Question of the Week - July

July 30, 2008

Q: I am thinking of applying for next fall, but then want to defer my admission to the next year. What advice would you give about doing this?

A: Generally, law schools will strongly discourage you from taking this approach. Deferrals are intended to allow for the unexpected events that prevent you from being able to attend school for the year you applied.

It is very difficult for law schools to make plans and predictions for their incoming classes if they are receiving applications from people who do not intend to matriculate that year. Because of this, many schools have chosen not to grant deferrals at all.

It seems that most people interested in this option are college seniors who wish to take off a year or two before attending law school and are worried that the longer they wait to apply, the weaker their applications will be, especially with regard to getting recommendations from professors. The thought is that the further out of school they are, the less their professors will remember them and therefore, they’ll get weaker letters of recommendation or none at all. One must keep in mind that you can request a letter of recommendation and submit it to the Law School Data Assembly Service (LSDAS) and they will keep it on file for you for five years. While letters that are five years old are not ideal, letters that are one or two years old are usually fine to use for your application.

Another way to mitigate this concern, is to let your professors know that you’d like to get a recommendation from them in the future when you plan to apply to law school, and then make an effort to keep in touch with them over the next year or two so that they don’t forget you. When you are ready to apply, you should remind your professors that you would like a recommendation, provide them with a copy of your resume and personal statement, and then set up an appointment (via phone or in person) to discuss your goals and reasons for applying to law school. Professors often write great letters for a student they taught a couple of years ago, while also commenting on the student's growth and maturity since graduation.

An additional concern graduating students have is that they need to take the LSAT when they are in the study “mode” and must apply to law schools with a recent score on file. Similar to the letters, your LSAT score will be kept on record with the LSDAS for five years and most law schools will accept scores up to five years old.

There are a couple of legitimate reasons to apply now with the knowledge that you might actually attend law school a year later. One reason is if you are currently applying for a program such as the Peace Corps or Teach for America and have not yet received an acceptance from the program. If your plan is to go to law school if you do not get accepted to such programs, then it is understandable that you would need to apply sooner than later. Some schools will offer 2 year deferrals to those going into the Peace Corps, but with the ease of internet access across the globe it can be quite simple to apply to law school even while serving in a remote area of the world.

If you have other reasons for applying while knowing you'd like to defer, you should contact the admissions office to discuss whether this is a wise approach for your circumstances.

July 23, 2008

Q: Can you tell me why Lewis & Clark Law School is better than _____ Law School?

A: This is a question the admissions office is asked on occasion, but I have to say that we are not the best people to answer it. Only you can answer this question after you have clearly identified your goals, determined what kind of law school experience you want, researched & compared information from a number of different schools, and visited those you’re seriously considering.

You'll want to consider what's going to be most important to you (not your parents, friends, colleagues, etc.). This could include class size, location, cost (taking into consideration scholarships & cost of living), curricular offerings, access to professors, opportunities to gain practical experience, placement and bar passage rates, student retention, alumni satisfaction, etc.

To help you understand if L&C is a good fit, you might refer to the "Why choose L&C" page. When I have little information about one's particular interests I believe it's best to talk about why some of our students & alumni chose to come to L&C over other law schools.

1) Location -- Location seems to be the #1 factor for students deciding where to go to law school. This is true also for those that choose to attend L&C. Whether the west coast is where they call home (or want to), or whether Portland

is the kind of city they enjoy and they like the legal opportunities they can get here (while in law school and after), or whether it's the Lewis & Clark campus in a forested state park that lures them here, location is very important. Portland itself is a huge draw and luckily, we’re the only school here! I think many people like the easy access to downtown, the legal community here and in the NW, the reasonable cost of living, the transportation options, and the general lifestyle that one can have in Portland. Over half of our students come from outside the Northwest so we're able to attract students from all over the country. The campus is also quite beautiful and some people fall in love with it too.

2) Faculty & Curriculum -- Lewis & Clark professors are very interested in the quality of their teaching and developing relationships with their students. It's much like what you might have experienced in undergrad if you went to a smaller school. Professors know their students on an individual basis and care about what their students are learning.

