Success Stories: Metamorphosis turns law student into actor

I read an interesting article in The Star about a fellow who found out very early on that law school wasn't for him. Instead, it was the stage. It is refreshing to hear about law students who are honest with themselves, and who don't drag themselves through the experience of law school, knowing that it will not lead them to happiness. Too often students force themselves through law school knowing in their heart that they will never love the law. I am not saying that you have to absolutely love the law. But, you certainly should not revile it either, as some of my classmates apparently did. I wonder how many unhappy lawyers would have had amazing careers if they had been more honest with themselves early on during law school. I have an uncle who worked in a rather large law firm for nearly 20 years, apparently hating it! He then finally made a rash decision and went to work somewhere else as an environmental lawyer. His schedule changed as well, and allowed him to explore his true love - acting. There is one truth out of all of this - be true to yourself - at every mile and at every intersection in life. Law school is not for everyone.

Law School: Don't share your law school grades

With the exception of your Mom, Dad, husband or wife and maybe your best friend (that isn’t in law school), do not share your grades with anyone. It does not help anybody, including you. It leads to negative emotions, either on your part, or on the part of your confidant. It leads to unnecessary gossip, unnecessary stress and ultimately does more harm than good most of the time. Assume that everyone else is getting great grades, and work hard to keep up with the rest of the class. Remember, everything is graded on a curve (the most common grade is a B), and that your goal is to stay on the right side of that curve. Also, remember that it is more important to show improvement, dedication and perseverance when it comes to recruiters. True, some recruiters will have a bias towards those who receive top marks. However, do not count yourself out if you have received some low marks in your first year. Recruiters look at a lot more things than grades, contrary to popular opinion.

On Class Participation and Attendance in Law School

This sounds like an odd subject for a post, and yet I cannot resist. Why, I wonder, do students insist on missing class right before break, when my courses are graded in part on class participation and attendance?

Answer: I have a few theories, but at the end of the day I do not really know. Any fearless students out there are definitely encouraged to enlighten me.

But first, let's dispense with the standard representations:

• I am a law professor, but I do not actively work at being a jerk. Any jerkiness on my part is not intentional and just comes naturally.
• I went to law school myself and skipped a few classes.
• I am still getting over the burnout I experienced as a law student in the 1990s. I vividly remember saying to myself many times that "I know I need to go to class, but I really do not want to."
• As a law professor, I do not take it personally when people miss my class. Law students are adults, after all. I teach because I want to teach, and if people do not want to take or attend my classes, then that really is their business.

And yet despite all of this, I am somewhat mystified when my class attendance rate drops right before spring break from around 90% to around 45%.

Here's my take on the matter. Law students are future professionals in the field of law, right? And as associates, or judicial clerks, or government employees, most will be at-will employees who can be fired pretty easily, right? So in those jobs, wouldn't they want whatever edge they can have? Of course they would.

So my question is this: how exactly is the situation different in law school when class attendance and participation count, and skipping never can help your grade? I submit that it is a difference in degree but not in kind. I am most certainly not going to lower someone's grade just because they miss one class right before spring break. But believe me, at the end of the semester, I will remember who showed up for class today. I will remember this despite myself. The attendees just stood out today because so few people were in class. And I cannot say that the attendees' diligence in coming to class and not starting spring break early will not help them (compared to the unexcused absentees) if they are on the bubble between letter grades and otherwise were in class and prepared most of the time during the semester.

Does this sound harsh? I think the better characterization is that it sounds honest. I appreciate the people who came to class today. Some of the absentees had legitimate, non-spring break-related reasons for not being there and informed me in advance, but others did not. I most certainly will not punish the unexcused absentee students--that would be mean and unprofessional in the extreme--but they did themselves no favors in the "benefit of the doubt" department.

So here's the moral of the story. In practice, support your co-workers and bosses in situations where you do not really have to. For example, go to their seminars and speeches. It will be appreciated. It cannot hurt you, and it may help you. There may come a time when you hit a bump in the road in your career and could use some goodwill. So be smart and build it up in advance.

I strive to have my classes help students develop real-world skills, and also to reflect real-world pressures faced in practicing law (like being prepared, being on time, and speaking in front of other people). I guess what I am saying is that, just like in the real world, attendance and participation just might count a bit more when others don't follow through.

Law School: New CANS, Outlines, Summaries for Law School

Cecilia Perdigao / Jenny Hopkins kindly sent me some first year law school outlines / summaries today. I will post them at http://www.canadianlawschool.ca. Constitutional Law and Contracts Law. Enjoy! There will soon be a number of CANS from my law school experience there as well, along with links to outlines from other Canadian law schools.

Law School Rankings

That time of year is fast approaching: the time when US News & World Report will release its rankings of colleges and graduate schools, including law schools. Most law schools that see a dip in their rankings typically adopt a public pose of unconcern, while engaging in private handwringing. Most schools that move up in the ranks publicly note that this is not really a contest, and then privately gloat at winning the contest.

