The quotes and the capital 'L' exemplify "The Law" as only a law student (or former law student) could understand it.  Although all law programs aren't like the experience of Scott Turow in One L, they all bear their own brand of excitement.  Regardless of educational background, law students will fall into their own universe where humor revolves around legal situations and the hypothetical responses of a favorite jurist (in my case, Judge Learned Hand and Justice Scalia).

I graduated from law school and sat for the Ohio bar exam in 2000.  It is an ironic twist that, in my experience, more respect is accorded by others to "law student" status than to the answer "I'm an attorney."  Thankfully, the accounting profession pulled some of that generalized derision away from the legal profession in the recent string of scandals, but we are still treated to an endless supply of lawyer jokes.  Perhaps it is because attorneys are involved in every aspect of our daily lives, sometimes hidden and sometimes dreadfully apparent, that one example of misconduct is enough to taint the public opinion.  Regardless, I have met many highly-ethical practitioners that see their chosen career as an honorable pursuit and that have clung tightly to the ideals that drove them to study law in the first case.

If you're reading this, you're one of the dozen people that I've told about this website or you've stumbled here accidentally off of an internet search, perhaps hoping to find some free outlines for your classes or maybe to find information to help you get into law school.  The latter I may eventually be able to help you with, and as to the former, remember the wisdom that the best outline is the one you prepare yourself (I've been there - six different outlines for Torts downloaded at the zero hour did absolutely nothing to heighten my performance on the final).  What I hope you can take from this page is the knowledge that what you learn in law school can be applied to just about every situation, and in those three or four years you will have an intellectual experience that you will never forget.

If you're thinking about law school, my best advice to you is to buy or borrow a copy of One L (follow the link to Amazon) and spend a day or two reading about Mr. Turow's experiences.  Unless you are planning to go Ivy League, understand that many of these experiences may not apply to you, but that the general message about competitiveness, pressure, and such is accurate regardless of your choice of school.  It is very important to keep the sense of excitement that originally urged you to request an application, and if that means watching A Few Good Men for the sixty-seventh time, do it (unless, of course, it is four hours until the Contracts final and you're trying to find a legal definition for "consideration").

Stay tuned to this page.  As time allows, I will provide links to some sites that WILL have free outlines for your use (my advice above notwithstanding), as well as links to various law schools and advice on how to get into them.  I may be posting some miscellaneous stories about my time under the Socratic Method, and welcome stories from others with this theme as well. 

If you're considering law school, the chances are pretty good that you've already gone through the wringer to get into an undergraduate program.  Many of the same rules apply and you can revisit these on the "College Education" link to your left.

Take the LSAT:  Although anecdotally I've heard that fewer schools are placing emphasis on these results, convince yourself that they do and prepare for this test.  The LSAT does not test law per se, but rather the ability of an individual to apply basic logic skills in a variety of situations, which apparently has some nexus to legal education.  Of the preparatory materials out there, I preferred the Princeton Review.

Plan your undergraduate coursework:   This does NOT mean that you have to be pre-law as an undergrad to get into law school, as indeed schools increasingly prefer students with a more diverse background to accent classroom experience.  Because law touches every aspect of our society, there isn't really a "wrong" degree, but you should note that admissions committees may look more favorably on applicants that have been able to relate their present education to a future of law study.  Many undergraduate institutions have courses in their business or political science programs that will provide grounding for law school.

Gain some experience:  If you are out on your own, this element may be difficult, as ultimately you need to eat and pay for the car and/or mortgage.  Find some time to do some basic clerking for a law firm or a non-profit, even if you have to do so on a voluntary basis. 

Write the admissions essay:  Tie it all together for the admissions committee succinctly, but in a way that they absolutely want you in the program.  Reference your achievements and absolutely bring in some discussion of your undergraduate coursework.  As many schools are concentrating on creating writers, consider attaching a paper that you wrote for an undergraduate course alongside a letter introducing that paper (in my case, a paper on the Jewish Holocaust garnered a personal note back from a member of the committee sharing a like-interest in the topic).

