I've never written a blog before. But you guys seem like a cool bunch, so I'll give it a try. Also I want to get my reputation up from Zero

What I want to do here is to talk about legal things--things related to law, the practice of law, the enforcement of law, and law school--both as encouragement for myself to be reading legal news, as well as to give information to aspiring law students in the GA community.

So first, let me self-introduce. I am what they call a 0L--that is, a senior in college who's in the process of applying to law school. I've gotten into a couple already (don't want to say which ones exactly lest I out myself), but the process runs through till August, if you're on a wait list.

In this post, I want to make an introduction to law school, and give the reader assess whether it is the right decision.Through the application and, now, the waiting process, I've learned a few valuable things that I wish I had known at the beginning of the application cycle. Please note that none of the following is meant to discourage, merely educate.

1) Before you apply, ask: is LAW SCHOOL right for me?

Do not rely on caricatures of law school life based on things like Legally Blonde, or even law school websites. If you are seriously thinking about applying, make sure you sit in on classes at your local law school (if one exists) or at a law school nearby (there are hundreds of them).

Do you like reading? We're not talking about GA fiction here--do you like reading legal writing? If you don't know, pull up any law journal (most of them are free) and try out an article that you find interesting. Read a few Supreme Court rulings.

Do you like writing? Again, not talking about GA fiction. Pull up your law journal again and read the "notes" and "citations". Those are the things you will be writing in law school. Do you think you are the kind of person who is willing or able to write that sort of thing?

NOT A TYPICAL LAW STUDENT

2) After answering 1, ask: would I enjoy the PRACTICE of law?

Do not rely on caricatures of legal practice based on things like Law and Order, Suits, Damages, or John Grisham novels. All those things are amazing, and I enjoy all of them, but they do not represent what legal work is like. Instead, legal work and legal hiring generally work in the following way:

After the end of your 1st year of law school (hereafter, 1L), you will get a set grades that will almost completely determine where you will end up practicing law. In most law schools, the fall after 1L involves an event called On Campus Interviews, or EIP--early interview program. Through this program, law firms and other legal recruiters come to your campus and screen law students. If you are lucky, have the right grades, and have a charming personality, you may be invited to a callback. If again you do well at the callback, you will have a job.

NOT AN ACTUAL LAWYER

There are generally three types of jobs:

PRIVATE PRACTICE: This huge and diverse group makes up the vast majority of legal hiring right out of law school (or right after 1L). This group includes large law firms--some with over 3000 attorneys--handling multinational deals, mergers, corporate litigation, and the like; mid-sized law firms, which mainly handle regional issues; and small law firms, which many say is a dying breed and more and more are snapped up or put out of business by the aforementioned large and mid-sized firms. This group also includes things like plaintiff's firms (see: Damages), criminal defense (see: Law and Order), and civil representation (see: Intolerable Cruelty, Ella Enchanted, Liar Liar).

GOVERNMENT WORK/PUBLIC INTEREST: This makes up a smaller percentage of legal hires, and the difficulty of getting this type of job varies from the ultra-prestigious Manhattan DA's Office to phone-answering boy in the district courthouse. This group also includes things like legal aid and legal work for ACLU-type non-profits.

BUSINESS/IN-HOUSE WORK: This group of recruiters almost never hire straight out of law school. Usually, they ask for lawyers with a few years' experience at a law firm to lateral in.

No matter what job you take, remember: you won't start doing cool things like argue before the Supreme Court or even the local village court jury until you have many years under your belt. Your first years as a lawyer will mostly include doing things like document review--sifting through millions of emails to find information; and due diligence--researching things like legal liabilities for companies undergoing mergers. It will include a LOT of reading and writing...I cannot stress this enough. You will read and write and rewrite memos until your fingers bleed. You will draft and re-draft motions to do the simplest things all night long. But if you get through it, that's when the fun starts.

3) If you've decided you want to be a lawyer, ask: WHICH law school should I attend?

The answer to this question should depend on three things:

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO LIVE? Of the more than 200 law schools in the nation, only 3 of them--Harvard, Yale, and Stanford--offer truly portable degrees. That is, you can take your Harvard Law Degree and work anywhere in the world and they will trip over themselves to grab you. If these schools are not an option, choose a highly ranked school in your region. The University of Virginia, for example, feeds well into the South and D.C. markets, and The University of Texas dominates the market in Texas.

HOW DEBT AVERSE ARE YOU? Law school is a huge investment. At full sticker price, a legal education will run you at least $200,000 dollars. To offset this, there exists things like scholarships and loans. How you perceive the trade-off, of course, depends on you and you alone. For example, a debt averse person might turn down paying full tuition at Columbia Law School for a full ride at Boston University Law School. But is this a wise decision?

WHERE WILL YOU GET A JOB? This is, without doubt, the single most important consideration. The legal market is over-saturated by J.D.'s in the tens of thousands. Every year, about 45,000 new attorneys pass the bar, but only about 30,000 legal jobs are created. This means that the law school you choose--and its reputation--is vital to your future livelihood. In general, the Top 14 schools, from Yale to Georgetown, have excellent job prospects (and excellent loan repayment programs, more on this in a later post), the Top 50 schools have decent job prospects, and past the top 50, job prospects get increasingly grim. An excellent resource for legal job statistics is lawschooltransparency.com. And please, for the love of God, do not attend a non-ABA accredited law school.

On that note--I know someone is going to say, "oh but I went to People's College of the Law and now I have my own practice and am a gajillionaire/Supreme Court Justice/God." If that's you, then congratulations, you beat some very steep odds, because that's all it is, odds. You are placing a $200,000 bet on a legal career (depending on scholarships), why be more risky than you need to?

NOT A GOOD LAW SCHOOL

4) Once you have a goal set, ask: WHAT can I do to get into the school of my dreams?

Remember, if you get any advice from this blog, it is that law school is an extremely numbers-driven game. Remember when you thought your SATs and high school grades were important for college? For law school, this is much more the case, with your college grades and LSAT score being important than any other component of your application. Good numbers can overcome a weak major, lack of extra-curricular activities, lackluster recommendations, or a boring personal statement.

To get your GPA up...well you know how to do that, I won't tell you.

To get your LSAT score up, remember: the test CAN be learned. ANYONE can score in the 95th percentile. I will post specific study strategies and such later. But for now, just know this. If you took the test cold and got a 150 (out of 180), don't despair! Raising your score by 20 or even 30 points is not nearly unheard-of.

Anyway, this was my first post. Feel free to let know what you think and whether I should continue. I hope I can help someone out there struggling for answers.

In the meantime, the December LSAT is this coming Saturday. If you're taking it, knock'em dead!