Before You Take the LSAT

Let’s have a serious talk about what you’re looking at in some very practical terms that everyone aspiring to get their Juris Doctor needs to think about. In fact, you’re going to feel more like a CPA after I run these numbers at you. First, let’s look at the first thing that most students consider right out of the box – the US News and World Report law school rankings. The methodology is straightforward, hence all the schools listed are accredited and approved by the American Bar Association, but only the top three-quarters are assigned a numerical ranking. The breakdown of the numerical scoring system is as follows:

● Quality assessment by peers (0.25), lawyers and judges (0.15) counts for 0.40 of the total score.

● Selectivity counts for 0.25 and is comprised of median LSAT scores (0.125) and undergraduate GPA (0.10), plus acceptance rate (0.025).

● Placement statistics are weighted at 0.20 are determined by placement at graduation (0.04), ten months post-graduation (0.14) and bar passage rates (0.02).

● Faculty resources such as expenditures per student (0.015), student to faculty ratios (0.03), and library resources (0.0075) weight the remaining 0.15 of the score.

You’ll find some schools are in the top ten as expected – Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia – but schools such as the University of Iowa and Arizona State University are also on that first page. I received my law degree from Nova Southeastern University, an unranked school, but I think you could say that I’ve made myself a success since 2009. Just because someone gets into one of the top law schools does not mean that person will be a good lawyer, a successful lawyer, or even that the person will pass the bar. Further, advances in technology are changing the practice of law. For example, Baker Hostetler has just hired an AI attorney to work with its bankruptcy team. That’s AI as in “Artificial Intelligence.” ROSS will be working with the bankruptcy team, doing the work of sorting through reams of clippings, cases, and precedents – which is what freshly minted lawyers in so-called Big Law firms usually do.

Uh oh.

You’ll also want to take those placement statistics to heart. The National Law Journal has a more comprehensive list but Above The Law showed us ten law schools with the highest percentage of unemployment among recent graduates, the five schools with the worst salary to debt ratio, and the five schools with the best. You’re not only graduating with the debt that it takes to get through four years of college, but also the tuition for your Juris Doctor program. Ideally, you should not graduate with more debt than the anticipated salary of your first year of work.

I’m not telling you not to go to law school, but…

…what I am telling you is that you need to first consider what you want to do with your law degree after you get it, and to think about the debt you’ll walk away with whether or not you graduate and pass the bar exam. I’m asking you to consider how to proceed,  where your talents will do the most good,  if you’ll be able to find a job in your specialty, AND if you really have what it takes to not only become a lawyer, but to stay a lawyer.