Education Q&A

Widener Law School, Anyone know anything about law school?

Q. I am a Senior in college and have decided that after I graduate I want to go to law school (in San Diego or Riverside area). I am hoping that someone can answer these questions: 1.Are you expected to have a high GPA (3.5 or above) to be admitted into many law schools?) 2.Is it relatively easy to get a job making a decent salary after you pass the bar? For example, am I going to be able to get a job making at least $80k in the first few years. It has to be worth it for me to spend $70k on law school. 3. The CA Bar has approved law schools, accredited law schools, and unaccredited schools. What is the difference? Why would anyone go to an unaccredited one? 4. ARe there any correspondance type schools and are they worth it?

A. I believe only the first-tier school's median GPA is usually 3.5 or above. GPA is important but most law schools seem to put as much or more emphasis on LSAT scores. This info is widely available, though. Try some google searches or go to a bookstore. Again, there are plently of stats on this out there. In any case, whether *you'll* get a well-paying job depends on your personality, snap, grades, etc., just like in the rest of the real world. Latter hasn't met standards of the accrediting agency. Most likely because they couldn't get into an accredited one. None that I know of. To get a true legal education, you must participate in a live classroom with live profs and other students so that you will experience the optimum level of humiliation. "The following institutions have registered with the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California as offering correspondence law study courses and that have filed the reports required by Rule XIX of the Rules Regulating Admission to Practice Law in California (Admission Rules)." The big salaries (such as $125,000 a year) for starting associates are strictly for the large law firms in big cities, and those salaries go only to the top 10% of the class from the top law schools. And then those associates have to record 2000 billable hours (or more) per year. That's 10 hours a day, five days a week, for 50 of the 52 weeks in the year. And not every hour you spend in the office is billable, so you'll probably need to spend an *average* of 12 hours in the office every workday (not counting lunch, if you have time to each lunch), and spend a bunch of Saturdays in the office, to make your quota. An $80,000 salary is still very rich, and I haven't seen the latest statistics but my guess is that you would have to be in the top third of your class in a good law school, and be willing to work to record 2000 (or more) billable hours. Salaries drop off very quickly below that, and my guess is that most starting lawyers feel very lucky to get a salary of $40-50,000 a year. If you go to a top school and rank within the top 10 to 20 percent, yes. You should know, though, that the legal profession follows the economy -- when clients don't have the money to pay for services, law firms suffer. Right now, things are slow because of the economy. What the market will be like in four years is anyone's guess. Generally, people go to unaccredited schools because they can't get into accredited ones. As a rule, which school you attend is critical -- top firms won't hire first years from anything other than top tier schools. If you are considering law school, go the the best one that will admit you.

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