Should You Write About Topic X in Your Law School Personal Statement?

Here's a question I hear all the time: "Should I write about [topic X] in my law school application essay?"

That's the wrong question to be asking, but I completely understand why people ask it: essay prompts in the applications can be bewildering.

Here's a real example of what a non-bewildering essay prompt looks like:

We are interested particularly in learning about your motivation and preparation for the study of law as well as any circumstances that you believe are relevant to the evaluation of your credentials.

Law School Applications: Evaluation vs. Recommendation

If you're applying to law school this coming fall, you probably already know that you'll have to submit recommendations for most of your applications. When you're setting up your LSAC account, though, you'll see references to "recommendations" and "evaluations," and you might wonder why they're using those two different words.

It's important to understand the distinction between an "evaluation" and a "recommendation," because when you enter information about your individual recommenders in your online account, you'll be asked to label each one as an "evaluator" or a "recommender.

Start Tackling Academic and Criminal Disclosures Now

As part 5 of my series on getting yourself into tip-top shape to apply to law school this fall (you can catch up with parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), I bring up a topic you'd probably rather not deal with: disclosures. And for that, you'll need to get a head start on thinking like a lawyer.

As future lawyers, one of the tasks you will get really, really good at (and very, very bored with) is called document review.

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Law School Recommendation Letters

Marching forward in my little series about preparing yourself for killer law school applications this fall, here is a post devoted just to recommendations. (If you missed the previous installments, here are one, two, and three.) Judging from the emails we receive for the blog, this is a very popular topic.

Early summer is the right time to start thinking about whom you're going to ask for your recommendations, because recommendations can take a while to wrangle.

Applying to Law School This Fall? Start Here

School is out, summer is here, and some intrepid souls are turning their thoughts to law school. If you're thinking of applying in the coming admissions cycle, it's not too early to start planning. For the next couple of weeks, I'll be devoting each post to a concrete step you can take so that you're ready to go when the fall rolls around.

Your first step: Make friends with LSAC, which stands for Law School Admission Council.

Can the LSAT Make You Smarter?

LSAT guru Steve Schwartz over at LSAT Blog drew my attention to some evidence that studying for the LSAT makes you smarter. Really!

Here's the technical language from the study:

[W]e examined the effects on cognitive performance and brain structure and function of 3 months of intensive preparation for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT).

Is It OK to Put Down Multiple Deposits?

I've received a few follow-up questions in response to my recent blog post on managing multiple waitlist offers: Is it really not OK to put down multiple deposits? Is there a rule about that? And how would anyone know, anyway?

Those aren't bad questions, not least because LSAC has danced around the subject for years, and tends to bury its official (and vague) position out of plain sight.