Author: Evan Jones

I recently had this question from a reader: What do you think of the new law school at University of North Texas – Dallas? I am a Texas resident and plan to live/work in the Dallas area. UNT-Dallas is opening it’s doors this August. Right now seems like a fairly rough time for a new law school to get its start. Compared to the mid-2000s, applications are at a trickle. It’s surprising then that any law schools would pick now to open, but several are doing just that. Another new law school, Indiana Tech got recently started with a tiny inaugural…

A reader recently asked us for an opinion on this one: What about full price at Harvard vs. a full Scholarship at UVA? Where should she attend? Harvard (Full Price) or UVA (w/ Full Scholarship) First, I want to say congratulations on having those options. You clearly won the law school admissions game. However, just because you are faced with only great choices, it doesn’t make the decision any less hard. I won’t hide the ball here: there is no clear right answer. You will have to weigh in the balance your personal preferences, and even then it’s going to be a tough…

It’s in the news recently that the number of people taking the LSAT increased in February, with roughly 200 more people taking the LSAT than did in February of last year (source: LSAC). This is the first time since 2010 that there has been an increase in the number of people taking the LSAT for a specific administration. Mostly, it’s been all downhill since 2009-2010, when over 170,000 thousand people took the LSAT. For this cycle, a mere 105,532 people took the LSAT. That’s about how many people used to take it back in the mid-90s, when far fewer people were…

If you go to law school, you want it to pay out, right? As our own little contribution to law school rankings season, we wanted to show the schools that are, on average, doing the best job grabbing you a paycheck that can clear up that law school debt within your expected lifespan. We took the top 25 schools from Forbes’ The Law Schools Whose Grads Earn The Biggest Paychecks, removed any schools that placed fewer than 70% of their graduates into full-time legal jobs, and compared the average starting pay to the average indebtedness of grads.

If you are looking for a law school where you won’t have to live and die by the curve, you better plan on crushing the LSAT — the vast majority of law schools grade on a harsh curve, and only a handful of elite schools at the very top of the US News rankings do things differently. Today we will tåake a look at schools with grading policies that disguise below average grades. While all law schools employ a curve of some sort, some of them lump the middle and bottom end of that curve into one big “pass” category,…

In this next edition of law school decisions, we are going to look at one of the classic mental showdowns that many law students face when picking where to attend: a top 5 school at full price versus a non-T14 school with big money. This is a very typical problem because most people with the numbers to get into a top 5 law school can get a BIG scholarship offer from a lower school. It’s a hard decision, but I think that in most cases there is an objectively correct answer. Here’s the question from our reader: Question: I was…

Hi everyone, it’s that time of year where your law school gets ranked and you can send harassing messages to your friends if their law school fell in the rankings. US News has published it’s annual “Best Graduate Schools” rankings. As I’ve said before, the US News rankings are essentially evil, encouraging big spending by law schools that has led to wildly inflated tuition. Despite that, they are also essentially accurate, giving a measure of a law school’s prestige that aligns fairly well with perception in the wider legal world.

We are going to turn some reader questions into full posts in cases where I think a lot of people might be in a similar situation. A common decision is whether to go to law school in your home state or farther afield, and making the right choice can be critical. One of our readers writes in: I wanted to get your opinion on my law school choices. For some background: I’ve been working as a television producer for the last few years and want to work in IP/entertainment law (I’m hoping my TV background would be really attractive to…

When it comes to law school electives, some, it seems, are much more useful than others (from a big law firm’s perspective anyways). In a study published last week by Harvard Law professors John C. Coates IV, Jesse M. Fried, and Kathryn E. Spier sought to answer the question, “which law school classes should you take?” by asking 124 attorneys at eleven elite firms to rate the “usefulness” of various Harvard Law classes. The answer makes me feel better about avoiding constitutional law classes (UChicago, blessedly, doesn’t require them).

