume, et cetera for transferring, but I approach it differently. It’s actually a much simpler process than the first time around. So you can, you can keep that in mind as well. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
That’s really good to know. Cause I just feel like, yeah, like, like I said, there, there often some sunset area that no one touches, so it’s good to know you’re there for them.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Oh, one more thing I should say. As long as we’re on a timeline thing is you apply to transfer in a very small window between may and July. Okay. Okay. To start law school in August, it’s a super tight little timeframe. So I just want to put that out there. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
That’s crazy too, because if you’re moving across the country,
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Some exceptions, I mean, there are a couple of schools, USC and Georgetown come to mind that you can apply early to almost have like an early action kind of a thing going on with transfers. We can apply right after your first semester grades come out. But for the most part you’re applying to transfer, you know, at the same time that you’re taking your law school exams.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Okay. All right. Good to know. Right. And so let’s talk a little bit about what you do for the majority of your time. How do you help?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Well as my primary role is not actually, as it takes the star, it is actually working one-on-one with people applying to law schools. So this time of year in the fall, when I’m busier, I put out a lot less content on the tick talking Instagram and what have you. And I really focus on helping people one-on-one through the admission process. And my website, by the way, is law school expert.com. And I started this in 2004. So I think I’m in my 19th admission cycle, 18th admission cycle since I started law school expert. So I really just work with people one-on-one I do all of my packages on unlimited basis. So as many drafts and it takes as many questions as it takes. That’s really how I love to work with people. I’m very much of the philosophy that the more someone is inclined to ask me and take my advice, the better they will do.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And the more successful they will be. So all of my packages are structured that way. And I get to really know my clients and their really diverse individuals in age and socioeconomic backgrounds. You know, everything from children of immigrants to, I mean, immigrants themselves too. I mean, really every I’ve worked with every kind of person, nothing surprises me anymore. I really love that about my job. I get to know people’s stories intimately. And I think that I can be in the most helpful to people when they feel most comfortable sharing with me and I can help them to decide what should be in their applications or how to compartmentalize different aspects of their backgrounds in different components of the application. So that’s in a nutshell what I do.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah. I love that because that endless ability to ask questions. I think one, nobody wants to waste anyone’s time. So I think most people appreciate, I appreciate that offer, but I’m going to make sure I respect your time as well, but that the fact that if I have one more revision to my personal statement or my resume or whatever, that I can just have it double checked and not feel guilty about it, like, oh, well we already went through our three
Speaker 2 (24:15):
It’s actually I think even more than that, I think I’m always worried that if I did something on an hourly basis and someone decided, well, I don’t want to ask him that because I don’t want to run it more charges. And then they look and find some answer from some idiot on Reddit and then they do something. They completely destroyed all the other work we’ve done together because they didn’t just want to ask me. So I just said, I’m not working that way. I’ve worked the exact same way since 2004 and it works. And if that’s not what people are looking for, no problem happy to recommend and send them elsewhere for hourly or piecemeal work. But this is how I enjoy working and how I enjoy helping people. And I do really enjoy getting to know people’s stories, which I wouldn’t be able to do if I were helping people with just little bits and that’s a fail, they’re more likely to be successful. The more that I’m touching, the more that I’m seeing, the more that I’m consulting with them on, which is ultimately the goal is to really maximize their chances of getting the best possible results.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, no, I, I see a lot of these, your personal statement review people or, you know, similar things and yeah, it’s okay. One more vision or it’s whatever. And I just think about how often I revise something and I think it’s done, so, okay, I’m going to submit it to you. And that way I’ll still get my one revision. And then once I hit submit, I’m changing things already. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I think that there is, I’m glad that there are all different kinds of help out there because there need to be all different price points of health, different access to help. And I’m just one person. I’m not a company where I, you know, I have one person who does hourly and two people who do this and whatever. So people are getting to work with me directly. But on the other hand, you know, I only work in kind of this one very intensive way. But I’m glad that there are options for, you know, at various price points and what have you, but, but I have the luxury of being able to, to work this way. And that’s how I enjoy working with people and being part of being part of their journey. And, and I mean, some of my favorite things I’ve gone to weddings of former clients, I’ve gone to, I’ve been invited to graduations. I, you know, these friendships can often last quite a long time. And because people feel close to me because I got to know them so well as part of their journey. So well that doesn’t happen in every case. That is one of my favorite things that happens.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
