Another "Help Me Choose" Thread Forum

[powerwhee]

Purpose achieved. Thank you to all who replied

[UVA2B]

1. Your state school GPA won't preclude you from the T6, but it is low enough for H that you'll need a 176+ to balance out the low GPA. Your GPA puts you at a distinct disadvantage for YS. Not impossible, but pretty unlikely.*

2. T6 are decidedly not the only national reach schools. All of the T13 are truly national, GULC places nationally at a worse rate for a variety of reasons, and the other schools below that could probably be called "regional+" in that they place heavily in one region with some placement beyond their region down to approximately the T30 (and this is all just silly because the entire law school prestige thing is a sliding scale that can't be pinned down to one easy to fit title).

3. You are wrong to assume you'll be able to be top 10%. You might be, but your background with business law will not automatically make you better at spotting legal issues on an exam in a time-pressured situation better than your peers. Get this out of your head. Right now.

4. With that said, given your goals, you'll need Biglaw, so you should retake for the T13.

5. Your goals are fine until you start talking about making partner at Biglaw, and beyond that might as well just be dreamt about with a warm towel. If you go to a school that can get you into Biglaw, it's not impossible you could get everything you want, but it's naive and really ill-advised to try to craft your legal career this specifically because they are too hyper specific for a 0L to realistically work toward. Start by getting yourself an LSAT that can get you a good shot of getting into Biglaw. Then find the right school for getting you to Biglaw. Then, once you start practicing, worry about learning to become an effective lawyer. You'll find out that the beginning of your career should be focused on gaining skillsets and experiences, and if your work product, development, and ability to develop business grows in a way that makes partner eventually a possibility, then start thinking about that. Don't think about it now. Trust me on this.

*Important edit: this advice changes if you're a URM. I assumed you aren't since you didn't mention it, but if you're a URM as well as an immigrant, your numbers make you more competitive for law school admissions generally.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yeah, you do have more practice experience, but in the same what that law school doesn't really prepare people for practice, practice doesn't really prepare people for law school exams. There are lots of people who work as paralegals before going to law school, for instance, and their grades fall all along the spectrum. Maybe you will end up top 10% of your class, and if so, that's great. But it is still really really really risky to make admissions decisions based on that assumption. That doesn't mean a T20-30 school for free is a bad option - it may be your best option. But not because you can assume you'll be top 10%.

(and really, no, you do not know everything on the California Bar Exam right now, I promise - in particular, there is this whole huge area of law called criminal law about which you know nothing, and you're likely underprepared in constitutional law, probably civil procedure as well, also family law, trusts and estates, etc. etc. etc.).

Finally, I kind of hate when people get paranoid about this, but you may want to edit out some of that information, because you are instantly identifiable (for instance I found your publication instantly). I'm not saying you've posted anything here to be ashamed of, but people just usually prefer to be a little more anonymous.

[cavalier1138]

Ditto to both of the above.

But yeah, the last bit is particularly absurd reasoning. No matter how much you know about business law, that is not going to make you a better law student than your peers in any other classes (and potentially in business-related courses, where you might believe you know everything but don't bother learning how your professor thinks about the law).

Want biglaw? Go to a school that realistically places you there. And that means retaking the LSAT. If you mastered the entire field of business law during undergrad, I'm confident you can crack 170.

[FN-2187]

Studying full time for the LSAT since Aug. 2015 makes it seem like you haven't been studying very efficiently. Now, this is coming from someone who doesn't have a really nice fancy LSAT score, but for your goals, it seems like taking some time to reflect on how you're studying can help a lot. Working smart > working a lot, in my experiences.

[powerwhee]

I would first like to thank everyone who took the time to read through my initial post. If there is anyone on the forum who had a relatively firm understanding of the law before entering law school, I would appreciate your insight as well (assuming none of the prior posters did.)

Studying full time for the LSAT since Aug. 2015 makes it seem like you haven't been studying very efficiently. Now, this is coming from someone who doesn't have a really nice fancy LSAT score, but for your goals, it seems like taking some time to reflect on how you're studying can help a lot. Working smart > working a lot, in my experiences.

Thank you for your insight. I do agree that I may not be studying in the most efficient manner; I'm unorganized, and being honest with myself, I have not tracked my LSAT progress as seriously as some individuals on this forum, who make spreadsheets tracking their mistakes, and the like. This is something I have been trying to fix lately, but a lifetime of disorganization is hard to undo.