All of this has been said before, but the question still must be asked: are the rankings good?

A lot of people say no. Any rankings system is based on criteria, and if the criteria do not match exactly what the study purports to measure, then there are distortions and disincentives. In the case of the US News rankings, stats such as LSAT scores, GPA scores, and peer and practitioner evaluations, are used as proxies for "how good a law school is." But schools are more than the sum of their parts, so there are clearly distortions occurring, as schools seek to improve scores based on inaccurate proxies.

Mine is not an original position, but overall I think the US News rankings do far more good than bad, at least in the quality of the educational experience students are getting. There is at least some sort of public accountability involved. The ABA and AALS (American Association of Law Schools) do periodic site visits--audits, if you will--of ABA accredited law schools, and those visits do a great deal of good too. My law school just went through one. But that is not really a public accounting. Sure, accreditation can be revoked or the school put on probationary status, but the details are pretty much a private matter.

Not so with the US News rankings. Though imperfect, they establish criteria for schools to measure themselves against. Yes, they do hurt smaller schools with fewer endowments, and they tend to hurt conservative institutions (although this may be changing with our continued cultural shift to the right in this country). And other ranking systems have been created to try and rectify perceived imbalances in the US News rankings. (See below.) But overall, I think rankings are better than no rankings, and like it or not the US News rankings are more visible and more accessible than other rankings currently out there. That might change, of course, and perhaps it should change. But right now, the US News rankings serve an enormous public accountability function.

I say all of this as a faculty member of a small, regional, private law school that ranks as a "regional school" year after year. Not that there is anything wrong with that, because there's not. Regional schools serve regional and national needs, and turn out many graduates who have excellent and successful careers and serve society. My point is that I don't defend the rankings from a position at a top 20 law school that wins the rankings contest year after year.

Check out an interesting post from last week on TaxProf Blog, which discusses a rankings-related article from the March 13, 2006 issue of National Review. It talks about George Mason Law School and how it has played the rankings game with great success. (You can get the full National Review article on Lexis if you have access to it; the link is listed in the TaxProf Blog post.)

And for bonus points, here's today's trivia question: where did Prof. Todd Zwywicki, a George Mason law prof quoted in that article, start his law teaching career?

(Answer: my law school: Mississippi College School of Law)

Law School Admissions: Mastering the LSAT - How to Score 160 or More

It's been some time since I gave a lot of thought to the LSAT (Law School Admission Test). More than four years, in fact. I came across a thread at lawstudents.ca, which I thought was quite ingeneous and useful.

The original post said:

I'm writing to inquire of the methods/techniques ppl who scored 160+ [on the LSAT] used to get the score they did.

1) What score did you get?

2) What books did you use? (Kaplan, Powerscore LRB, Powerscore LGB, etc)

3) What prep courses did you take (if any)? Full length, weekend?

4) How long did you study for, and under what conditions? (during school, during the summer, etc)

5) How many preptests did you do?

6) What would you change if you were to do it again?

7) Any other misc comments/suggestions.

8 ) What undergrad degree did you do? (or are doing)

I was intrigued to read the answers given by a variety of posters. You may find this information very useful if you hope to score well on the LSAT. There's even one fellow who scored 171 (98th percentile). I get the feeling that most of these posters took the LSAT very seriously!

I myself did 2 or 3 practice exams, used some prep book that I got out of a bargain bin at Chapters, which included a CD-ROM with lots of practice questions on it. I had a real adventure the first time around (read my book to find out the story), and managed to do quite well the second time around, once I got my bearings and my attitude right.

The LSAT is not a small-potatoes test for most people. There are those out there who can ace it without ever studying, but most of us mere mortals probably need at least some preparation to help guide us. The one sense I have gotten over the years is that prep courses are often a waste of time. You need to find your own tricks, and just practice, practice practice.

Six Month Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Today marks the six month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated coastal Mississippi and Louisiana. It is fitting that it is also Ash Wednesday, the day after Mardi Gras. The hurricane has had such an enormous impact on my state of residence, Mississippi, that I am compelled to post on the subject again.

My last post on this subject had a link to some recent photos of the MS Gulf Coast months 5 months after the storm. They are phenomenal. Here is the link again. I encourage you to check them out if you haven't already.

And here is the Hurricane Katrina factoid for the day: one of my law school's alumni told me that there are currently hundreds of General Motors cars underwater, out in the Gulf of Mexico, still sending out OnStar radio signals. Think about it. That's hundreds of cars that (1) had the OnStar service to begin with, (2) still have a valid OnStar service contract, and (3) still have working OnStar units on board. That means there are thousands of other cars out there for which OnStar is not working or never had it to begin with.

Thousands of cars, underwater. That's astonishing. Those would be some strange underwater pictures if anyone could ever find those cars.