Yale Accepts 6.8% of This Year's Applicants

The Yale Law School is widely regarded as one of the very best law schools in the country.

It's also one of the hardest schools to get into.

This year's admissions statistics show just how daunting the competition is. Yale accepted just 259 of the over 3,670 applicants for seats in its Class of 2010. That means that Yale admitted just 6.8 per cent of this year's applicants.

One of the criteria that candidates were judged by is their performance on a 250-word essay on any topic of their choice. This essay is required in addition to a standard personal statement. Yale advises prospective applicants that "Faculty readers look to this essay to get a glimpse of your character, sense of humor, intellectual passions, analytical abilities, and writing skills. The choice of a topic -- personal anecdote, an academic subject, or current events -- can be illuminating." It's a good example of the crucial role that good writing plays in law school admissions.

SC Justices Teach Summer Courses for Pepperdine

Two Supreme Court Justices will teach short courses for the Pepperdine University School of Law's off-campus summer programs this year.

Justice Samuel Alito will teach a two-week course on constitutional law for Pepperdine in Malibu. Justice Antonin Scalia will teach a two-day course in London, as part of a special Constitutional Law Session being added to Pepperdine's annual six-week summer London Program.

Source: "High Court Advocate Ken Starr Is Justices' Summer Employer," by Tony Mauro, Legal Times (Law.com), March 27, 2007

Your Personal Statement Is a Writing Sample

The University of Chicago's Law School admissions blog uses a March 16 post to remind potential applicants that their personal statements are read carefully -- not just for content, but for the quality of their writing.

Writing matters in law school applications because law students (and lawyers) write a lot. They're expected to write both intelligently and carefully. After all, a mis-used word or a mis-constructed phrase can make all the difference in the way a legal document is interpreted.

Your personal statement is the part of your application that demonstrates your writing skills. You need to be at the very top of your game here. You need to make sure that you convey exactly what you need the admissions committee to know, keeping within the typically tight word limits of a law school statement. And you need not just to spell-check but to edit and proofread your statement carefully, too. The kind of common blunder that spell-checkers won't catch -- like 'too' for 'to,' or 'its' for 'it's' -- could be all that's needed to send your application to the reject pile.

Your law school personal statement may be one of the most important pieces of writing you produce in your legal career. Although law schools will not start accepting 2008 applications until this September, it is by no means too early to start working on your statement. Many applicants are amazed at the amount of time they wind up having to devote to crafting their essays. The sooner you start the reflection and writing process, the better off you'll be when the application season opens.

Harvard Adds Supreme Court Clinic

Starting this fall, students at Harvard Law School will have the chance to cut their teeth on Supreme Court litigation, with the launch of the HLS Supreme Court Clinic.

Students will be taught by Walter E. Dellinger III, who capped a long career of public service with a stint as Acting U.S. Solicitor General in 1996-1997. As such, he was responsible for arguing nine cases for the U.S. Government before the Supreme Court. The cases he argued dealt with physician-assisted suicide, line item vetos, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and other issues.

Students in the Supreme Court Clinic will also assist attorneys who are handling Supreme Court cases. They will be asked to conduct research, draft briefs and arguments, and help devise strategy.

Five other law schools offer Supreme Court clinics: Stanford, Yale, Northwestern, UT Austin, and the University of Virginia.

Source: "Students Help Prep for Supreme Court," by Kevin Zhou, the Harvard Crimson, February 7, 2007

Northwestern Smooths Path to JD/PhD

Northwestern University will introduce revisions to its J.D./Ph.D. program this fall that will make completing the joint degree easier -- and more affordable.

Summer sessions will be added to the five-year program to help students make progress with their dissertations and research.

In addition, Northwestern will extend full financial support for the J.D. part of the program to qualified students. University officials think they may be the first school in the country to offer full J.D./Ph.D. funding. The program is meant to benefit future academics who would have difficulty paying off law school debts on professorial salaries. J.D./Ph.D. graduates who receive this funding but who do not go into academia will be asked to repay Northwestern for the cost of their J.D. program.

Around 65 students have already applied for admission to the J.D./Ph.D. program next year.

Salaries Climb Higher for Top Law School Grads

The New York law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has raised the base salary for its first-year associates to $160,000, according to a report in the New York Law Journal.

The increase is likely to be matched by other law firms.

Law firms began raising associates' salaries last year, increasing annual salaries for brand-new J.D.s from the $125,000 that had been the standard for years to $145,000 in New York and $130,000 to $135,000 elsewhere.

Law firms usually follow one another's lead on associate salaries because they are all competing for a relatively small pool of graduates from the top law schools.

Source: "Simpson Hikes Pay; First-Years Go to $160,000," by Anthony Lin, the New York Law Journal, January 23, 2007

LSAT Test Dates for 2007-2008

The LSAC has published a list of LSAT test dates for the 2007-2008 application season. The test will be given on:

-Monday, June 11, 2007

-Saturday, September 29, 2007

(Alternate date for Saturday Sabbath observers: Monday, October 1)

- Saturday, December 1, 2007

(Alternate date for Saturday Sabbath observers: Monday, December 3)

- Saturday, February 2, 2008

(Alternate date for Saturday Sabbath observers: Monday, February 4)

For more information, see the LSAC webpage.