Ditto to both of the above.

But yeah, the last bit is particularly absurd reasoning. No matter how much you know about business law, that is not going to make you a better law student than your peers in any other classes (and potentially in business-related courses, where you might believe you know everything but don't bother learning how your professor thinks about the law).

Want biglaw? Go to a school that realistically places you there. And that means retaking the LSAT. If you mastered the entire field of business law during undergrad, I'm confident you can crack 170.

Thank you for your insight. Although I'm not quite sure I see the "absurd reasoning" that you allude to regarding my propensity to perform better than the average 0L, who has no idea what they are getting themselves into. In contrast, my business law classes were all structured like law school courses. There was one (sometimes two) hand written exams administered which dictated your entire grade, containing fact patterns created by the professor. The professors that taught me were all attorneys who graduated from T30 schools. They all had different expectations and preferences regarding the specificity, or broadness, that a proper legal analysis should encompass, and I had to tailor my essay responses to their liking. In other words, I already understand the nature of the subject matter, the procedure in which it is administered, and the varying expectations of those individuals administering the exam. I do not mean to come off as argumentative, after all I am asking for help, just simply trying to understand the logic behind your assertion that my reasoning is absurd.

Yeah, you do have more practice experience, but in the same what that law school doesn't really prepare people for practice, practice doesn't really prepare people for law school exams. There are lots of people who work as paralegals before going to law school, for instance, and their grades fall all along the spectrum. Maybe you will end up top 10% of your class, and if so, that's great. But it is still really really really risky to make admissions decisions based on that assumption. That doesn't mean a T20-30 school for free is a bad option - it may be your best option. But not because you can assume you'll be top 10%.

(and really, no, you do not know everything on the California Bar Exam right now, I promise - in particular, there is this whole huge area of law called criminal law about which you know nothing, and you're likely underprepared in constitutional law, probably civil procedure as well, also family law, trusts and estates, etc. etc. etc.).

Finally, I kind of hate when people get paranoid about this, but you may want to edit out some of that information, because you are instantly identifiable (for instance I found your publication instantly). I'm not saying you've posted anything here to be ashamed of, but people just usually prefer to be a little more anonymous.

Thank you for your insight. I do agree that my practice experience in and of itself did not prepare me for law school. From what I gather, the implication in your statements is that substantial knowledge of the law is a small portion of the battle for a Top 10% spot?

Although, I believe your assertion regarding the California Bar Exam contains some unwarranted assumptions. Granted, I do not know nearly as much about the criminal law as the civil law, but I do know many of the doctrinal rules promulgated by courts, such as the Exclusionary Rule, the Void for Vagueness Doctrine, and the affirmative defense of a lack of Mens Rea, to name a few. I also have a decent understanding of the constitutional safeguards afforded to criminal defendants, such as the procedural and substantive due process requirements found in the 5th and 14th amendments which the federal and state governments must comport with (although I believe, like the late Justice Scalia, that substantive due process is mostly BS), the Presumption of Innocence found in the 14th Amendment, the proscription against ex post facto laws, et cetera.

My book actually has a small chapter on the criminal law, with 7 case citations, which I have read over in detail (the entire docket, if available):

In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970)
Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419 (1985)
Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492 (1896)
Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010)
Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453 (1895)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976)
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963)
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 583 (1980)
Strong v. Milwaukee, 38 Wis. 2d 564 (1968)

Regarding your other assertions, I do not doubt that I may be underprepared in constitutional law, civil procedure, family law, and trusts and estates (I took a course on this and despised calculating the elective share), but based off the prior Bar Exam I looked at (from an associate who graduated from Southwestern Law School, and failed the exam, because they forgot about the concept of an intervening cause breaking the proximate causal chain necessary to impose negligence liability on an individual) those topics are not tested in depth, and a broad knowledge (which I do have) of the topics was all that was necessary for the exam I looked at. Although, I'm sure this may change from exam to exam.

Finally, I posted the publication information knowing that I would be easily identifiable. This was on purpose, so that those who wish can easily find my book, read through the first 30 pages, see the nature of my understanding of the law, and then base their judgement regarding my likelihood of attaining a top 10% ranking based off that. I did this because I have seen many individuals on this forum assume they can attain top 10% in their 1L year simply because they believe they will study harder than everyone else. I do not mean to come off as argumentative, and appreciate your time spent responding to this thread.

