Posted by TDot on Nov 29, 2011 in
The 3L Life Sunday night I posted an entry outlining my rationale for seriously considering solo/SmallLaw practice after I (hopefully) graduate from NCCU Law on May 12th, 2012.
And yes, I keep a running countdown of the 165-in-151ish-minutes days until I’m done with school 
This entry goes over some of the pros and cons I’ve mulled over a bit as I tossed this idea around in my head these last couple weeks. It’s not intended to be an exhaustive list, and our commenters from the last entry had links I need to review with info I haven’t checked out yet (it’s on the post-exam to-do list).
I’m writing it down now to (i) get feedback from you readers and any current/aspiring solos who happen to stop by, and (ii) provide a record for myself so I don’t forget 
We’ll start with the risks/cons/downsides, because frankly right now they scare me more than the rewards/pros/upsides…
T.’s Initial Reasons AGAINST Going Solo After Graduation:
- Risk of shortchanging clients due to inexperience: This is far and away my biggest worry — I don’t want to be doing “on the job training” when someone else’s interests are at stake and risk screwing up as a result. Maybe it’s just not-a-lawyer-yet naiveté that I’ll outgrow, but the risk of someone paying me for something and getting less-than-perfect representation just really unnerves me. It’s one thing to go solo after working in a firm where you’ve had a chance to have other people looking over your shoulder for a few years, but I’d literally have nothing but clinical experience to guide me if I went solo right out of the gate.
- How are bills getting paid again?: Second issue priority-wise is finding revenue those first few months out. I know I could manage money frugally enough and hustle hard enough to build up a financially adequate client base over the long-term, but have no clue at all how I’d keep the lights on from August through February.
- There’s a lot of @#$%ing paperwork: Incorporating. Insurance. Leases. Taxes. Contracts. Employees one day, with all the payroll stuff that goes with it. Making contingency plans for clients in case I die unexpectedly. There’s a lot of paperwork and related stuff that has -0- actual relation to the law part of practicing law, that I’d not only have to knock out up-front if I started my own firm but also monitor regularly for eternity. And after already becoming a criminal because I forgot a postage stamp, I’m not exactly enthused by those obligations.
- The Triangle has several metric tons of attorneys: Although I’m not categorically averse to moving elsewhere in North Carolina, most of my network and support structure are here in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area… along with what seems like every other attorney in the state Being a new entrant in an established marketplace is a difficult challenge without some kind of hook/niche I could stake out.
- I’d need a secretary…: This ties in to the 2nd and 3rd issues above. Given my own personal shortcomings, I’d need someone on staff to look over my shoulder and make sure paperwork gets completed, calls get answered, appointments don’t get double-booked, and so on. But I have no clue how I’d be able to afford them until I’ve got a decent stream of clients coming in.
- …but I’m a big teddy bear when it comes to critiquing/firing people: My management skills also apparently need work. I’ve been told that I’m stellar at motivating people, getting a team to get things done, that sort of stuff; I’m also brutal when people are so glaringly incompetent that they have to be canned. On the other hand, I’ve also been told I’ve let people remain in positions long after they should have been fired when they’re less incompetent and more just lazy, instead hoping they’ll shape up. Not sure I’m sufficiently dispassionate to make the tough decisions on disciplining/firing people.
So that’s the first batch of reasons why me going solo would be a bad idea. Now for the counterweight:
T.’s Initial Reasons FOR Going Solo After Graduation:
- After 13 years in NC, I’ve got a fairly wide network: The main justification for starting a business of some kind, be it law or otherwise, is that I’ve been incredibly blessed to meet a boatload of people since I moved to North Carolina way back in 1998. I know folks from my first time at N.C. State, the places I worked over the 5 years I was a college dropout and political activist, my second time at N.C. State, and everyone I’ve crossed paths with in my roles as Student Senate President, UNCASG President, and SBA President here at the law school. These folks, and the folks they know, would be the first step in a potential client pool.
- I’ve got a talent for building things: It’s something reflected thoroughly in my personality (at least in every personality test I’ve taken). Whether it’s my brief stint as a professional web developer back in the early 2000s, restructuring Student Governments, writing a blawg for a couple years, or something else — I greatly enjoy (and am at least marginally skilled at) building organizations. The whole “vision thing” hasn’t been a problem yet.
