How to Choose A Law School – Getting In (and a little more)

Let’s assume that you have decided to go to law school. How do you choose where to go? There are many different factors to consider. Despite sweeping condemnations in the popular press, not all law schools are alike, and not all will be right for you. Because of the number of variables that play into your decision, I’ll take up this subject in the next three or four postings.

The first thing you need to do is to be honest with yourself (and consulting with your pre-law advisor helps). Where, realistically, do you think you can get in? It is a perhaps regrettable fact, but nonetheless a fact, that most law schools admit most law students by the numbers – GPA and LSAT scores. Most have a range of automatic admits, and many have a level below which, no matter what your talents, you will be rejected. Study each school’s medians, but also pay attention to the 75% percentile and 25% percentile GPA and LSAT scores. If you’re at or above the former, you’re likely to get in. If you’re at or below the latter, you’re going to struggle. If you fall at or above the medians, admissions is also more likely than not.

You’re actually quite fortunate to be applying now. Law school applications are falling for the second time in two years, and law schools are struggling to fill their classes. This means that you may have a decent shot at a law school that would have been unlikely to admit you three or four years ago. So don’t be afraid of applying to some reach schools, but also be prudent enough to keep your “reaches” reasonably within your grasp.

As any lawyer knows, grades (whether undergraduate or in law school) form only a part of the skill set you need to be a good lawyer. You need to prove your ability to do the intellectual work but, once you have, there is a large number of other skills that go into successful lawyering. Maturity, judgment, professionalism, people skills, an analytical mind, hard work, a strong sense of ethics and integrity, and the ability to lead, are among them. These are not things that numbers reveal, although we learn something about you from your personal statement and recommendation letters. But we still have no good way of knowing, on paper, whether you possess these qualities, and sometimes they’re more important to your ultimate success than a point or two on your LSAT score.

Because of this, a very small handful of law schools (Case Western Reserve among them), interview their applicants. These are schools that look beyond the numbers in order to evaluate whether you have the kinds of qualities that don’t appear on your application. We give you the chance to sell yourself beyond the numbers, because we want to graduate the very best lawyers – not the very best law students – that we can. At Case Western Reserve, for example, I am hugely proud of our alumni, many of whom hold very important leadership positions in their law firms, businesses, NGOs, government organizations, and other institutions, or who use their talents beyond their jobs to make a difference in their communities or larger societies. Interviews also give you the chance to meet at least one alumnus of the law school, so you can judge for yourself whether you have an affinity for the kind of people that the law school graduates.

Once you’ve assembled a group of schools to consider, think about going to visit them. Seeing the campus is nice, but in my experience nobody really chooses a law school because of a pretty campus. What you will absorb when you visit is the atmosphere of a law school, and that is something almost impossible to understand from websites and publications. Do students and faculty go out of their way to talk with you about the law school and your interests? Is the admissions office welcoming and willing to set up a tour at your convenience? Are there many students hanging around the school or is the building largely empty? And if they are hanging around, do they seem to be engaged with one another (and the faculty) or do they seem to isolate themselves?

You should also consider the quality of the university. This is especially important if you are thinking about a joint degree program. If so, is the university a major research university where you will be able to engage with other top professors and students, are its professional and graduate schools high caliber, is it relatively easy to cross-enroll in other departments, and do the university and law school make it fairly easy for you to get a double degree? Even if you’re interested only in the law school, the quality of the university itself may help as a metric for the quality of your law teachers. Highly accomplished people like to be among other highly accomplished people. A serious university serves as additional evidence that the law school you’re considering is really good.

In my next posting, I’ll talk some more about choosing a law school, especially about using US News and financial aid packages in determining your choice. Then we’ll get down to cases.