Here we list the best movies of all time related to the law, including the only two films that really place law school itself front and center. If you asked screenwriters to name the top ten least interesting settings for a movie, I bet law school would make the list. It’s after law school that, in fiction at least, lawyers become interesting. That said, a few movies have managed to make learning the law into something worth filming, and we’ve got ’em on the list. The rest are about lawyers, who everyone knows make great movie material. With that in mind,…

Law schools charge a lot of money for tuition, and since the Great Recession it has been increasingly said that most of them don’t offer the job prospects to justify the expense. While the debate over the value of a law degree wears on, it’s at least clear that law schools extract a lot more of money from students than they need too. Years of competition over rankings has fueled a spending bonanza, and almost all law schools now boast plush buildings, an array of expensive clinics, and impressively high faculty to student ratios. It’s all really nice when you are in…

Waitlist season is starting for law school applicants. Chances are you are on one or will be soon. That or you’ll be “deferred”, on “hold”, “reserve” or one of the other terms that law schools come up with to soften the blow. You should definitely not feel bad about being waitlisted — it’s just a part of the law school admissions game these days. Also DO NOT make the mistake of thinking the waitlist is just a polite form of rejection. It’s not necessarily easy, but you can get in after being put in the waiting line. So how do…

Okay, last time we discussed necessary assumption questions, so today we move on to their close cousin, LSAT logical reasoning justify questions, also known as sufficient assumption questions. These questions are a good way to test where you are with understanding logical reasoning. If you have a good solid grasp of conditional reasoning, they should be fairly manageable. If you don’t, they are a real pain. The big key is that you understand what a sufficient assumption is and how it differs from necessary assumptions. This way, you can spot a sufficient assumption and mark down the correct answer quickly.…

LSAT necessary assumption questions are probably the logical reasoning (LR) question type most difficult to master. I found early in my practice that when I scored a practice section, at least one wrong answer was an assumption question. A ton of people report this same problem. Even when you have a thorough understanding of these questions, it’s easy to make mistakes. Through a lot of effort, I learned to zero in on these questions and get to where I was nearly 100% accurate on them. I want to help you do the same. First, we’ll talk about general stuff you…

It’s law school application season and you might have your law school applications already completed and out the door. You may have gotten responses and could be feeling anything from elation to despair. Should you take one of the offers, or hold off? Also, those of you who haven’t yet applied might be wondering whether to apply this cycle or wait and try to improve their application.  Maybe your LSAT isn’t as good as you hoped going into the process and you are contemplating a retake. While there are a ton of reasons why it might be a good idea…

LSAT logical reasoning strengthen questions are very similar to the weaken questions we covered last time, but instead of trying to kick the argument over, you are trying to keep it up. Unlike with weaken questions, where we try to show that the conclusion may not follow from the premises, with LR strengthen questions, your goal is to really nail the conclusion on the premises tightly. Remember our house metaphor: an argument is like a house — the conclusion is the roof, and the premises hold it up. With strengthen questions, you look for an answer choice that makes that house…

In case you didn’t notice, we are taking you through strategies for specific LSAT logical reasoning question types. We just covered ‘main point’ questions a few days ago. Today, we’ll talk about LSAT logical reasoning “weaken” questions, another one of the major question types you’ll encounter on the LSAT LR section. Out of the 50 or so LR questions you’ll do on an LSAT, weaken questions usually make up about 10% of the questions. Think you are good at picking apart arguments? It’s time to prove it. Being good at the LSAT LR section means that you can see weak spots in…

Mastering LSAT logical reasoning main point questions is, along with learning ‘must be true questions,’ the first thing you should do to attack the LR section. I want you to think of main point questions in two ways: First, they are relatively easy points. Good LSAT takers should be able to answer them, on average, faster than many other question types. Second, be aware that main point questions form the basis for your understanding of other question types, especially strengthen and weaken. Focus on mastering them so you can approach other questions types effectively. This lesson is excerpted from our Mastermind…

The ABA Journal reported yesterday that Roger Williams University in Rhode Island has cut tuition by 18 percent, lowering tuition from $41,400 to $33,792 for the 2014-15 school year. The reduction, which fixes tuition for at least three years, amounts to $7,600 saved yearly for full-time students. Roger Williams University, home to Rhode Island’s only law school

The Best In LSAT Prep 2014 In the six months or so that we’ve been around, lawschooli.com has become the internet’s most trusted sources for LSAT prep advice. Our thanks go to you, our readers, for all the great feedback. We love hearing when we’ve been helpful, so thanks a lot! To kick off the New Year, we wanted to show you the best new, current, and up-to-date LSAT products that we’ve seen this year. This is the stuff that can be considered truly innovative and cutting-edge, and that will help you out the most in 2014. Congratulations to the…