- Excellent support at NCCU Law and NCSU: Part of my reluctance to leave the Triangle is knowing I’ve got a top-notch set of faculty and staff I can ask for information or ideas if I really need it. It’s an ironic by-product of being a less-than-stellar student academically but otherwise a reasonably acceptable human being
- Free access to 3 different libraries: State law requires that library facilities at UNC-system institutions be open to the public during “regular” operating hours, which includes NCSU, UNCCH, and NCCU all here in the Triangle. There’s also a requirement that the law libraries at NCCU Law and UNCCH Law have kiosks for public use of Wexis as well. I could save a ton on legal research just by using the resources made available through my tax dollars.
- No significant monetary commitments right now: I don’t have a mortgage, my car’s paid off (even though it breaks down regularly), I’m unmarried, and the only dependent living in my apartment has four legs and barks at people. For the past 2 years I’ve lived off less than $30,000 and been more-or-less-OK financially. I’d certainly like to make more than that — especially with student loan payments coming up — but I’m not addicted to a huge salary so I’ve got some flexibility to take calculated risks right now.
- I am my own IT Department: If there’s an upside to taking 6 years to get a 4-year computer science degree, it’s being able to handle tech needs on my own without hiring an IT guy
- Freedom: The biggest upside to going the solo/SmallLaw route is having freedom to do whatever. If I want to create a specialty practice, I can. If I want to go a general practice route, I can. If I want to randomly change what I’m practicing entirely, I can do that too. It ensures I’m never more than a single decision away from continuing to enjoy what I do for a living.
So that’s my initial set of pros/cons as of tonight. I’m sure there will be many more down the road, but for now if feel free to share your thoughts at your leisure! 
Thanks and have a great night!
—===—
From the law:/dev/null archives on me going solo after graduation:
Tags: 3L, Career Prospects, Money Money Money, NC State, NCCU Law, SBA, SG, UNCASG, UNCCH Law
Posted by TDot on Nov 12, 2011 in
Randomness Waaayyyyy back during the halcyon days following 1L year, I wrote this entry explaining why I supported the “strict C” curve we use at the North Carolina Central University School of Law. “Setting the middle grade in the middle of the grading scale,” I wrote back then, “provides law professors with a full range of options to give you — and gives you the student a full range of feedback so you know where you’re weak and need to improve.”
In the subsequent comments I expanded on that theme a smidge more, but basically my philosophy on the curve was/is this: we’re attending law school to become proficient in the law (not simply to become employed as lawyers), grades are the best opportunity for professors to give feedback to students on where they’re strong or weak, and anything short of what we use at NCCU Law encourages “innovation”/inflation in grading to the point where that feedback becomes functionally useless.
Nothing I’ve seen or experienced in the 17 months since writing that post has prompted me to change my mind or otherwise reconsider my position.
Well now the faculty are contemplating some tweaks to the curve — whether or not to explicitly codify it in a new publicly-distributed document and, if so, whether to inflate where it’s centered — and I’m in a bit of a pickle as SBA President as a result. Literally 100% of the classmates I’ve spoken to about the issue over the past 2 years have expressed unconditional hostility toward our grading system…
…and I still think they’re all wrong
The main argument given to me is that inflating the curve will make our people more competitive in the job market, especially with bigger employers who don’t bother to read the paragraph of text atop our transcripts explaining we use a C curve.
It’s an understandable theory, but (to the extent people pay attention to rankings or “brand name”) we’re still a regional Tier IV law school that simply cannot expand much beyond where we are without spending a ridiculous amount of money. Consider: Campbell Law‘s tuition and fees ($33,910.00) are downright obscene compared to what NCCU Law charges ($5,207.49) and they’ve only just now broken from Tier IV to the very bottom of Tier III — still only regional in reach, with graduates still facing the same challenges as us Legal Eagles if they try to venture beyond the borders of North Carolina.
Then there’s my personal suspicion that NCCU Law just plain doesn’t tell it’s story very well. Judging by the search queries and the emails I get, apparently law:/dev/null is one of the main sources of information for prospective students looking to attend the institution. Now as much as I love (love love love) the attention and visitors, it’s downright crazy that a one-man blawg can have any marketing reach at all relative to an established law school with decades of alumni. If you’re concerned about employability of the portion of our graduates going to other states, let’s get our branding and outreach up to par before we start tinkering with the grading system.
While the potential benefits to re-centering the curve are hypothetical at best, I’d argue the things we lose as a result are far more concrete.
The family atmosphere at the law school (see #4 on why NCCU Law was my first choice) is rooted on the shared experience of trying to overcome such a gruesome curve; being one of the survivors of 1L year is A Big Deal™. And our graduates are practice-ready on Day 1 because we don’t sugarcoat incompetence — if you do something poorly, the curve let’s you know you do something poorly. I can’t help but feel a little nauseous every time I hear Jack Boger (Dean at UNCCH Law) talk about all the “innovative” things they’re doing to make UNCCH Law grads practice-ready — stuff NCCU Law has been doing literally for years through our clinical programs, rigorous grading, and willingness to kick out people who come up short.