1. Your state school GPA won't preclude you from the T6, but it is low enough for H that you'll need a 176+ to balance out the low GPA. Your GPA puts you at a distinct disadvantage for YS. Not impossible, but pretty unlikely.*

2. T6 are decidedly not the only national reach schools. All of the T13 are truly national, GULC places nationally at a worse rate for a variety of reasons, and the other schools below that could probably be called "regional+" in that they place heavily in one region with some placement beyond their region down to approximately the T30 (and this is all just silly because the entire law school prestige thing is a sliding scale that can't be pinned down to one easy to fit title).

3. You are wrong to assume you'll be able to be top 10%. You might be, but your background with business law will not automatically make you better at spotting legal issues on an exam in a time-pressured situation better than your peers. Get this out of your head. Right now.

4. With that said, given your goals, you'll need Biglaw, so you should retake for the T13.

5. Your goals are fine until you start talking about making partner at Biglaw, and beyond that might as well just be dreamt about with a warm towel. If you go to a school that can get you into Biglaw, it's not impossible you could get everything you want, but it's naive and really ill-advised to try to craft your legal career this specifically because they are too hyper specific for a 0L to realistically work toward. Start by getting yourself an LSAT that can get you a good shot of getting into Biglaw. Then find the right school for getting you to Biglaw. Then, once you start practicing, worry about learning to become an effective lawyer. You'll find out that the beginning of your career should be focused on gaining skillsets and experiences, and if your work product, development, and ability to develop business grows in a way that makes partner eventually a possibility, then start thinking about that. Don't think about it now. Trust me on this.

*Important edit: this advice changes if you're a URM. I assumed you aren't since you didn't mention it, but if you're a URM as well as an immigrant, your numbers make you more competitive for law school admissions generally.

Thank you for your insight, and lengthy analysis regarding my situation. I am not an under represented minority, so your assumption was correct. The specificity of my goals stems from my interest in Securities law, and the American Capital Markets generally. I recently spoke to an attorney who gave me similar advice to yours. He basically told me "you'll practice whatever the BigLaw firm that hires you tells you to practice, and you'll do anything they tell you to do." So I can see how my ambitions may require a level of curtailment which is necessary to the real world practice of law in a big firm.

Realistically, the only school I would consider attending this cycle would be BC, because I feel like I can get some scholarship money, and their BigLaw hiring is decent at 40%. Do you think a tradeoff exists between attending a higher ranked school, where it is presumably harder to attain the same grade as compared to a lower ranked school, due to the increased competition of the student body?

For example, I posit that it must be harder to attain a median GPA at Columbia over BC, due to the academic qualifications of the 1L class being much greater in Columbia. In the foregoing example, I envision my prior legal knowledge being substantially countervailed by the academic qualifications of the 1L class, due to my colleague's intelligence allowing them to grasp the subject matter very quickly. By contrast, I see my prior legal knowledge taking me much further in BC, due to the higher likelihood that the 1L class will be struggling a greater amount just to understand the material, as a result of their inferior qualifications, when compared to the Columbia 1L class. (Some individuals may be in the situation I am, but even if this is the case, I imagine more of those individuals would exist at Columbia then BC.)

[A. Nony Mouse]

No, substantial knowledge of the law is less important on law schools exams than knowledge of what your specific professor has taught and the ability to apply it to professors' fact patterns, under time pressure, better than your classmates do. Keep in mind that the curve makes it impossible to predict your grades because you are being measured against people who are all pretty close to you in LSAT/GPA (the distribution within a given law school is fairly small). You are tested on what you're taught in school, so your knowledge isn't especially pertinent, and any advantage you have on day one can be matched pretty quickly by other people in your class.

Also this may sound harsher than I mean it to, but: reading 10 cases does not provide you with a grounding in criminal law, especially when one of those cases is actually about torts, not criminal law; no one fails the bar exam because they forget a single concept for one subject; the bar changes which topics it tests from year to year; and I looked at your book, and based on the sample it's a lot of information and facts, but not really a lot of the kind of analysis required of law school exams.

