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(I'll provide a more complete listing, together with a timetable for you to follow, in appendix A.) You must complete all of these steps before each law school's formal deadline, most commonly before February 15 of your senior year, if you plan to begin law school the following September. But in practice, there is usually an advantage in completing the process earlier.
If you are a nontraditional candidate-that is, if you graduated from college some time ago and are seeking law school admission after having been in the labor force-you will have to complete the same steps and supply the same materials. But you'll be able to work on a more leisurely timetable.
You will have to make important decisions at each stage of the process. Each decision will require information and strategy. You will have to do your best on the LSAT, which means that you'll have to know something about this test before you take it. You'll have to choose law schools that you have a chance of getting into, which means that you will need to know something about law schools, about how each one evaluates applicants, and about how selective each one is. Since you'll have to fill out the application forms in such a way as to emphasize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses, you will need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are.
There are pitfalls at each stage. Many applicants fail to get admitted because they make common errors: they don't begin the process early enough, or they don't choose law schools properly, or they don't apply to enough law schools, or-perhaps most critically-they don't observe the necessary rules and deadlines when they file their applications. You can avoid these errors if you know exactly what is expected of you at each step.
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If you ask around, you'll find many people who are willing to help you collect the necessary information. Lawyers, law students, and undergraduate professors are often quick to give advice. There are reference books that you can buy and specialized courses that you can take. It isn't hard to find information. But sometimes it's hard to make sure that the information at hand is accurate and up to date. There's a lot of error out there.
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In many cases, applicants who were universally rejected are indistinguishable from more successful candidates except for the heartbreaking fact that they were poorly advised. They relied on outdated reference books or listened to hearsay, rumor, and gossip. Some believed that there would still be vacant places in law school classes and that it didn't matter if they waited until after the formal deadlines had passed before applying. Others neglected to submit some piece of information-something they'd been told was "unimportant" or "never even looked at"- and their applications were rejected as incomplete. Still others simply imitated the application efforts of older but dissimilar friends. They applied only to schools at which fellow members of their fraternities or sororities had been accepted, not realizing that those schools were too selective for them. One young man, who probably could have been accepted somewhere, applied only to his father's alma mater. His father, a successful attorney, assured him that his grades were good enough to get him admitted. His father based this advice on his own experience of thirty years earlier. But the law school had become much more selective since the 1960s. The son was rejected.
In all these examples, the unsuccessful candidates had information. But it was faulty, outdated, or incomplete. You'll have to evaluate, as well as collect, all the information you will need. In the chapters that follow, I'll identify reliable sources of information and give you some tips on how to use each one. I will devote a chapter or so to each part of the application process, explaining how to get the necessary forms and materials, how to evaluate your options, and how to develop simple strategies for presenting yourself in the best possible way. I will show you how to avoid administrative errors and incompleteness by using simple checklists. With this help, you should be able to avoid making the classic blunders of the poorly informed.
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