Is it worth sacrificing our identity as a no-bullsh*t law school just for a boost to some folks’ GPAs? Sacrificing graduates who are practice-ready on Day 1? Sacrificing the “we’re in this together” mentality?
Personally I vote no.
I know I’ve got a roughly 0% chance of convincing my colleagues to concur though, so I’ll just have to grab a bag of popcorn and see what happens next
Good night folks!
Tags: 3L, Campbell Law, NCCU Law, SBA, The Curve, Tuition & Fees, UNCCH Law
Posted by TDot on Jun 22, 2011 in
Mail I know y’all, it’s been well over a week since my last entry where I said I’d have this entry ready to roll ”on Monday or Tuesday this coming week” — I’d give you an excuse, but you can probably already guess what it is.
So can we all just pretend that when I said “this coming week” I meant the week after the week that was actually coming at the time? Yes? Great. 
Although I’ve gotten a smattering of questions from current and prospective students in the 10 months since I last put one of these entries together, the bulk of them were so über-fact-specific that they weren’t really suitable candidates for including on the blawg. But with end-of-1L grades getting released and folks experiencing the same shellshocked reactions I saw firsthand last year, there’s been renewed interest in how NCCU Law handles grading, curving, dismissal and so on.
So, without further ado, here are your questions — answered.
***
Q: William asks:
Just read your entry on making Dean’s List again. But grades don’t matter right? 
A: If you read that Dean’s List entry, then hopefully it meant you also read this footnote written in anticipation of an email just like the one you sent 
Needless to say, I stand by my earlier commentary. Most grades at most law schools get determined by a single final exam, or a combination of a final preceded by a midterm. These aren’t like grades in undergrad or high school or even how you’d be “graded” on a job, where you’re given multiple assignments over a given timeframe and tested on things like time management and ingenuity in addition to raw knowledge.
Now I realize there are few absolutes in life — in some cases good grades are genuinely a sign that someone’s a legal genius who will make a phenomenal attorney, and in some cases bad grades are genuinely a sign that someone just doesn’t “get it” and would end up as a Joseph Rakofsky-grade incompetent if they were given a law license.
But for the overwhelming majority of the however-many-thousands of people graduating law school every year, including here at NCCU Law, a string of subjectively-scored 1-time 3-hour exams is a meaningless measurement of someone’s skill and potential as a lawyer.
That rule applies to me too. My excitement over making Dean’s List this past Fall and again in the Spring had nothing at all to do with some misplaced belief that I’ll make an amazing litigator as a result. I just derive great joy from getting to disabuse people of their mistaken beliefs, including the higher-ranked classmates, friends at other schools, and occasional professors who all made the mistake of concluding I was an inept buffoon because I spent my 1L year saving students millions of dollars instead of worrying about my classes
***
The answers to the next two questions are rooted in the same background, so I’m pairing them together -
Q: Danielle asks:
Why is our curve so ridiculously low? And we don’t have A+’s?
Q: And Kevin asks:
What’s the rationale on the dismissal policy?
A: NCCU Law‘s strict-C curve and its 2.0-or-out dismissal policy are both byproducts of being what the administration labels “a school of opportunity.”
Remember that NCCU Law was created by the N.C. General Assembly way back in 1939, an era when de jure segregation was the reality across the country. The politicians created the law school specifically so that aspiring black attorneys could get a “separate but equal” legal education without trying to attend a white law school.
The only other public law school in the state, UNCCH Law, wouldn’t accept black students until forced to do so by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 1951 lawsuit challenging its admissions practices. Private Duke Law and WFU Law wouldn’t desegregate until the 1960s. Campbell Law, Elon Law, and Charlotte Law didn’t exist. And even if a black student managed to graduate and pass the bar exam, they were still categorically denied admission to influential industry groups like the N.C. Bar Association.
This second-class status for black attorneys and black law students was reflected in the Legislature’s second-hand funding for “the Negros’ law school,” as NCCU Law grappled with an inadequate building, a minimal law library, few faculty and related problems. As an example, for a good chunk of the law school’s history its law library was stocked with the out-of-date books discarded by the neighboring law schools at UNCCH and Duke. 
