Resources on Law Schools (US)

Law Schools

Law Schools in the USA

In the United States, a law school is an institution where students obtain a professional education in law. A law student must hold an undergraduate degree in any field. In most cases the degree awarded by U.S. law schools is the Juris Doctor, or J.D., degree. Other, higher, degrees that are awarded include the Master of Laws degree (LL.M.) and the Doctor of Juridical Science degree (J.S.D. or S.J.D.). Though most law schools are hosted by a larger post-secondary institution, the school itself is largely autonomous from the hosting institution.
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Admission
In the United States, most law schools require a bachelor's degree, a satisfactory undergraduate grade point average, and a satisfactory score on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) in order to be considered for admission. Some states that have non-ABA-approved schools or state-accredited schools have equivalency requirements that usually equal 90 credits toward a bachelor's degree. Additional personal factors are evaluated through essays, short-answer questions, letters of recommendation, and other application materials. The standards for grades and LSAT scores vary from school to school. Highly-regarded law schools accept only those applicants with very high LSAT scores, GPAs or financial and political leverage. Many of the top schools strongly favor GPAs of 3.3 or above and LSAT's of at least 160 (out of 180). The vast majority of applicants admitted to schools like Harvard and Yale have GPAs of 3.7 or better and strongly favor LSAT scores of 170 or better (a score of 170 is a score in the 99th percentile of all LSAT takers). For actual admissions statistics, visit http://officialguide.lsac.org/search/cgi-bin/results.asp?PageNo= and choose the law school. A vast majority of law schools will provide statistical grids indicating the number of admitted students from a given LSAT/GPA range. The ones that do not will still provide their 25%, average and 75% ranges for LSAT/GPA.

Individual factors are also very important, although applicants are virtually never asked to interview as part of the application process. Such factors are evaluated through other application materials, and while these factors can compensate for a low GPA and/or LSAT score, where they are weak they can also detract from high scores. Many law schools actively seek applicants from outside the traditional pool in order to boost campus diversity, both racial and economic. Most law schools now factor in extracurricular activities, work experience, and unique courses of study in their evaluation of applicants. A growing number of law school applicants have several years of work experience, and correspondingly fewer law students enter immediately after completing their undergraduate education (for example, at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, for the Class of 2008, the average age of an entering first year law student was 25; most college graduates come directly from high school and are approximately 21 or 22 when they receive their undergraduate degree).

Students considering law school should note that although law school tuition is notoriously high, it is not uncommon for law students to receive grants and scholarships, or more rarely complete tuition waivers, from their schools. While each school's financial aid system operates differently, there is a rule of thumb relating to GPA and LSAT scores: a student whose grades and LSAT are distinctly higher than those of most students admitted to a given school--in other words, a student who could get into a "better" school--has a good chance of being offered some kind of scholarship by the lower-ranked school. Likewise, some law students choose lower ranked schools due to their inability to get into higher ranked schools because of low LSAT scores and GPA, and then transfer to the better schools after their first year of study, provided that they received good grades in the first year of law school. Many highly-ranked schools do not accept many transfer applicants due to lack of space in the class, and transferring may make it more difficult for a student to participate in on campus recruiting from potential employers.

Excerpt from "Law school in the United States." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 29 Oct 2006, 03:01 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Law_school_in_the_United_States&oldid=84353228

Legal Education

Legal education is the education of individuals who intend to become legal professionals (attorneys and judges) or those who simply intend to use their law degree to some end, either related to law (such as politics or academic) or unrelated (such as business entrepreneurship).

Legal Education (general)
In addition to the qualifications required to become a practicing lawyer, legal education also encompasses higher degrees such as doctorates, for more advanced academic study.

In many countries other than the United States, law is an undergraduate degree. Graduates of such a program are eligible to become lawyers by passing the country's equivalent of a bar exam. In such countries, graduate programs in law enable students to embark on academic careers or become specialized in a particular area of law.

In the United States, law is a graduate degree, which students embark upon only after completing an undergraduate degree in some other field (usually a bachelor's degree), and is considered to be a graduate or professional school program. The undergraduate degree can be in any field, though most American lawyers hold bachelor's degrees in the humanities and social sciences; legal studies as an undergraduate study is available at a few institutions, like Amherst College. American law schools are usually an autonomous entity within a larger university.

Faculty of law is another name for a law school or school of law, the terms commonly used in the United States. This term is used in Canada, other Commonwealth countries and the rest of the world. It may be distinguishable from law school in the sense that a faculty is a subdivision of a university on the same rank with other faculties, i.e. faculty of medicine, faculty of graduate studies, whereas a law school or school of law may have a more autonomous status within a university, or may be totally independent of any other post-secondary educational institution.

In addition in some countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and some states of Australia, the final stages of vocational legal education required to qualify to practice law are carried out outside the university system. The requirements for qualification as a barrister or as a solicitor are covered in those articles. See advocate for details of the requirements for qualification as an advocate in Scotland.

Excerpt from "Legal education." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 29 Oct 2006, 08:58 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Legal_education&oldid=84391512