Game Plan for Getting into Law School (Petersons)

 (4 customer reviews)

This is a thorough book explaining the law school application process in detail. Includes checklists and timetables, as well as suggestions as to how to minimize the damage of grade fluctuations in a college record and the effect of medicre LSAT scores. It also provides strategies to employ in applying to law school for those of us without stellar LSATs and high grades. A section on a Texas case that laid bare the mysterious methods of law school admission committees was especially helpful. It is a little clipped in places and sometimes too glib, but is a good source of information.

I found this guide to be extremely helpful in certain areas. For choosing schools, Weaver classifies schools as "national," "regional," "subregional," or "local." These categories are very useful in analyzing one's job prospects coming out of each type of school. He warns against using absolute rankings beyond the top dozen schools in U.S. News, identifying these as "national" schools. In addition, Weaver relies on input from law students to determine whether this elite set of schools changes over time.For writing recommendation letters, you will be hard-pressed to find a better guide anywhere. In addition to a detailed section that weighs the pros and cons of different types of recommenders (professors, employers, famous people, lawyers, and others), there is a very handy appendix which contains UTEP Law School Preparation Institute guidelines for faculty and employer recommenders. I used the appendix very often when soliciting...Read more

This book provides the type of common sense advice that you could probably get from your father, a teacher, or a guidance counselor. It substitutes vagaries for hard advice. You probably already know that you need a good GPA and LSAT score to get into law school. You probably know that you should start considering law schools early so that you can request and prepare applications. You also probably know that law schools want a good personal statement and strong recommendations from professors.Instead of spending your money on this book, I would buy a LSAT preparation book. There is nothing in this book that you can't figure out on your own.