That’s awesome. All right. So do you have a story or two that you could share with us of somebody that just had some amazing results or just really a neat transformation?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Oh, that’s such an interesting thing to think about. So I have hundreds of testimonials on my websites from my website from over the years. And I think that sometimes people get bogged down in the weight. She had some of the 1 63 get into Harvard and some of the 1 67 getting a Yale. And yes I did, but that’s not really because I’m so brilliant. It’s because the individuals are so brilliant. I really was able to help them put forward what was so brilliant about them. And so sometimes he will call me, okay, here are my stats and their stats. Obviously don’t put them in line with yell, but that’s their dream. And I, I often have to say to them, I’m, you know, I, and I, this is why I offer free initial consult is I, you know, I’ll often say to people that I don’t think that it’s a reasonable goal.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I wouldn’t feel good about taking their money and giving them the assurance that yes, if they work with me, they’re going to yell that those are the unicorns. I can spot them. Right. I know who the person is when they come to me. Who’s who, who has those low numbers who is going to capture the attention? And in that respect, I would say it’s, it’s usually not high out low GPA. People who get into crazy reach schools, it’s the reverse it’s it’s people with very high academic credentials who just do not do well on standardized tests, who, who usually see the outstanding results. So I would put that out there as well, in terms of favorite stories. I mean, I have so many, but gosh, I mean, I’ve, I’ve worked, not all of my clients go to Harvard, Yale, what have you obviously, and I don’t specialize in, in that I know elitist my, my goal is to help people reach their goals and to help them identify what’s reasonable for them and what’s attainable for them and how they can maximize scholarships or whatever their particular goals are.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
So I try not to fixate so much on the Harvard, Yale, Stanford, you know, what have you like? I have people who are just absolutely thrilled. You’re based in LA, who will be absolutely thrilled to go to Southwestern or California Western for law school. And then I have the people who are going to get the full rides at UCLA USC. And then I have the people are going to go to Berkeley Stanford if we’re sticking with our California examples. So the idea isn’t that there’s any one type of person I enjoy working with. But I think, you know, I hate to like elaborate on a particular case. Right. but I think what I would say is that I especially love helping people. There’s two things. There’s the person who has had such an outstanding and interesting life. They don’t even realize how interesting their life is because it just happens to be their life and helping them to understand, oh yeah, it is really impressive that I came from there and I got myself here.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Right. There’s that person, it’s so much fun to help them through that process. And likewise, it’s fun to help the person comes to me like, hang on. I’m just a normal college student. I like was present. I like vice was my fraternity and vice versa peel-off club, but I’m really pretty normal. Like, don’t have any life adversity. How do I, you know, what do I write about, what do I say about myself and helping that person see that you don’t have to have overcome paralysis or self peace in the middle east to show the law schools that you’re an insightful and valuable contributing individual. And so I think, you know, wherever someone is on that spectrum they’re both really fun cases to work with. It’s also, it’s also really fun to work with non-traditional applicants as well. People coming back after five years, twenty-five years from another career and really excited to pursue a new one. Wow.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Okay. So have you actually worked with someone who came back after about 25 years?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Absolutely. It happens all the time
Speaker 3 (30:11):
For like 10, maybe 15 years. And, but beyond that
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Many years ago, many I maybe more than 15 years ago, I worked with a woman who was in her mid fifties and just had a really compelling case for why this, she want to go to law school at this point. And she did. And once I worked with someone who ended up who who’d been a police officer for 20 years and he also had a graduate degree and he was a very impressive person and he ended up going to Harvard. So yes, I mean that, that can be a lot of fun to work with that person.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
