Category Archives: Law School

BPPalex-lsat-blog-socratic-method-stay-law-school

Should the Socratic Method Stay in Law School? Discuss

The Harvard Crimson, amongst others, has recently sought to once again cast doubt upon the utility of the Socratic method in law school. Among the reasons for this doubt is the fact that the Socratic method seems to decrease female participation in class. While this may be the case, I agreed with Above the Law that the Socratic Method can be intimidating across the board and that focusing on gender seems misguided at best.

Cold-calling and putting students on the spot with difficult follow-up questions is not a wholly ineffective means of legal training. For those who plan to pursue trial or appellate work, thinking on one’s feet in the face of authority can be a valuable skill. If it is a professor’s aim to hone this skill in class, then by all means continue on with the Socratic method.
Read Entire Article…

May 22, 2013 - 6:27 pm - By Alex Davis
Tags: , , ,
Photo By enamic5 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPalex-lsat-blog-answering-mom's-top-5-questions-about-law-school

Answering Your Mom’s Top 3 Questions About Law School

With the recent passage of this year’s Mother’s Day, we got to thinking, what would a mom want to ask her soon-to-be law student? As someone who was once a law a student, and as someone who has a mom, I feel at least 95% qualified to answer that question. And thusly (who doesn’t love an unnecessary suffix?) I bring you a list of things your mom may or may not ask you as you head off to law school.

Mom’s Law School Question I: What are you going to practice?

You can try to placate relatives with assurances that you’ll have it figured out by the time you graduate, but mothers generally require answer of greater depth. Just pray she knows just as little as you do about what you’re actually going to do with your law degree and tell her that you’re probably going to end up doing some “transactional” work.
Read Entire Article…

May 13, 2013 - 6:53 pm - By Alex Davis
Tags: , , ,
Photo By abakedcreation Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPshinners-lsat-blog-what-matt-shinners-would-do-law-school-dean

What Matt Shinners Would Do if He Were a Law School Dean

Big news from Blueprint LSAT Prep today: After nearly a decade of prepping kids for law school, we’re prepping for law school ourselves. Only we’re not attending one. No, dear LSAT blog readers, we’re forming one. And yours truly has been tapped as dean. Be it my pedigree, experience, or the way my profile will look on marketing materials, we’re planning to hit the ground running.

How will our law school be different? I’m glad you asked.

First, we’re going to get you some work experience. But not just in an area you pick. We’re implementing a rotation between different clinicals your first year. Much like law firms will have new/summer associates “try out” different practice groups before assigning them to one, we’re going to have you rotate between different areas of law in that first year of law school.
Read Entire Article…

Apr 30, 2013 - 6:23 pm - By Matt Shinners
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo By Shovelling Son Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPshinners-lsat-blog-aba-zeroes-in-on-law-school-employment-data

The ABA Zeroes in on Law School Employment Data

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but law schools have been shamelessly inflating their employment statistics for years. Shocking, I know.

After cracking down on the way schools report their LSAT scores (a scandal or two helped push in that direction, *cough* Villanova and Illinois *cough*), the ABA has now turned its attention to law school employment data. In fact, the ABA is currently soliciting proposals, so feel free to throw your hat in the ring.

This is going to be a much more difficult program than the one designed to ensure correct LSAT info. For admissions data, the LSAC acts as a central repository for all law school application data. Anyone who has an LSAT score took the test through LSAC.
Read Entire Article…

Feb 26, 2013 - 6:37 pm - By Matt Shinners
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Photo By via Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPcolin-lsat-blog-katie-holmes-law-school

Katie Holmes: Scientology Nightmare to Law School Dream

If you’re anything like us, you probably spend all your downtime from the LSAT keeping up on the hottest celebrity gossip. So you were probably as excited as we were when you read on the infinitely-reliable and relevant Showbiz Spy that recent divorcee Katie Holmes is maybe heading to law school. Maybe!

The gossip website scored a hot interview with everyone’s favorite famous celebrity insider: “a source.” Mr(s). Source claims that everyone’s favorite Scientology apostate is now headed to the welcoming arms of law school. Holmes’ father is a lawyer, and they’re even thinking of going into practice together! Sound fishy? Well, it shouldn’t. This all came from “a source!” And with sentences like “Sources say the actress — who last year divorce [sic] Tom Cruise — is planning a career change away from “acting” and spellings like “in-terest,” we know we’re dealing with journalistic integrity of the highest degree.
Read Entire Article…

Jan 30, 2013 - 6:57 pm - By Colin Elzie
Tags: , , ,
Photo By Bambi 2009 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPalex-lsat-blog-third-year-law-school-optional

Possible Solution for Law Schools: Make Year Three Optional

There have been murmurs for some time now, but the discussion about giving law students the option to forgo a third year has been picking up steam. This op-ed piece in the New York Times makes a strong case for the option and it’s one with which I largely agree.

