If you are researching financial aid for law school, you may know that the 2017-18 FAFSA is now available - 3 months earlier than in the past. Previously, the FAFSA was able to be completed any time after January 1, and this date has been moved up to October 1.

While the majority of law students come to law school directly from college, there are a significant number who come from the workplace. If you are someone who started working after graduating from college and are now considering going to law school, you may be nervous about whether it’s a problem that you don’t really remember everything you learned in college. And you may be wondering what you can or should do to prepare for law school.

The answer is—pretty much nothing. Your college experience, whatever it was and whenever it took place, will not hold you back. And your work experience is an asset, not a liability.

Historically, law schools focused almost exclusively on teaching students substantive legal concepts and developing corresponding analytical and writing skills. While this traditional core – “learning to think and write like a lawyer” -- remains at the center of the law school curriculum, it has become clear that law students need to develop other skills and knowledge to be successful once they graduate. Thus, we have seen a proliferation of course offerings focused on matters such as effective communication and leadership, adeptness with technology, and data analysis.

College students considering law school often ask which major will prepare them for success in law school. The answer is simple: choose a major that challenges you, requires you to think deeply, broadens your horizons, and sparks your passion. 

When I walked into the Juvenile Justice Clinic at the start of the spring semester, I was excited for a change in my learning experience as a law student. I had grown accustomed to the classroom experience and was anticipating gaining an understanding of the judicial process from a hands-on perspective. To me, participating in the Juvenile Justice Clinic and working with the Public Defender’s Unit was an opportunity to learn the administrative processes of not just the courtroom but how each judge prefers to run their respective courts.

Congratulations! You have a judicial clerkship interview. You studied hard, earned good grades, wrote a stellar judicial clerkship cover letter, and submitted an application that rose to the top of a very large pile. Now what? How do you land that coveted clerkship? These tips will help you stand out for all the right reasons:

My participation in the Immigrants’ Rights/International Human Rights Clinic was by far my most memorable experience in law school. Professor Farrin Anello assigned my partner and I to a time-sensitive case. The client was a young woman who recently fled Guatemala and had entered the United States without a visa. After being apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, she was sent to Delaney Hall Detention Center right here in Newark, where she was being held when we met her. Her bond hearing was rapidly approaching, and Catholic Charities brought her case to the attention of the Center for Social Justice. After reviewing the documents from our client’s initial interview with an asylum officer, we believed that she had a strong domestic violence-based asylum claim.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a public letter while he was imprisoned in Birmingham jail. In it, he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Of course I’d heard this quote many times throughout my life, but I suppose in all honesty it affected me in the way most grandiose platitudes did: not much. We all innately feel that injustice cannot be tolerated, however, until injustice finds its way into our day-to-day lives, we are hard-pressed to find the motivation to take action, or the ability to comprehend what it truly means to face injustice.

Students planning to attend law school have a variety of success indicators they should consider when choosing where to apply, and many resources with which to consult. Most of these are based on raw data: location, numbers, scholarship retention, rankings, and employment rates. But one is not. It’s a factor that no internet source, brochure, or twitter feed can give you information about, and may, in many cases, be the most important factor. Let’s get to the data first:

Surviving law school while pregnant and raising three small children (two of them twins!) is by no means easy. How do I manage? How do I do it? Well, it’s truly a perfect storm, and it really comes down to a positive attitude, surrounding myself with those who love and believe in me, and wanting deep down inside, above all, to make a difference and a better world.