I love that. I love gap years. I love second careers, you know, but I, as we get older, we start to get more fixated on what can I do this? And I believe there was somebody at my school who was in their eighties, but I didn’t have any classes with this person. So
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well, even in my own law school class, like we had retired members of the military, things like that. And it just makes the classroom discussion so much more interesting to have people with those perspectives with you. That being said, if people are thinking about going back to school, it really needed to be in a place in life where they know they can afford it. Because the person who’s in their forties who goes back to school and is about to take on loans. I mean, that’s a lot to pay back when life is so uncertain. And usually the people who are applying to law school in their forties and up are people who are going to pay cash for law school. And it’s not about the outcomes for them.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Okay. That’s good to know because that’s one of my biggest things is the finance piece. And I, when I do talk to older students yeah. In 40 plus I am always like less about finances because it’s like buying a home when you’re 40 and it’s not suitable, but we need to talk about this.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Okay. Yes. Especially because, I mean, your employment situations are going to be different. You’ve been, on the other hand, you might be someone who can just have the wherewithal to just open your own firm right out of the gate. And you might have those connections already, or you might have an inroad to what you want to do, but you’re less likely to be the person that’s that a big law firms want to hire because they know you’re too smart to sit there and do that kind of grind that would be required, you know? So I think that it’s important to be cognizant of the realities of post-graduate employment. And for many people they’d be taking a pay cut for many years. It’s true too. All right. So, and if, if somebody is thinking about working with you or with any consultant, really, how do they know that they need one?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
How they know, like I should really do this. Okay. So first of all, let me be clear. No one needs a consultant. This is a luxury service, like L set crap, like getting your hair done and not doing it yourself, like having someone else do your taxes. Okay. So I want to be really clear about that. I don’t want anyone to feel that they are behind the curve because they can’t afford some luxury service. Okay. Working with a consultant is an up level. Okay. It is never a requirement. Okay. So I just want to be really clear about that. I’m very realistic about that. And so I offer so much free advice online. If I have a book, it’s why I have, you know so much free content that I put out there because working one-on-one with me is not going to be accessible to everyone.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
So how I’d rather reframe this, this is what if someone has already decided that they’d like to help with their application process and would like to work with a consultant, some things to keep in mind. Number one is who would you be working with? Okay. It sounds so basic, but with most companies you don’t know until you’re assigned someone. Okay. And you don’t know what their level of expertise is. Yes. They might’ve gone to law school, but have they gotten other people in law school? Have they reviewed applications for law schools? Like what is the extent of their track record of their experience with that? And what are they good at? You know, it’s one thing to know what you have to do to be successful in law school. It’s another thing to know what you have to get into law school. It’s another thing to be a really good writer and editor.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
There are very few people who are good at all of these things combined, and to be good with people and listen to people and their stories and what have you. So I would say, know who you’re going to work with, understand the turnaround times, the schedule, what you’re getting. Because many times some places say they turn jocks around in a week and other places it’s small, you know, shorter turnaround times who will be talking to them, which access will you have? What are you thinking about what you actually want help with? Are you someone who just wants someone to look at your last draft and give you a thumbs up and maybe some pointers, or are you someone who, you know, wants someone to say open the timeline, want someone that can call whenever they have questions? Like there’s a whole range of assistance, but in the end, how w what any consultants, jobs should be is to, they should never make you promises.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