While we prepare students to practice any type of law, some students come to L&C because they want to study subjects in which we are considered to be particularly strong. Some of these include business & commercial law, environmental & natural resources law, intellectual property law, public interest law, Indian law, animal law, criminal law & crime victim advocacy, and tax law. These tend to be the subjects in which we really shine, but even so, the curriculum is full of many other types of courses so you can be a generalist, or even create your own focus. Our graduates practice everything under the sun, so we don’t encourage people to limit themselves only to areas in which we offer certificates of specialty.

Finally, some students are attracted to the flexibility in our curriculum with our evening program and part-time program options.

3) Cost -- while law school tuition is admittedly high, we do offer scholarships to 40% of our incoming class making the cost more manageable. In comparison to other private law schools, we also are on the lower end and the cost of living in Portland is definitely reasonable. Overall cost of attendance is a deciding factor for many people. Sometimes they choose L&C because our financial aid package is more doable for them; sometimes they choose to go elsewhere because of a more enticing offer somewhere else. Obviously, scholarships are helpful, but they don’t always make a school more affordable. Whether you’re competitive for them will also often depend on where you fall within a school's applicant pool. And on that note....

4) Student body -- L&C's student profile is exceptionally strong, meaning that in comparison to many other law schools, our GPA & LSAT ranges, bar passage rates, employment rates are all on the higher end. Our attrition rate is also on the low end which is a testament to high student satisfaction. Our average age is slightly higher (about 27) so many of our students have impressive work experience prior to coming to law school. We also attract the kind of student who wants a supportive & friendly learning atmosphere and doesn't want to have an experience where their peers are secretive, competitive, and too intense. L&C is definitely known as being a pretty laid-back place and to be fair, most of the other NW law schools are the same way. In any case, considering who one will be in class with is important to many folks.

5) Opportunities -- getting a job and being able to gain practical skills while in law school is also very important. Our career services office is top notch and offers a wide range of services and programs to help students find summer jobs, internships, externships, and jobs after graduation. Our faculty and administrators are also very helpful to students with regard to this. We have some fantastic clinical opportunities as well as strong moot court/mock trial teams and law reviews. It is crucial that students develop their resumes while in law school and there are a lot of ways to do that at L&C. Our high placement rates are reflective of the fact that students are able to get some experience while in law school. At the same time, learning how to market yourself, network, create a strong cover letter & resume, interview, etc. is a big part of getting a job too!

There are many other reasons why Lewis & Clark is a wonderful place to study law, but as I mentioned before, it is not going to be the best place for everyone. You may find that any one of the schools you're looking for is a place you could see yourself attending. If that happens after you've done all your research and visited all the schools, then you'll have to look closer at the finer details and go with what YOU feel is best.

July 16, 2008

Q: I notice that law schools specialize in various areas of the law. Do I have to pick a specialty when I apply to law school or do I have to do that once I’m in school?

A: You never actually have to pick a specialty if you don’t want to. Law schools have specialized, or “certificate”, programs which they award to students who complete certain requirements, but not all students are going to take advantage of this option.

The best way I can explain what a specialty is, is to compare it to getting a minor, or an emphasis within your major, in college. You should look at it as though law is your “major” and if you want to focus your electives in a certain area then you can get an emphasis, or “certificate”, in that area. It is not required to specialize in law school, just as it is not required to ever get a minor in college. It is simply a way to show that you have pursued a particular area of interest. It is also a way for law schools to promote an area of law in which it feels it is particularly strong.

For example, at Lewis & Clark Law School we have five certificate programs – Business & Commercial Law, Criminal Law, Environmental & Natural Resources Law, Intellectual Property Law and Tax Law. While we offer five specialties, our students can study several other subject areas and our graduates end up practicing many different types of law, including employment law, international law, health law, immigration law, family law, Indian law, civil rights law, and much, much more.

