HOWTO: Figure Out What a Law School Is Like

On my post on toxic law students and people who don’t fit into a culture, there was a great comment by Jessica, who is a pre-law student (a Non-L if you will) wondering how to avoid becoming that square peg in the round hole:

Reading this post made me excited–I am planning on law school and it is cool to start thinking practically about my decision. What, in your opinion, is the best way to ascertain the culture of a law school? The official materials won’t really cover it. Friends at the school would be my bet–perhaps student blogs?

Here’s a few resources for figuring out what a law school is like and whether it’s a good fit for you. If put these roughly in order of how much investment of time and/or money is required, from easiest/cheapest to hardest/most expensive.

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p style=”clear: both”>1. Start with very basic assumptions We know what happens when you assume, but here it can at least give you some broad outlines. Location, ranking, and structure can give you some clues. If a law school is located on the campus of a larger university, you can bet it skews younger. If a law school is ranked fairly low, students are going to feel the additional stress of needing a very high class rank. A school on the West Coast will be a little more laid back than a similar school on the East Coast. There’s an exception to every rule, but these are really broad starting points.

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p style=”clear: both”>2. Research what you can on the internet Student blogs are a great resource. You’re still looking for pretty broad patterns at this point, so see if you can find a couple on a particular school. It can be hard though since lots of law school bloggers are anonymous. Another great resource is Law School Discussion. Go to the Where Should I Go? board and throw out the names of schools. You’ll get opinions on the cultures. Yes, a lot will be “conventional wisdom,” but here perception is reality. If everyone assumes Baylor has a balls-to-the-wall competitive atmosphere, it will either be true or a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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p style=”clear: both”>3. Use the phone Most schools will have, through their admissions office, a program where you can talk to students. Call them and start asking questions. Remember one thing about students working for the admissions program: they are the best foot that the school is putting forward. If the students hired to be positive ambassadors are negative about the school, that is a huge red flag. It normally won’t be that obvious. Instead, if the school has a certain selling point, like accessible professors, and you talk to people who are wishy-washy about it, that’s more likely the real story.

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p style=”clear: both”>4. Don’t just talk to students Talk to professors, admissions office staff, financial aid and career services staff, and deans if you can. You’re looking for two things. First, the number of these people who will talk with you says something. Second, they will have an opinion that is not clouded by the sometimes traumatic experience of being in law school. As an aside, it’s also easier to get into direct contact with a professor on a published directory that’s not being trotted out by the admission department.

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p style=”clear: both”>5. Visit the school There’s no substitute for visiting. The more unannounced the better. I would avoid admitted students weekends since they tend to be too staged. I think the ideal visit would be on a Friday. The 1Ls will still be going to class on a Friday and you’ll see if they’re just slogging through class or if they’ve stayed engaged the whole week. And if you have the balls, ask around and see what people are doing and if you can join. The classroom experience can be somewhat homogenous, so knowing what people are up to, and even seeing them in action will give you a much better idea of the subtle nuances of the culture of the law school. If everyone says they’re going to be studying, take note of that.

The general idea is to gather information that isn’t a ranking and a region. Yes, rankings and regions still matter, and likely will to some degree for a quite a while. But certainly traditional methods of hiring are being questioned. And even within a general region and rankings band, there’s still a number of different schools to consider. The most important point is that you shouldn’t ignore what a law school is like. Because the guy who hates being at Harvard and flunks out because he does no work doesn’t get credit for having gotten into Harvard.

Tagged as: culture