They should never make you guarantees. Those are total red flags. They can, if someone’s not completely honest with you about your standing, you know, I, I recently had parents call me, which is a whole other thing, but who were you know, the first couple initial console was parents and they were, they were really I think they really got insulted when I explained to them that their son’s 3.4 GPA was not going to get him very far in this process. That, that wasn’t a strong GPA for law school. They got really offended by that. You have to be willing to take the advice because a good consultant should give you very candid feedback about who you are as a candidate, what you can do to maximize how you present yourself in the conference of the application, make good strategic decisions about where you’re applying and what you’re putting forward and what you’re explaining and, and what you’re not explaining. And if someone’s not willing to do that, they’re kind of a yes person. And they’re just kind of correcting grammar. Then you really don’t need a consultant for that. Anyone can edit your work. So, so I think I would just answer the question that way.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Okay. No, that’s really good to know. And I love what you said about it is a luxury item, right? Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the frenzy of, I need this, I need that. And it’s, it’s not an actual need, but we just hear it. And we hear it on the internet and we hear it from our classmates and all these things. And yet, you know, I see so many people who self study for the LSAT, for example, who are getting amazing scores and it’s taking them a while, but they’re doing it. They’re seeing that progress it’s working.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah. So it works for many people. I, and in fact, when people come to me and finances are really the issue, I always tell them to invest in L sat prep before law school admission consulting, especially if they’re struggling with the L set self study, any else that really only works for people who are naturally pretty good standardized test takers for people who come to me, starting the conversation with, I struggle with standardized tests. That’s not the person who should self study, but the great news is there are awesome, affordable online, Elsa prep methods now. And I steer everyone that way. There’s no reason to do one of these crazy expensive, like Katherine Prince review, whatever courses. Okay. There’s no reason it’s a total. That’s not how it had people spend their dollars or hours. Okay. There are amazing resources now with ALSAC prep. And I would always say that that’s going to be the biggest bang for your buck, because the higher your Ellis had score, the more scholarship potentially you have. So I always say if it’s an either or you go there first.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
Okay, good to know. All right. And so if somebody wants to work with you, or if they want to follow you for your free advice on social media, or just connect with you, where
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Should they go? So I’m all over the place. But my, my website is law school expert.com. And I have everything on there from pricing to whatever you would need. And I have a contact form there that people can fill out if they’d like to schedule an initial consult, which I do screen those. I don’t schedule initial consults with absolutely everyone who fills out a form because I’m just one person. So I do screen them. So people can fill that out. I also at law school expert on Instagram and, and tick top, primarily, I don’t really use Twitter or Facebook anymore. So but I do have some content that’s helpful and fun, hopefully on Tik TOK and, and on Instagram as well. If you scroll through past posts, you’ll probably get some answer to a question you’re looking for. I have videos.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
I, I, there’s a law school expert channel on YouTube and Vimeo and whatever else, but the book is really the best place to go for law school admission advice, and it is available the older version, the third edition, which would still mostly be relevant other than L set schedule. And COVID admission cycle information is available on Spotify as an audio book. And then the fourth edition looks like this and the easiest place to get it is on Amazon. And I show up on the cover because I, the cover is very different from previous versions. Cause I want people to get the previous, most recent version. So this is the one that came out during COVID. And so it has the most up to date information about the admission cycle competitiveness and schedule for ALSAC
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Awesome. Okay. Yeah. So be forewarned, if you go on to Amazon, there are multiple additions. So yeah. Get the most updated version with the gavel on there and yeah, I highly recommend it. It just is so thorough and so helpful. And I learned a lot, but yeah, I’m always telling people to get this book. So anyways, well, thank you so much for joining us today and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It’s before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor, Juno, if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno first, Juno can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor.legal learning center.com forward slash Juno. For more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Anne number one, unless you’re applying to a regional school. If you’re applying in January, you might want to wait a year. Number two, don’t go to a law school that you’re not going to be happy. Graduating from transferring is difficult. Number three, working with a consultant is a luxury, not a necessity, but I do recommend you check out her book, the law school at Michigan game. That’s it for this episode, a full transcript will be available@legallearningcenter.com forward slash law school expert. The show notes will be there as well as always. If you enjoyed the show, if you learned something today, please go ahead and go on to iTunes, leave us a review, share the show that just helps the show help more people. Thank you.
