I would have never bothered to read an article like this at a time when it would have mattered because, unfortunately, I didn't think about how to get into law school, as early and often as I should have. Indeed, if you're already more than half way through undergraduate school, you may want to look for advice somewhere else.

If, however, you are one of those chosen few youngsters who know what you want to do in life years before you have any business knowing such things, then I've got a few words of advice that will help you get into the law school of your dreams.

Although much of this will seem obvious, please take it to heart and try to understand why following these tips can make your life much easier in the future.

Tip #1 - Your GPA

The premise of this article relies on the assumption that you haven't yet had the opportunity to screw up your college career yet. As such, you must make every effort to maximize your grade point average ("GPA") during your undergraduate years.

Others will lie to you, but the truth is that your GPA, coupled with your LSAT score, are the most important factors in determining your admissibility to whatever law school you choose. Let me put this another way - your GPA is much, much, much more important than where you go to school, what activities you participate in, what classes you take, who your grandpa is, etc.

So if you are going to undergraduate school for the sole or primary reason of going to law school, take classes and pursue majors in which you can excel. Your high GPA will make life much easier when it comes time to apply to law school.

Tip #2 - Start Preparing for the LSAT Now

About 60% of prospective law students will do nothing or next to nothing to prepare for the Law School Admission Test ("LSAT"). Another 39% or more won't do anything to prepare until six months or less before their test date. If you get started now, with literally years to perfect your understanding of the test and the time-proven strategies for maximizing your score, you have an excellent chance of getting a score that will virtually guarantee your admission to any school.

Anyone who has been through the process will tell you that the secret to success on the LSAT is practice. I'm not going to discuss the test and its components in any detail, but it is sufficient for me to say that the LSAT test does not test your knowledge of anything. Instead, it is designed to test your ability to think in certain ways.

Anyone can learn how to excel at thinking in these ways, but it takes lots of time and lots of practice. You shouldn't be surprised to learn that the few months before most people take the LSAT is a hectic time. In addition to preparing for the LSAT, you may be preparing your law school applications, finishing your final college courses, and rejoicing in the prospect of your impending graduation.

The result of all this is that even those who think they are preparing extensively aren't even coming close to practicing as much as you could if you start now. So my advice is that you begin reading all the practice materials you can, completing practice tests and even attending LSAT prep classes now.

Changing the way you think - or training yourself to think in a certain way - is a demanding and (biologically) a lengthy process. If you give yourself years of preparation you will demolish even your smartest competitors who have spent just weeks or months learning how the LSAT works.

Tip #3 - Do Interesting Things

In the event even your best efforts don't result in a 4.0 GPA and 175 of the LSAT, you will find yourself in need of the law school admission advice found in my book, Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice.

As you will learn, students without premier numbers are given an opportunity to plead their case for admission via a personal statement, interview and/or personal visit. When it comes time to make that case, you should have something interesting to say.

Thus, much as you should prepare for the LSAT now, you should begin gathering ideas for you personal statement now. Don't "volunteer" just for the sake of volunteering, but seek opportunities to do fascinating things that may - or may not - reinforce your desire to go to law school.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit http://www.coverttactics.com.

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tips for non whites that plan on attending law school in the united states. this is just basically some of the steps that i have used to get me to the point where i'm at. and where i'am i ask you ask? i'm finishing up my last few units in my sociology and studying off and on the Lsat. I got a lot more to say but i think 9 mins. is the max although i may have to check that i'm not sure

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sebastian foss

Although I understand that this can be very difficult to do, you must view the popular published law school rankings, skeptically. These rankings are not only untrustworthy, but mislead students into thinking they need to attend a highly ranked school or they will be second rate lawyers do to their "substandard" law school education. This is simply not true.

What is true, in my opinion unfortunately, is that going to a highly ranked law school can have an enormous financial (note: NOT educational) impact on your early legal career. That is why I wrote Covert Tactics for Getting Into the Law School of Your Choice. As I explain in that book, however, even if you do not attend a highly ranked law school, you are not absolutely doomed to suffer professionally and financially for the rest of your life. Indeed, many times you may be well-served, both educationally and financially, by attending a lower ranked law school.

But back to law school rankings. In addition to a number of studies suggesting that the data underlying the rankings is inaccurate, due to schools trying to misrepresent the true data in order to achieve a higher ranking, it is impossible for any ranking to consider all of the relevant factors, which may vary from individual to individual.

Also problematic is the fact that most of the ranking are based, at least in part, on the subjective opinions of individuals at the various schools. Of course, such subjective opinions are likely to simply reinforce the historical opinions regarding the "top tier" law schools. Indeed, if you look at these rankings historically, you will find that they really haven't changed much over the years.

The reason that it is important that you understand the invalidity of the rankings is that you should understand that the quality of your legal education is likely to be nearly as good, and in some respects may be better, at the University of Idaho as opposed to Harvard.

Depending on who you are, you may be much better off, for a variety of reasons, attending even a very low ranked school. This may be the case even if you have the opportunity to attend a higher-ranked school.

For example, if your intent is to establish a small town practice in rural South Dakota immediately after law school, it may be unwise to attend Stanford Law School over the University of South Dakota School of Law.

Why? Let me give you three good reasons, though there are likely many more. First, you are not going to be particularly highly paid in rural South Dakota, regardless of where you attended law school. As a Stanford Law graduate you are likely to either be saddled with a high debt load or have spent a significant amount of your savings getting through school. Although few law schools are cheap, you should carefully consider whether it is worth spending and extra $100,000 to have a fancy name on your wall.

Second, as a small-town practitioner, you are going to be very reliant on relationships with other attorneys, the business community, and potential clients in general. Spending three years in Palo Alto, far away from the center of your future universe, will do very little to develop those relationships, so law school rankings are virtually meaningless.

Finally, the education isn't going to be much better at Stanford than at USD. Believe me, in writing this I have prepared myself for the inevitable barrage of criticism that will inevitably be hurled my way. I say this with confidence, however, because I know lawyers from a wide variety of law schools and find a relatively equal distribution of idiots among alumni from top 50 and bottom 50 schools. It really depends on what you are willing to put into it - not what they give you.

There are even some law schools not approved by the American Bar Association that may be worth considering in limited situations. Depending on what you want to do, and the particular laws of the jurisdiction where you intend to practice, a non-ABA accredited school may be a worthwhile choice.

At the end of the day, you need to make a wise choice that you will be happy with for the rest of your life. Don't put a school on your list just because it is a highly-ranked law school or fits a formula or because you think it will look good on your resume.

Even if we find a cure for cancer in the next decade, you are not likely to live much more than 90 years on this earth. Don't spend 3.5% of it in the wrong place.

This article may be freely reprinted or distributed in its entirety in any ezine, newsletter, blog or website. The author's name, bio and website links must remain intact and be included with every reproduction.

My Friend H. Jefferson, Jr. is an expert on on law school admission, having applied to and been admitted by 11 of the top law schools in the United States. To learn more about the the techniques and strategies you can use to get into the law school of your choice, visit lawschoolacademics.blogspot.com,

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Tips from Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor David Steinberg on surviving the semester.

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Can I work at the law school I attend and get a discounted tuition price?
I want to go to law school, but it is expensive. When attending graduate school, a student can work for their university and either have tuition paid for, or get some type of discount or financial aid. For example, working at the undergraduate university's academic affairs office or something similar and having your tuition paid for by the university. Can you do the same thing in law school?

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