Although there is no such thing as a perfect law school, try to select one whose atmosphere is comfortable for you. Try to find one whose "personality" most closely matches your own. Talk to students and faculty, and avoid schools where students and/or professors are not congenial; otherwise, you will be miserable and your grades will reflect it.
Visit the Law School:
The best method for determining if a particular law school is congenial and "right" for you is to visit that school. Tour the career services office and library and check out the activities in the hallways; do students talk and joke after class or do they rush off? Ask professors if you can visit their classes; also, plan to attend any functions the school offers during your visit. Visit with faculty, administrators, and students, keeping in mind that law students' main topics of conversation center around law classes, professors, legal issues, and last but certainly not least, getting jobs. If students have time, they will be more than happy to share their insights about the school with you. However, try not to visit schools in May or December, around exam time, when students are under pressure to study for finals.
Check If It Offers Courses Of Your Preference:
The Official Guide lists "special programs" offered by various law schools. If you have an interest in a specific area of law, you may want to choose a school strong in that specialty area. For example, if you have an interest in litigation, choose a school that is involved in hands-on legal clinics; this will establish experience and direct judicial contacts. If you have an interest in entertainment law, you should probably consider a California or New York law school where that industry is highly emphasized. Whatever your interest, sports law, tax law, international law, environmental law, compare each school's course offerings in that field. Then select a school that best matches your specific interests. If you have no special area of interest upon entering law school, don't be too concerned; most beginning students fall into this category. Even if you have a particular interest, law students have been known to change their minds after entering law school, so you might wish to choose a school that is respected in several different areas of law. This course of action accommodates multiple interests and also allows flexibility for change.
Professors' Backgrounds:
Since a school's reputation hinges so heavily on its faculty, one bench mark of a good school is having faculty members with diverse backgrounds and educational experiences who bring those experiences and that expertise into the classroom. School catalogs are excellent sources of information about full-time faculty, providing information such as where they received their law degrees as well as any advanced degrees like a Master of Laws (LL.M.) or academic doctorates such as the S.J.D. or J.S.D., their areas of specialization, their accomplishments, and other relevant information. Glance through the catalogs to see how many professors have advanced degrees from top schools, how many are former judges, how many have served judicial clerkships at the U.S. Supreme Court or in other judicial capacities, how many have worked in state or federal agencies, private practice, or for corporations. Also, look for schools that have faculty diverse as to race, religion, and gender.
You will only be as educated as those who educate you, so choose schools whose faculty members are respected as authorities in their fields. Faculty should be respected for their ability to teach as well as for their scholarly research, which may include such publications as treatises, casebooks, and journal articles.
Questions you might ask to gain additional insight into the caliber of a school's faculty include: Have faculty members taught at other law schools throughout the country? If so, which ones? Why did they leave? Do they have a love for teaching the law or are they at the school merely because they were outstanding legal scholars or because of their legal experiences?
Availability of Professors to Assist Students Outside of Class:
The complexity of material covered in class often requires that a student seek assistance for further clarification. Appropriate questions in this area might include: Do faculty members have posted office hours? Do they maintain an open door policy or would they prefer not to be bothered by students? Do some professors conduct only research or do all professors teach?
Professors who engage in outside activities such as research, other scholarly activity, or outside consulting should be able to enhance their teaching by bringing into the classroom their real-world experiences. However, at the same time, they may tend to deprive students of their time as they pursue, or are forced to pursue, outside interests.
If you're uncertain about whether or not to register for a particular professor's course, and you have a choice, check with other students. The proverbial grapevine is alive and well in law school.
Student Organizations:
There are as many student organizations on a law school campus as there are varied interests and backgrounds. Check law school catalogs to determine which organizations are available at law schools in which you're interested. In addition, you may wish to make certain these organizations are currently active and do not merely exist within the school catalog.
Each law school has a law review, which is a journal containing scholarly articles, notes, and commentaries about various court decisions. Students may be selected to write for law review on the basis of either their class rank (normally those in the top 10 percent of the class), or through a successful entry in a writing competition. Serving on law review considerably improves your chances for employment. Employers recognize that you are either exceptionally bright or that you possess the ability to express yourself clearly and concisely, or both.