The most obvious reason to favor the optional third year of law school is the reduction of debt. With the American legal job market contracting through automation and outsourcing, the amount of debt with which law school graduates are saddled is becoming ever more onerous. Reducing that debt by a third would no doubt ease the squeeze a bit. Law school would become a more attractive post-graduate option, thus enlarging the potential pool of lawyers and arguably enriching the profession through a reduction in exclusivity.
Read Entire Article…

Jan 24, 2013 - 6:20 pm - By Alex Davis
Tags: , , , , ,
Photo By canonsnapper Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPDavis-lsat-blog-AmericanFlag

ABA Won’t Extend Accreditation to Law Schools Overseas

According to this article, the ABA has decided against extending accreditation to law schools outside of the United States. It seems the idea behind such accreditation was to make it easier for certain foreign lawyers to get certified to practice in the U.S.

While this certainly seems like a noble (if fairly narrow) end, American law students didn’t quite see things that way. In an ever-tightening job market, law students viewed foreign-educated lawyers as yet more competition for scarce positions. Among the other reasons that the ABA cited for denial of foreign accreditation were cost and difficulty of administration.

Looking at this situation with a casual observer’s eye, it seems as though there was another possible factor in the ABA’s decision. Money. Whose money you ask? That of the American law schools who help line the ABA’s coffers.
Read Entire Article…

Aug 9, 2012 - 6:10 pm - By Dave Woods
Tags: , ,
Photo By ctj71081 Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPshinners-lsat-blog-law-school-lawsuits

Latest Trend: Law School Grads Suing Their Law Schools

PROGRAMMING NOTE – US News & World Report rankings are out. We’ll have an article about it up either tonight or tomorrow morning.

It all started when Anna Alaburda filed a complaint against Thomas Jefferson School of Law for publishing misleading employment statistics. Legal commentators were quick to discuss her relatively low chance of winning the lawsuit. However, she did win a PR battle when Thomas Jefferson filed this response. In it, they more or less admit that they were playing fast and loose with statistics. While they contend that the allegations in the complaint don’t rise to an actual cause of action for which the court can offer redress, it must have hurt them to admit that their employment numbers were much higher than their bar passage rate – a fact that demonstrates the low percentage of their graduates employed in a legal position.
Read Entire Article…

Mar 14, 2012 - 1:30 pm - By Matt Shinners
Tags: , , ,
Photo By orangesparrow Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPcolin-lsat-blog-gavel

Law Schools in the News: Cooley Losing Its Cool

Here’s a fun tidbit to start your week off with.

Have you heard of The Thomas M. Cooley Law School? You should have, as they’re the second best law school in the country, according to The Thomas M. Cooley Law School. They do their own rankings, putting themselves above schools such as Stanford and Yale. This is quite different from where US News and World Report ranks them, which is right in the fourth (or “worst”) tier. To be fair, Cooley’s rankings count the important things that USNWR tends to ignore, such as number of chairs in the library and total square-footage. What good is a law school like Yale if there’s nowhere to sit?

What’s the point of all this?
Read Entire Article…

Jul 18, 2011 - 12:04 pm - By Colin Elzie
Tags: , ,
Photo By Photo by s_falkow. Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon
BPPtodd-lsat-blog-desk

Is a 1L Law School Prep Class Worth It?

I’ll be heading off to law school in a few short months, and my mailbox certainly shows it. Over the last three months, I have received admissions responses from law schools (mostly acceptances, I am happy to report), followed by daily credit card offers, followed by a persistent bombardment of brochures from a company called Law Preview. I was happy to hear back from law schools, and as far as the credit card offers go, if a brotha’ is going to take out a $60,000 loan, he might as well earn some frequent flyer miles when he buys his top ramen and SpaghettiOs, am I right?

Read Entire Article…

Apr 20, 2011 - 4:37 pm - By Todd
Tags: ,
Photo By Photo by dcJohn. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
lsat blog email icon lsat blog facebook icon lsat blog twitter icon lsat blog digg icon lsat blog reddit icon lsat blog stumble icon