Again, you may do brilliantly in law school, but that's independent of your previous experience, and you can't rely on that to predict future success. Any edge you have will pretty much vanish by week three.

[powerwhee]

No, substantial knowledge of the law is less important on law schools exams than knowledge of what your specific professor has taught and the ability to apply it to professors' fact patterns, under time pressure, better than your classmates do. Keep in mind that the curve makes it impossible to predict your grades because you are being measured against people who are all pretty close to you in LSAT/GPA (the distribution within a given law school is fairly small). You are tested on what you're taught in school, so your knowledge isn't especially pertinent, and any advantage you have on day one can be matched pretty quickly by other people in your class.

Also this may sound harsher than I mean it to, but: reading 10 cases does not provide you with a grounding in criminal law, especially when one of those cases is actually about torts, not criminal law; no one fails the bar exam because they forget a single concept for one subject; the bar changes which topics it tests from year to year; and I looked at your book, and based on the sample it's a lot of information and facts, but not really a lot of the kind of analysis required of law school exams.

Again, you may do brilliantly in law school, but that's independent of your previous experience, and you can't rely on that to predict future success. Any edge you have will pretty much vanish by week three.

Thanks for your answer, its the type of real world knowledge I was looking for. I will have to retake the test, which is the grim reality I didn't want to believe in.

It is by no means harsh, I appreciate all criticism. I do believe you said I didn't have any knowledge of the criminal law though.

By the way, all my posts will be deleted far before any law firm cares about who I am. lol

[cavalier1138]

Amazing. Every word you just said was wrong. Ok, not every word, but I just wanted to quote the new film.

In addition to what Nony said (seriously, knowing about 10 cases in detail is not sufficient for anything in law school or beyond), you are completely wrong about the relative difficulty of being at median at Columbia vs. at a school like BC. Top schools have much more forgiving curves with much larger medians. And while there's still plenty of stress to go around, students at Columbia don't have to worry that if they aren't in the top third of the class, they won't be competitive at OCI.

[pancakes3]

retake.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Ditto to both of the above.

But yeah, the last bit is particularly absurd reasoning. No matter how much you know about business law, that is not going to make you a better law student than your peers in any other classes (and potentially in business-related courses, where you might believe you know everything but don't bother learning how your professor thinks about the law).

Want biglaw? Go to a school that realistically places you there. And that means retaking the LSAT. If you mastered the entire field of business law during undergrad, I'm confident you can crack 170.

Thank you for your insight. Although I'm not quite sure I see the "absurd reasoning" that you allude to regarding my propensity to perform better than the average 0L, who has no idea what they are getting themselves into. In contrast, my business law classes were all structured like law school courses. There was one (sometimes two) hand written exams administered which dictated your entire grade, containing fact patterns created by the professor. The professors that taught me were all attorneys who graduated from T30 schools. They all had different expectations and preferences regarding the specificity, or broadness, that a proper legal analysis should encompass, and I had to tailor my essay responses to their liking. In other words, I already understand the nature of the subject matter, the procedure in which it is administered, and the varying expectations of those individuals administering the exam. I do not mean to come off as argumentative, after all I am asking for help, just simply trying to understand the logic behind your assertion that my reasoning is absurd.

I had a few undergrad and grad school classes "structured like law school courses." I do not believe they helped me much, if at all, as a 1L. Having that background knowledge and experience might help you be a bit more structured when it comes to studying for finals first semester, but anyone who takes a few practice tests from a professor will have much more helpful and relevant knowledge and experience for that professor's final when compared to what someone's experience from an undergrad classes. I guess it could be beneficial if your Contracts professor has zero practice tests available, but even then you can find practice tests from other professors or supplemental material that will provide more helpful experience.

Yeah, you do have more practice experience, but in the same what that law school doesn't really prepare people for practice, practice doesn't really prepare people for law school exams. There are lots of people who work as paralegals before going to law school, for instance, and their grades fall all along the spectrum. Maybe you will end up top 10% of your class, and if so, that's great. But it is still really really really risky to make admissions decisions based on that assumption. That doesn't mean a T20-30 school for free is a bad option - it may be your best option. But not because you can assume you'll be top 10%.

(and really, no, you do not know everything on the California Bar Exam right now, I promise - in particular, there is this whole huge area of law called criminal law about which you know nothing, and you're likely underprepared in constitutional law, probably civil procedure as well, also family law, trusts and estates, etc. etc. etc.).