Follow-Up:  This is NOT a license to stalk members of your future faculty, most of whom likely have a practice on the side, a research project or two, and a life outside the law school.  Just as with a job interview, send a letter of thanks to the committee (or the individual members if you can determine who they are) along with any RELEVANT information that you'd like to add to the application.  Staying front-of-mind is a good thing.

Competition lies in the soul of "The Law," and admission to a program is really the first step.  Remember that you'll be up against a number of others that are well-qualified as well, so do what you can to stand out.  If you don't get into the school of your choice, remember that you can always reapply the next year, and that you should use that intervening year to gather additional education or experience to augment your application.   Good luck!

It has been said that you'll never know as much law as the day you graduate law school.  That's probably a true statement generally, but in my instance, I'd transform it slightly for a temporal shift to day #1 of the bar exam.

I sat for the Ohio Bar in July 2000, roughly two months after my classes ended at the University of Akron School of Law.  Fresh off of final exams, I decided to take a week of springtime as my own before delving into bar preparation.  That week begat another, then another as academia waned in light of increasingly-warm days.  Returning from the Boys State program (see link to left) in mid-June, I found myself with less than four weeks to get ramped up for the two-and-a-half days of hell to follow.

At the time, I was employed for a company that had recently been bought out and was waiting for restructuring, so I had plenty of opportunities to review outlines at work.  Such was an easy task, as I papered my office in printouts of black letter law, figuring that at least subliminally I would pickup the essentials.  The company was a 50-minute drive each way, so I had large-print index cards on the dashboard to review as I sped down I-71 (stupid idea, don't recommend it).  In the final week, I did more practice questions than I care to remember.

Once in Columbus, a law school buddy and I took a room a few blocks from the testing site, attached to a large downtown mall.  For reference, the gates to that mall opened at 5am, and the Bon Pain (now gone) opened at six.  For three days, I was sitting by those gates, cheap hotel coffee in hand, waiting for the mall to open so I could move into a different study area.

The first day was the hardest, as it was unknown which of the essay topics would appear and thus it was necessary to know them all.  Later days at least permitted the exclusion of some topics that had already been tested.  On day two, Ohio's chief justice visited to share his well-wishes before testing resumed, and actually began the "look to your left, look to your right..." speech before realizing the impropriety of such.  I didn't need the admonition - his clerk was testing across the table from me.

Embarrassingly, ten minutes into day #2, the glasses purchased a week prior fell apart.  In addition to the noise, I had to contend with holding a lens before one eye while writing with another, being quite blind otherwise.  A lovely experience.

We concluded the bar exam rather simply by going for ice cream in a now-gone Columbus institution in German Village before driving home.  In November, my name went up on the Supreme Court's website amongst most of my classmates as one of those that had passed.  I wouldn't want to do it again anytime soon, but it remains one of the most intense intellectual experiences of my life.

For those looking for study options, I can recommend Micromash with the caveat that you have to be disciplined enough to push through the volumes of books and the practice questions, hopefully on a longer timeline than I allowed myself.  Good luck! 

• www.Oyez.com:  This is a fascinating website that provides the history of many Supreme Court cases, including audio versions of the oral arguments in most cases.  If you're in law school and immersed in reading opinions, try listening to these arguments for one of the civil rights cases that you're certain to study along the way.  One of my favorites is Abington Township School District v. Schempp, concerning the rights of a school to "teach morals" out of the Bible.

• Supreme Court of the United States:  This site contains the present docket of the Court, as well as containing the slip opinions for those items you're seeing in the news.

• Kelo v. New London:  I live in a small Ohio town that has recently become the target of a Wal-Mart and a host of other big box retailers, and unfortunately, the town council is rather short-sighted in their belief that these entities will have no impact on the family businesses already in place.  In late June 2005, the 5-4 decision came down from the Supreme Court which allows local governments to utilize eminent domain to seize private property for private development.  Although the Constitution prevents such seizures unless they are for the public good, the Court in this case ruled that deference is due to local governments that believe the seizures and subsequent development will economically benefit the municipality.  In essence, this means a city council could seize a local hardware store to make way for a Home Depot.  I believe that in short time, we will see the influence of this decision, as the big box retailers must still deal with public relations fallout from eminent domain actions, and, in theory, local politicians must still respond to their constituents.