Students of all ages and experience levels often wonder how to appropriately express their professional credentials on their law school application. Whether you have college jobs, an internship, or twenty years of professional experience under your belt, there are a few overall guidelines you can follow to get the biggest application bang from your experience buck.

Congratulations! You’ve been accepted to law school. You’ve received your acceptance from the Admissions Office and your Financial Aid Award letter. Now what? What steps do you need to take to receive your financial aid awards?

Summer.

It’s that glorious time chock full of barbeques, poolside relaxation, the smell of sunscreen, and sunshine-filled, long, warm days.

Not up here in the Office of Career Services, though. You’d think it was 6 PM on Christmas Eve in the jewelry department at Bloomingdales up here. It’s crazy time! For us, summer means that the clerkship application season is in full gear and Fall OCI is just around the corner. June is the time that cover letters and resumes by the ton are being edited, mock interviews are underway, and there is a massive outreach to the many employers who will flow through our doors later in the summer to scoop up our wonderful students. So as you are preparing for our little OCS “Christmas in July”, now would be a good time to consider some of our tips for job interviews.

Post updated October 22, 2019
Most admissions professionals spend a considerable amount of time helping law school applicants understand the various ranking mechanisms that are out there and trying to guide prospective law students to a rational, thoughtful use of these tools.

Before we dig into this – I want to caution you that the use of any of these tools should only be one part of your analysis. It is important for you to do your homework by visiting schools you are interested in, seeking out data and information from websites and professionals at the schools, and talking to alumni. No single rank or publication should dictate your choices. Available information is best used in an all-inclusive approach.

Finding outside scholarships was much easier than I expected. I was surprised to learn how much funding is available for current students. Each scholarship has a different criterion. Sometimes scholarships are geared towards students pursuing an area of law, such as health law, criminal law or public interest. Sometimes scholarships are geared towards a category of students such as women, first generation law students, or New Jersey residents.

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. 

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:

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:

Plagiarism — the use of someone else’s words or ideas in writing without proper attribution — is one of the easiest ways to ruin your academic or professional reputation. Just ask Senator John Walsh, whose Master’s degree from the United States War College was rescinded after it was discovered that he copied large portions of his final thesis without attribution. Or Benny Johnson, the BuzzFeed writer who was dismissed after Twitter users pointed out dozens of examples in his articles of “sentences or phrases copied word for word from other sites.”

As a law student, being scrupulous about avoiding plagiarism is particularly important, as a plagiarism violation could be used as evidence of poor “character and fitness” when you apply for admission to the bar. For lawyers already in practice, plagiarism can be grounds for professional discipline.

Law students hoping to practice in the area of Family Law can position themselves to achieve that goal by following this advice. While no one thing will guarantee a successful career in one specific area of the law, a combination of multiple experiences and associations will make the likelihood of employment in that area increase. Here are a few ideas to get you started. 

Tip #1: Build your network.