School Activities:
School activities vary from school to school. Professional activities that most schools have in common include mock trial and moot court competitions; both provide students excellent experience in the art of oral advocacy. The mock trial, as the name implies, is an imitation trial where one student team represents the plaintiff, another student team represents the defendant, and other students portray the witnesses. The judge can be a professor, a local practicing attorney, or a real judge. At the end of the trial, the judge will comment on the teams' performances and declare a winner. For those planning to become litigators, participation in oral advocacy competition is strongly recommended.
Law School Facilities:
The best method for checking out law school facilities is to visit the law school. You will be spending three years there, so it is worth the time and money expended to make certain you are comfortable with what a particular school has to offer. If you cannot visit the school, read The Official Guide and, more importantly, the law school catalogs themselves. Since the law school library will be your home away from home, it should rank high on your list as one of the most important aspects of any law school.
All ABA-approved law school libraries have instituted prescribed requirements to assure that research materials deemed essential for the study of law are present for student use. Typically, such materials include case reporters (national and regional, official and unofficial), case digests, treatises, scholarly journals (including law reviews from various law schools), tax materials legal encyclopedias and state statutes such as Vernon's, federal regulations as well as various reference works, legal publications and periodicals. How much time is allocated to teaching students to use such services? Are the services available for general student use? Will students have to pay a user fee? Since we have stressed that the library is one of, if not the most, important aspect of a law school, you need to ask some pointed questions about it. What are the library's hours? Libraries should open before the start of classes and remain open into the early morning hours; in other words, be open basically twenty-four hours a day.
Other Requisite Infrastructure
In addition to the library facilities, there are other law school facilities that you should consider. You should scrutinize the classrooms for the same environmental amenities you look for in the library. Are the classrooms conducive to learning? What about lighting? Temperature? Is there a combination of classrooms - large for traditional first-year courses and small for upper-level courses and seminars? Are there specific rooms to be used for mock trial and moot court purposes? Does the school have a spacious courtroom where judges come to hear and resolve cases in that locale? Is there a room with chairs, sofas, and other accommodations for students to congregate and visit between classes that can also be used for lectures by guest speakers, for organizational meetings, or for law school social events? Is there a snack room or dining facility for students who don't have time to eat elsewhere between classes? Are lockers provided to students who don't have access to study carrels? Where are professors' offices located? Are they easily accessible to all students?
Geographic Proximity to Loved Ones:
Geography will affect your law school decision in two ways: where you plan to attend law school and where you plan to practice law after graduation from law school. Perhaps you would like to attend law school in an area close to your loved ones. There is much to be said about the moral support of your family when you are trying to adapt to the stresses of law school.
Reputation (National, Regional, and Local):
Reputation of a law school is important for several reasons. First, if you attend a top law school, you increase your opportunities for employment upon graduation because reputation is especially important among prospective employers. Therefore, check with prospective employers to determine which law schools they consider to have excellent reputations, and visit with other students or recent graduates, keeping in mind that they may be slightly biased toward their law school. Second, if you opt not to practice law, your degree from a national school will more readily enable you to secure work in government, business, journalism, or any other field. While the ABA discourages any type of law school ranking, some periodicals such as U.S. News and World Report conduct an annual survey that ranks the top 25 U.S. law schools.
Living Conditions (Cost of Living):
How expensive will it be to live in the area where you plan to attend law school? Your college library should have cost of living indexes for various parts of the country. Also, consult The Official Guide under the "Housing" section to determine if on-campus residence halls are available for single students, if there is affordable housing located nearby, approximate costs, and other related information. Also, write to respective law schools to obtain any available apartment association and housing publications. If you are fortunate enough to attend a law school that is an affiliate of a major undergraduate school, the parent institution often assists in keeping your costs down by providing an additional source of facilities. This might include sports teams, an activities center, campus theater groups, and Broadway musicals, hopefully, all at student discounts.