The point of noting all that background is to highlight that NCCU Law was created to educate students that other schools wouldn’t take; it’s part of our law school’s DNA. That legacy is reflected in the admissions data: even today our GPA and LSAT scores of admitted students are among the very lowest in the country (we’re functionally tied at the bottom with 2 other HBCUs, FAMU Law and Southern Law). The law school views its job as providing an opportunity to people who are willing to take advantage of it, regardless of how they “measure up” on paper.
Which finally brings me around to the questions at hand From a philosophical perspective, the strict-C curve exists because the faculty believe (and I agree) that it’s the best way to gauge student performance. And from a practical perspective, law schools bumping their curves use the Lake Wobegon defense as a smokescreen — something that can’t credibly be done with our mission and legacy. The curve ensures students have earned the grades they get.
Working in tandem with the curve but serving a slightly different purpose, the law school’s policy of dismissing students if they fall below a 2.0 at the end of any year is designed to “separate the chaff from the wheat” as the Biblical saying goes. Since it’s statistically possible for every student to make a 2.0 or above, and the school is taking what it considers a “calculated risk” by admitting students whose quantitative credentials wouldn’t get them in elsewhere, the assumption is that someone who doesn’t hit a 2.0 (and hasn’t already withdrawn before Spring final exams) must not be taking their educational opportunity seriously enough to continue. So those folks get a letter telling them they’ve been dismissed and then have to wait at least a year before they can petition to return.
***
Q: Nina asks:
How exactly does the dismissal policy work, as far as coming back goes?
A: The dismissal policy and petition process can both be found in the Student Handbook distributed to 1Ls each year (in the 2010-11 edition it’s in §1.09). Basically only 1Ls who have between 1.8-1.999 are eligible to petition for readmission; if a student’s GPA is below 1.8, their only option is to reapply as a completely brand new student at least 2 or more years after their dismissal.
For eligible students, they get 1 chance to submit a petition to the Standards Committee for readmission the year after they are dismissed. To quote from the policy, the petition must “demonstrate that extraordinary circumstances resulted in his/her substandard academic performance. Extraordinary circumstances are those that do not ordinarily occur. Financial concerns, employment obligations, family illness or commuting distances normally involve no element of extraordinary circumstances. The petitioner must demonstrate that the extraordinary circumstances have been resolved and that, if re-admitted, he or she will be able to successfully handle the rigors of legal education.”
Following review of the petition and an optional presentation by the petitioner in person, the members of the Committee vote on whether or not the student should be reinstated the following Fall semester. Decisions on reinstatement are usually released in mid-June.
***
Q: Susan asks:
What are the GPA cutoffs for honors? Dean’s List? Do we get notified?
A: You can find the listings for academic honors on this page of the NCCU Law website. Cum laude requires a GPA of 3.000 to 3.299, magna cum laude is from 3.300 to 3.499, and summa cum laude is 3.500 and above. All of those are of course based on your GPA at the time of graduation.
The Dean’s List is compiled on a per-semester basis, and includes all students who earn a 3.0 and above. Students on Dean’s List can get a certificate from the Registrar’s Office upon request, a lapel pin from the NCCU main campus in the week before Convocation, and will have their name included on the massive posters created by main campus listing everyone at the entire University who made Dean’s List each semester.
And it’s up to each student to know whether or not they made Dean’s List on their own; there is no individualized “Hey btw you made Dean’s List!” emails or anything like that
***
That’s it for this entry y’all Thanks again to all of you for your continued support of law:/dev/null, and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send an email to tdot [at] lawdevnull.com!
—===—
From the Mailbag archives:
- TDot’s Mailbag v6.0: 1L Questions Edition -
- Do we really need to study 60 hours a week?
- My study partners study all day; am I missing something?
- How time-consuming is being an SBA Representative?
- Should I use “canned” briefs or create my own?
- Is law school really just a big head game?
- What’s the biggest difference between 1L year and 2L year?
- What made you pursue law after having done computer science?
- TDot’s Mailbag v5.0: What Law School’s Really Like -
- Admissions?
- Bar Exam?
- The Work?
- Professors?
- Electives?
- Extracurriculars?
- What would you do differently?
- TDot’s Mailbag v4.0 -
- What really made you dislike BigLaw?
- Why were 2 of the top 4 teams in the K-S competition from T4s?
- What happened to Tweet-sized Tuesdays and the Friday Drive-by?
- How did your CivPro I final exam turn out?
- TDot’s Mailbag v3.0 -
- What’s your email address?
- Do you really send/receive thousands of text messages in a month?
- How are you adjusting to a historically black university?
- Are you really a Republican?
- TDot’s Mailbag v2.0 -
- Did you have a bunch of study materials for the LSAT?
