hey guys welcome back to my channel the best place for new and aspiring lawyers
on all things law school the legal industry and the
lawyering life today's video is an answer to a question i get asked quite a
bit which is what can i do in college to start
preparing for law school and a legal career so today i'm going to give you
guys my top seven tips strategies action items that
you can start implementing today right now to prepare yourself for a
career in the law and be sure to stay until the end
because i'm going to give out a bonus tip that i have never given out on any
other youtube video up until this point so if you haven't
subscribed yet be sure to hit subscribe tap that notification bell to be
notified every time we release a new video and if you guys are excited to
jump in then smash that like button and let's
get going number one choose the right college major and this
is a question that gets asked all the time too which is what should i major in
in college if i'm interested in going to law school and there are a lot of
opinions out there but my consistent response to this
question is always major in the thing that you are most interested
in and i know this sounds like a bit of a cop-out but there really
are important reasons why this is the way to go and the first one is that you
are so much more likely to do well in a major that you are interested in
you're more likely to try hard you're more likely to go to class you're more
likely to do the reading you're more likely to get a higher gpa
and because your college gpa is the second most important factor in your law
school admission packet this is really
important to try and get the highest grades you can
the second reason is that to the extent the major that you pick
is not something pre-law related you will actually be getting visibility into
an entirely new area an entirely new discipline
which after through the course of four years you
might wind up liking as much if not more than a legal career which is
what you thought that you wanted to pursue and so getting that
available exposure and visibility is super important
and either solidifying your idea and your plan to go to law school or
choosing something that is more and better suited for you
number two get an internship or several that lets you see
lawyers in action and without a doubt this is the
most important thing that you can do for yourself for
not only getting into law school but also in your interviews with legal
employers down the line because there is no better
way to be able to speak intelligently and genuinely incredibly
about your desire to become a lawyer than to actually have had
some sort of experience in a legal setting and the good news is that
lawyers are everywhere we are in a ton of different
sectors so yes you have the traditional law firm
uh sector but you also have government agencies you also have in-house
corporations legal departments and you have non-profits or academia
as well so it doesn't really matter what you pick as long as you pick something
where lawyers are present and as a bonus if it's something you're
actually interested in or actually think you would want to do with your life
in your legal career that is of course a plus
but at the end of the day get something on your resume that shows that you know
what a lawyer is and does and that's going to help a
ton for example when i was a freshman i came in as a poli sci
major just because i didn't really know what else
i wanted to do and i wound up getting an internship at the texas state
legislature which led itself into internships for
the rest of my four years in college and that was my first experience being
around lawyers and i used that narrative of that work
experience and that exposure to lawyers not only to
get into law school not only to get scholarships in law school
but also to get a legal job down the line and so
what you do in college and those internships internship
experiences that you have can absolutely pay dividends later down the road
number three talk to other lawyers so the added benefit
of getting an internship where lawyers are present is that you can get to know
them and then ask them questions about their careers how did they get this job
what other types of law have they practiced before
do they enjoy it do they not and of course as always anytime you're talking
to anyone about their jobs take it with a grain of salt
and know that everybody has had a different experience so if somebody
has had a particularly negative experience in law school or as a lawyer
that doesn't mean that all lawyers hate their jobs
i'm here to tell you that i really really really enjoyed my time
in full-time practice and so keep that in mind of course but it is really good
to start getting these insights and to start understanding what a legal
career really entails not only for you personally so that you
can start to decide if that is a day-to-day profession you would enjoy
but also so that you can then communicate to law school
admissions and to legal employers that you understand
what a legal career looks like and that not only would you enjoy it but that you
think you'd be really good at it there are other ways to get into contact
with real lawyers as well of course if you have any friends or family members
you can talk to them of course you guys have me as a resource
you can ask me any and all questions at any time
but another really great way is this app called fishbowl if you guys haven't
checked it out yet i highly recommend it it basically has categories of different
professions that people can post anonymously about their experiences in
those professions and so there's a law bowl for example
and you can go in and see people posting about what it's really like
to work as a lawyer in each of these different sectors and you can post