About one-third of our students pursue a certificate in one of the five areas mentioned above. Although they are taking focused classes, they also still have room to take courses outside of their specialty area. The other two-thirds are taking a mix of courses in many different subject areas. Students are also welcome to take courses within specialized areas without having to follow the set requirements for the certificate. In sum, there is a lot of flexibility to pursue many interests.

Generally, it can be a good idea to look at a school that has a specialty of interest to you if practicing in that area is really the main reason why you want to go to law school. For example, if you are set on practicing tax law and that is the motivating factor for you in going to law school, then you probably will want to attend a school with a specialty in tax law (you’ll want to make sure to compare specialties at various law schools as some schools’ specialties are more substantive than others). If you aren’t sure what kind of law you want to practice and you would like to keep your options open, then the specialties offered at a law school may not be as important to you. All ABA-accredited law schools are going to be able to prepare you to practice any type of law, so if you decide you want to practice entertainment law at a school that doesn’t have a specialty in it, then you should still be able to take a couple of courses and get some exposure to entertainment law even though you won’t have a specialized curriculum in that area.

For employment purposes, it may be even more important to gain an internship/externship, get clinical experience, or build up your resume other ways in your area of interest than it is to get a certificate; both, of course, would be ideal, but not always necessary.

July 9, 2008

Q: I’m curious to know what type of writing and how much writing I’ll be doing in law school.

A: The quantity of writing in law school is going to vary at times. In the first year, the most important writing required will be for your exams. With the exception of Legal Analysis & Writing (LAW), your first year courses are going to have long written exams at the end of the semester. Your grade on the exam will make up most, if not all, of your grade for the entire class. Other than exams, the writing you'll be doing your first year will mainly be taking notes and outlining cases.

As for the LAW course, you will be doing writing exercises over the course of the first year. This is really where you learn the "type" of writing you'll need (i.e. how to write like a lawyer). Some people call this "persuasive" writing. Looking at legal briefs or legal research will help give you examples of what I mean.

In the second & third years, you'll have some courses that will require papers in addition to, or in lieu of, a final exam. Most of these papers will include research you'll need to do on legal issues or cases. You'll learn how to do research through the LAW class, but the library staff is also very helpful to students who ask for their assistance.

Graduation requirements vary, but at Lewis & Clark Law School, all students must write two large research papers before graduating. The papers can be ones you wrote for a class requirement, or they can be done for one of the law reviews/journals, or you can do them on your own time outside of class.

If you'd like to hone your writing skills, a couple of books that I think are great for learning how to write well are Eats Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss and The Little Book on Legal Writing by Alan Dworsky which is a book used by a lot of our own LAW professors and sold in our bookstore. Here's a link too to 100+ books on the law that you might find just interesting to read.

July 2, 2008

Q: What is the social life like at Lewis & Clark Law School? Are there student activities I can get involved in?

A: Law school can be very time-consuming, but there definitely is room for a social and active life. We recommend that students find interests outside of the classroom in order to keep some balance in their lives.

There are many social opportunities at L&C. Our first-year pod system, where students in a section all take the same classes together, allows new students to really get to know one another. Because they have the same schedule, it also makes it easy for them to meet up outside of class and on weekends.

The law school student organizations also plan several activities throughout the year. For example, one organization, the Bar Review, invites students to gather at various bars or clubs in Portland. The Public Interest Law Project plans an auction every February to raise funds for students planning to work in the public interest sector. The auction brings together students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the community in the biggest social event of the year. The Student Bar Association, Minority Law Student Association, Women’s Law Caucus and other groups often host BBQ’s, breakfasts, or pot-lucks in the outdoor amphitheater or student lounge. The Intellectual Property Student Organization hosts a microbrew tasting and our Softball League is also popular. There are many more examples of groups of students getting together to ski, bike, hike, salsa dance, watch movies, go fly-fishing, kayaking, and much more. Of course, many of these organizations also host campus events such as speakers, live debates, documentary viewings, networking activities, etc.

Students can get involved in most student organizations as a first year student. You definitely won’t be lacking in things to do while in law school, and it is important that some of those things are also fun!