Finally, I kind of hate when people get paranoid about this, but you may want to edit out some of that information, because you are instantly identifiable (for instance I found your publication instantly). I'm not saying you've posted anything here to be ashamed of, but people just usually prefer to be a little more anonymous.

Thank you for your insight. I do agree that my practice experience in and of itself did not prepare me for law school. From what I gather, the implication in your statements is that substantial knowledge of the law is a small portion of the battle for a Top 10% spot?

Although, I believe your assertion regarding the California Bar Exam contains some unwarranted assumptions. Granted, I do not know nearly as much about the criminal law as the civil law, but I do know many of the doctrinal rules promulgated by courts, such as the Exclusionary Rule, the Void for Vagueness Doctrine, and the affirmative defense of a lack of Mens Rea, to name a few. I also have a decent understanding of the constitutional safeguards afforded to criminal defendants, such as the procedural and substantive due process requirements found in the 5th and 14th amendments which the federal and state governments must comport with (although I believe, like the late Justice Scalia, that substantive due process is mostly BS), the Presumption of Innocence found in the 14th Amendment, the proscription against ex post facto laws, et cetera.

My book actually has a small chapter on the criminal law, with 7 case citations, which I have read over in detail (the entire docket, if available):

In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970)
Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419 (1985)
Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492 (1896)
Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358 (2010)
Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453 (1895)
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976)
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963)
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 583 (1980)
Strong v. Milwaukee, 38 Wis. 2d 564 (1968)

Regarding your other assertions, I do not doubt that I may be underprepared in constitutional law, civil procedure, family law, and trusts and estates (I took a course on this and despised calculating the elective share), but based off the prior Bar Exam I looked at (from an associate who graduated from Southwestern Law School, and failed the exam, because they forgot about the concept of an intervening cause breaking the proximate causal chain necessary to impose negligence liability on an individual) those topics are not tested in depth, and a broad knowledge (which I do have) of the topics was all that was necessary for the exam I looked at. Although, I'm sure this may change from exam to exam.

Finally, I posted the publication information knowing that I would be easily identifiable. This was on purpose, so that those who wish can easily find my book, read through the first 30 pages, see the nature of my understanding of the law, and then base their judgement regarding my likelihood of attaining a top 10% ranking based off that. I did this because I have seen many individuals on this forum assume they can attain top 10% in their 1L year simply because they believe they will study harder than everyone else. I do not mean to come off as argumentative, and appreciate your time spent responding to this thread.

You do not have "substantial knowledge of the law." The sooner you realize that, the better off you'll be while in law school (both academically and socially). While you are certainly aware of a mishmash of legal doctrines, you don't seem to have a very firm grasp on how they relate or the particular contexts in which they may be relevant or applicable. This, by the way, is completely understandable--you haven't attended law school yet. Having some background in various legal concepts and doctrines will probably be helpful in connecting the dots once you're in law school, but it can also potentially be a hindrance, if you continue to think you already know these concepts. (Note: A good portion of my impression of your understanding of legal topics is based on the sample available in your e-book.)

You would not pass the California bar (or any other bar exam) if you had to take it next week. Trust me. There's a reason that BARBI and other bar prep companies make a lot of money to spoonfeed test prep over multiple weeks. You realize that you're competing against other bar test takers (either current or previous years, depending on the section), right? Bar exams sections typically are graded using equating or curves, rather than an absolute scale. Thus, thinking you "know" the answer to a particular question just means you're likely in better shape on that particular question compared to people who have no clue what is being asked about. And the associate you know that failed the California bar didn't fail because he or she forgot about intervening causes on one essay question. That person failed because they didn't do very well on the overall test. (To be fair, California has pretty horrendous bar passage rates.)

By the way, all my posts will be deleted far before any law firm cares about who I am. lol

I wouldn't be overly stressed out about what you post as a 0L on TLS, but you shouldn't assume that your current posts will have zero potential impact on biglaw prospects. You currently have someone from biglaw responding to one of your posts. Others might randomly come across your posts. It would probably be a pretty random coincidence for any biglaw associate who happens to come across your posts to also be involved in your 2L OCI or callback interviews, but that is not that far into the future.