questions and and use that app as a way to gain
additional insight so that's another way that i suggest and recommend
number four lsat prep so if you are already decided you're going to law
school this is what you want to do then i highly recommend
starting lsat prep while you're still in college because
without a doubt your lsat score is the single most important factor in
determining whether you get into law school what law
schools you're competitive for and what scholarship opportunities are
available to you and the lsat is a very unique test it
has very specific strategies and questions that are
totally learnable um but it does take time and it does
take investment in doing it and so if you guys
want to get started get your feet wet ken academy has a
great online course that you can take it's a free resource that you can start
with and check that out to begin with and
then if you're somebody who really likes structure really likes an
action plan then think about taking an in-person or
online course i personally took an in-person lsat prep course and i
absolutely loved it and so really quickly comment
below if you guys have already started your lsat prep and let us know if you're
doing it diy on your own if you're taking an online
class or if you're taking an in-person class
or if you've practiced with a can academy
just so that we can get an idea and some feedback for what different strategies
people are employing because i know this is a highly debated topic
like i said i personally took an in-person lsat prep course and loved it
and in terms of timing if you are planning to go to law school right after
college then a traditional time frame to study and take the lsat
would be to start studying in the spring semester of your junior year study for
three four five months take the lsat in the june july time
frame of the summer after your junior year because then that gives you a
chance to take it a second time if you want to try increase your score
or you're not happy with your score or for whatever reason you had to cancel
your score and you can take it that second time in september october of now
the fall of your senior year which gets you your score back in time
to apply for early admission in november and so that is not by any
means what you have to do it's just a very traditional way
to go about it especially if you want to be able to apply for early admission
to the following fall entering class now if you're not totally sold on the idea
of law school yet but you do want some additional clarity and you're not ready
to invest in a loss in an lsat prep course
that's okay what you can do is take an lsat diagnostic test
which just means it's an lsat that has been previously administered to real
lsat but from years back and you can do this
for free on kin academy they have a free abridged
one lsac.org has a free abridged test or you can order one from amazon they
have individual tests or you can buy a 10 pack
for about 20 bucks not affiliated but just as an fyi
and when you take this diagnostic test make sure you're timing yourself
properly make sure you're in as close to real testing conditions as
possible closed door no noise and the idea behind this is
that once you take that diagnostic and get that score
if you were then to invest in a 20 to 25 hour regimen of studying for the lsat
going through the prep course for three four five months
your possible range of improvement is about 10 to 15 points now
not everybody improves that much from their diagnostic score and some people
improve a lot more but that is a good baseline range for beginning to
understand where you might then be competitive to
get into law school and this brings us to number five
researching law schools okay guys so once you have that lsat
diagnostic score in hand you can use it to look up what law
schools you might be competitive to which you could
possibly be competitive to and all you have to do is type in the
law school name and then median lsat and as you can see
in this case it popped right up so all law schools should have this
published on their website just make sure that the
link that you're looking at is actually the law school itself
and not a third party because third-party sites don't always have
accurate information so in this example we're looking at
emory law and it's under frequently asked questions
sometimes the website webpage is called basic facts and as you scroll down you
can always of course control f lsat but in this case it just pops right
up it's the first question here and they're
showing that they're immediate undergrad gpa is 3.78
and their median lsat score is 165. now the gpa
is honestly less important far less important
and not falling in that gpa range is not nearly as critical as falling within
this median lsat score range and the next step that i would
recommend once you guys have this
median lsat score and if you can add 10 to 15 points to your diagnostic score
and fall within that again that's just a range but it's a good baseline to use
then i would recommend going to the us news
law school rankings and you can just google u.s news law school rankings and
they'll come up because this is the site the establishment
that everybody relies on law schools legal employers everybody in the legal
industry and this is from 2019. so as you scroll
down you can see that the law schools are ranked
starting with number one and going down and so you can of course
look up your law school this way but a much more efficient way to do it is come
over here to the let me close this left hand side and you can search by
school name you can search by city state or zip code you can search by
tuition or enrollment so i'm going to search by school name and
emory university pops up and you can see it is ranked number 26.