Also, I think you should strongly consider removing your book from Amazon before you start law school, unless the quality of the later chapters is substantially better. It's not uncommon to google people before an interview. And that sample is going to hurt, not help, your interview evaluations with any associate or partner who reads it.

[powerwhee]

Richie Tenenbaum, thank you for your insight. My take away from your response (correct me if I'm wrong) is that regardless of the amount of legal knowledge I have the final exam determining my grade occurs at the end of the course, when all the students have already had the chance to learn the material, thereby leveling the playing field with my prior knowledge.

With respect to the second part of your post, as my book provides no indication of my application of the doctrines contained therein, I'm not sure what evidence available to you could possibly evince the validity of your assertion that I "don't seem to have a firm grasp on how [the doctrines] relate or the particular contexts in which they may be relevant or applicable", and must therefore infer that your speculating based off assumptions you would like to be true.

My first post has already been deleted, as the purpose of this thread has been accomplished. I appreciate everyones responses. Also, being as my book is in its first edition, I would appreciate your insight into why it is so horrible, so that I could change it for the better. If you'd like, feel free to PM me with any resources that could help in this regard.

Amazing. Every word you just said was wrong. Ok, not every word, but I just wanted to quote the new film.

In addition to what Nony said (seriously, knowing about 10 cases in detail is not sufficient for anything in law school or beyond), you are completely wrong about the relative difficulty of being at median at Columbia vs. at a school like BC. Top schools have much more forgiving curves with much larger medians. And while there's still plenty of stress to go around, students at Columbia don't have to worry that if they aren't in the top third of the class, they won't be competitive at OCI.

I never said that knowing 10 cases in detail is sufficient for law school or beyond, nor did I ever say that those are the only 10 cases I am familiar with on the subject. If you have any source regarding how the "forgiveness" of the curve is calculated, and the standards regarding its variance between schools, I would appreciate the information. Am I correct to assume your referring to the professor's ability to deviate in the apportionment of grades above and below the median?

[FN-2187]

This should give you a very quick idea of how medians vary from a school like Columbia vs. at a school like BC. Not sure if this is what cavalier1138 meant though but there are a lot of threads that detail how median distributions vary and I'm sure there are links to better discussions than the one I provided.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... p?t=154379

[A. Nony Mouse]

Look, I said that you didn't know anything about criminal law (since you represented that your experience was with business law), and you said, I have a chapter on criminal law with 7 case citations (though you list 10 cases) which you've read over in detail, and you listed the cases. That suggests that you think the cases are somehow responsive to the idea that you don't know criminal law. (Again, the last case you cited is a civil case, about torts.)

The part of the book that's available is the same kind of basic summary of the law that you get in your first week of law school, except that it all seems sort of, well, academic, rather than having the perspective on how those things work in practice. There's a reason undergrads don't generally write overarching practical guides to a very broad topic - they just don't have the experience to do so yet.

As for curves - different schools apply curves differently. Some schools say "the class median must be a B+" with no other restrictions. In such a class, 24 out of 26 students could get B+s, with one A and one C. Some schools mandate a distribution, so that each class has to have a certain number of each grade, so you could have say max 20% of the class gets a B+, even if the median still has to be a B+. Far fewer students get a median grade at the latter kind of school; more students get below-median grades. With respect to getting a job, class rank is usually more important than raw GPA, so being able to say you're at median - even if 70% if your class has median grades - sounds better than saying you're below median. So you can actually be much lower in your class at, say, Columbia (no forced distribution), than at, say, BC (forced distribution), without it hurting your job prospects as much. (Also of course Columbia just has better job prospects than BC, so employers are more willing to go lower in class rank from Columbia than BC, but it helps that the median at Columbia is so wide.)

(Shorter way of putting this: profs at Columbia don't have to give grades below a certain letter - I don't know if it's B-? or any? Profs at some schools *have* to give C-range grades, even Ds/Fs - though I don't think you're going to run into this at T20-30 schools.)'

(I'm sure I'm scooped but since I typed this out I'll leave it.)

[pancakes3]

]
With respect to the second part of your post, as my book provides no indication of my application of the doctrines contained therein, I'm not sure what evidence available to you could possibly evince the validity of your assertion that I "don't seem to have a firm grasp on how [the doctrines] relate or the particular contexts in which they may be relevant or applicable", and must therefore infer that your speculating based off assumptions you would like to be true.

well, there was the bit you deleted where you sued a bunch of ppl and drafted a licensing agreement where it didn't seem like you knew what you were talking about.

not to mention the your bluebooking of those cases and your writing skills in general look to make LRW problematic

[powerwhee]

Thank you to those who gave me the information on the median.

]
With respect to the second part of your post, as my book provides no indication of my application of the doctrines contained therein, I'm not sure what evidence available to you could possibly evince the validity of your assertion that I "don't seem to have a firm grasp on how [the doctrines] relate or the particular contexts in which they may be relevant or applicable", and must therefore infer that your speculating based off assumptions you would like to be true.

well, there was the bit you deleted where you sued a bunch of ppl and drafted a licensing agreement where it didn't seem like you knew what you were talking about.

not to mention the your bluebooking of those cases and your writing skills in general look to make LRW problematic

There was also the bit where I said that I created a contract that allowed me to get paid for over a year without doing any work other than managing my employees. But I guess it is more convenient to leave that part of the prior post out of your analysis, and attack the efficacy of my legal knowledge utilizing a conclusory statement which has no basis in any objective evidence like "it didn't seem like knew what I was talking about." I'm not sure how you could possibly infer that it didn't "seem like knew what was talking about" given the fact that all I did in the deleted post was make conclusory statements, without providing much detail past a simple sentence encompassing the basic legal principles utilized to reach the results I purported to have reached. In attempting to attack my assertion, you utilized the same style of reasoning I attacked as being fallacious.

My "blue booking" of those cases? I'm not sure what you mean. The civil law chapter of my book is after the criminal law chapter, and I mistakenly copied and pasted the subsequent case on torts from the legal authority referenced page. This would have been easily inferable by taking a look at the table of contents of my book. As to my "writing skills in general [making] LRW problematic," I'm not sure what exactly factors into your analysis in reaching that conclusion, and I find it quite funny that while you attack my writing, another member on the forum referred to it as "academic."

I sense a lack of logical reasoning from most of the responses in this thread. Rather than the cool, calm, rational logical reasoning that I have been accustomed to seeing lawyers employ, many of the responses were so filled with unwarranted assumptions, that have no basis in any evidence available to the responder, that I declined to respond to them expressly. If any of you are associates in BigLaw, I hope that your legal writing is not so full of unwarranted assumptions that have no basis in available evidence. Anyway, the purpose of this thread has been accomplished, and I have obligations other than defending the legal knowledge which has allowed me to pay off my entire undergraduate student loan debt within two months of graduating.

I'd like to thank everyone for their input, and wish you all luck in the legal profession.

[A. Nony Mouse]

To be clear, my description of your writing as "academic" was not to mean that it sounds like a professional academic wrote it, but that it's removed from reality and cites definitions of concepts without really knowing how they play out in practice. It wasn't really a compliment.

Bluebooking is the format for legal citations, taken from the Blue Book.

Frankly, I think you are the one coming into this with assumptions about how this profession works. And to the extent anyone else is making assumptions, they're based on the information that you put before us, which is limited by what you've told us. So to the extent anything people say here isn't applicable to you, that's fine, but that's not on the posters here.

[UVA2B]

Also, try to write a little more concisely. It's genuinely painful to read your walls of text. You're trying way too hard to impress us both with your legal knowledge and your ability to write like you live inside your thesaurus.

You don't need to prove anything to us, and in fact you're doing just the opposite. I think your question has been adequately answered. Why not just leave it at that?

[pancakes3]

i had high hopes for this thread after reading that OP "successfully" refused unconforming goods under the UCC but still had to give up 50% of the down payment.

[Mullens]

This thread is the best example of the dunning-Kruger effect that I have ever seen. Amazing.

OP, no need to worry about deleting your posts. Your insufferable sense of superiority will cause you to get awful grades during 1L wherever you go and your personality will be the final nail in the coffin that kills your job prospects.

I honestly think you would score in the bottom 1% on any bar exam if you took it right now. You know the names of like 8 legal doctrines and somehow you think that’s enough to pass a bar exam that the majority of people fail every year after studying for 3+ years?

[cuzzydunlop]

this was a fantastic read. This guy is going to bomb any OCI.