it also gives you the tuition information which is great
and it also gives you where the law school is
located which is fantastic and the reason that this information especially
the ranking number is so important is because it's
going to have a direct effect on where you guys are competitive for
applying to jobs after law school so as a general matter if you go to a
t14 law school so a law school ranked in the top 14 which
are essentially the same law schools over and over just inside
a slightly different order you will be competitive for jobs across the country
in any state as a general rule if you go to a law
school outside of the top 14 law schools which is still completely
fine can be completely great emory university
for example is ranked number 26 that's amazing but just know that you are
generally going to be competitive mainly in the city where you go to law
school the state you go to law school and sometimes even the region where you
go to law school so for example if you go to law school in atlanta
georgia it's going to be much more difficult to get a job
in denver colorado than it would be if you went to a law school in
denver colorado and so you can start using
these lsat diagnostic scores the median lsat scores and then the law school
rankings to start thinking about where you might
want to go to law school and also where you ultimately would like to
live and work when you graduate okay time for bonus
tip number six coming in hot as promised never before
talked about on any other youtube video before this one if you
guys are decided on going to law school and you are headed into law school this
year or next year or the next couple of years i highly
highly recommend my signature course launch your legal
career and i know this is a shameless plug
but i really really do believe in the content of this course because i created
the course as a way to teach you guys everything i
wish i would have known heading into law school everything from
how to prepare for law school how to dominate legal grades how to
optimize literally every single week of that three year period to get the
highest return on your investment as possible to make
yourself competitive for your dream career after law school and
then once you get that dream job or that first job out of law school
whatever it is to build your experience and expertise and
build a long-term career plan that will continue to bring
you excitement and fulfillment and sustainability so
with all of that being said if you guys are interested in the course it
premieres june 1st 2020 i'm so pumped you can sign
up for the waitlist at angelavoorpal.com and if you have any questions
be sure to comment below and i will absolutely answer them and number seven
get work experience after college if you are not totally sold on the idea of law
school if you're not totally sure you do not have to make that decision
right now and you do not have to go to law school
right after college law school is a three-year commitment
ballpark 200 000 it's a huge time and financial investment
and it is so much better to have clarity and perspective
going into that decision than it is to be in a position where you're doing it
because you don't know what else to do and i know that a lot of
college students find themselves in that category where they're not quite sure
what they want to work on and law school is seen as sort of an
extension of college and so they go in with eyes closed and
don't really realize what it entails or how much 200 000
can really play out in student loans and so what i would highly recommend
is that if you were on the fence get a year or two of work experience
in some type of profession hopefully something that interests you
maybe something legally related and who knows you could wind up finding a
profession in a career you like even more you could wind up getting
additional clarity about wanting to go to law school that
you didn't have before but either way that's going to do yourself a
personal service and do a great favor for you to be able to know if that's
what you want to do with your life and it also really helps in terms of
getting admitted into law school and then getting a
legal job down the line because you have that additional context and that
additional narrative to be able to explain to somebody again
uniquely incredibly this is what this is the path that i
took and this is why i know that i want to be a lawyer this is what not why i
know i want to go to law school so you could
be doing yourself a huge favor by by waiting by working by
getting that additional perspective so always consider that
if you are not totally sure if law school is the right path for you right
out of college okay guys i hope that video was helpful
if you are interested in learning more about the launcher legal career course
be sure to send me a comment below or shoot me an email or hit me up on social
media however you want to do it i'd be happy
to chat with you and if you guys are already sold on going to law school and
you want to get a head start be sure to
download my how to get your first legal job guide
which i will link in the description below and that is full of my five
top strategies to start making yourself competitive for that job
from the outset of law school and of course if you guys are interested in all
things law school legal industry and lawyerly
life be sure to subscribe over here and be sure to check out these two
amazing videos over here and i will see you guys in the next one
that's it for today i'll talk to you guys next week bye