- How well did you do on the LSAT?
- How did you do in your election for 1L SBA Rep?
- Who is in the Gang of Eight?
- TDot’s Mailbag v1.0 -
- What does law:/dev/null mean?
- Did your entry about That Guy really happen?
- Did you really count the lights from your apartment to school?
Tags: 1L, 2L, Campbell Law, Charlotte Law, Duke Law, Elon Law, FAMU Law, Fan Mail, Law Grades, NCCU Law, SULC, The Curve, UNCCH Law, WFU Law
Posted by TDot on Aug 16, 2010 in
The 2L Life Good evening y’all!
The first day of my 2L year at NCCU Law is officially done! ::happy dance::
It’s interesting how much different everything feels as a no-longer-1L. Several of the 3Ls were walking around with a “we have class?” look on their faces, while the 1Ls had that “we have class!!!” look instead. The 2Ls were somewhere in the middle, my guess reflecting a new level of comfort with the law school and the whole educational process.
I figured I’d jot down some initial impressions to see how they stack up once the semester is over…
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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: HISTORY, LAW & PRACTICE
====================
NCCU Law was one of the first law schools in the country (and the first HBCU) to develop a clinical program dealing with domestic violence issues. This class is the prereq for working in the clinic and is my first class of the day on Mondays and Thursdays — and several 3Ls tell me the course has a reputation as being the most-work-per-credit-hour-earned at the school Professor DVLaw seems personable though, so that should makes it more bearable.
The material is another story. The background details aren’t necessary for a family-friend blog like law:/dev/null, but let’s just say I’ve developed a very visceral impulse reaction toward people who abuse others. And I can already tell trying to learn the law and apply it rationally will be a challenge.
For example, today we were given an in-class exercise featuring three trial themes often used by both the prosecution and the defense in real life domestic violence cases: framing it as (i) an issue of personal choices, (ii) an issue of luck/chance, or (iii) an issue of social standing. We were then given the basic facts of an actual Durham DV case we chose at random: a man attacked a woman, pulled her hair, knocked her (1-year-old) child to the ground, and when the police arrived he verbally threatened to kill both her and her other (7-years-old) child when he got out of prison.
Our task? Come up with an argument on the spot as though we were the defense attorney, and then afterwards do the same as though we were the prosecutor. I had the “personal choices” theme with 2 of my classmates, and I totally failed at coming up with anything defense-oriented. All I kept wondering is what “choice” the 1-year-old had in getting knocked to the ground, or what “choice” the 7-year-old had in being threatened. Thinking about the fact pattern just really pissed me off, and I was in a dour mood for most of the class because of it.
My displeasure must have been written on my face or something, because when we switched over to the prosecution side Prof DV points to me saying “this will probably make you feel better.”
Definitely going to be a challenge…
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EVIDENCE
====================
Evidence is next in the schedule, and the first thing I noticed is how f*cking PACKED the room was — I swear every 2L and their sister must have signed up for this section of this class. There were even a trio of students who showed up late and had to spend the entire class sitting on the steps because we didn’t have enough desks left in the room 
Even though Professor FRE teaches CrimLaw for one of the other 1L sections (not mine), I did talk with him on a couple occasions during summer school and he seems like a quality guy. Good sense of humor, movie buff, former basketball player, etc. Should keep things interesting.
The class itself started with some preliminaries, then we watched the first 10 minutes of the 2000-remake edition of Shaft and discussed how a prosecutor would build a case within the confines of the Federal Rules of Evidence based just on the information in those first few minutes. Then we just jumped straight into the rules themselves, covering a half-dozen of them before class was out.
I’m actually a little nervous about this class because there are so many rules to remember — and usually with several facets to each one. We’ll see how it turns out
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CONSTITUTIONAL LAW I
====================
NCCU Law switches things up from our nearest law school neighbors at UNCCH Law and Duke Law, teaching ConLaw I and II as 2L courses rather than covering them in the first year…
…but when we take it doesn’t matter for me though, because barring something totally unexpected I can guarantee this will be my favorite class
Today was just a historical overview lecture from Professor ConLaw, who has a reputation for being a challenging professor (and also teaches Torts for one of the other 1L sections). I don’t know if I’ve got the work ethic to earn an A for the class, but as a guy who used to quote passages from Marbury v. Madison and other Supreme Court decisions way back in high school I will definitely enjoy it one way or the other 
====================
ZOMBIELAW (DECEDENTS ESTATES I)
====================
Class today was mind-numbingly boring. Professor ZombieLaw herself is hilarious — she refers to the course as “Dead People’s Stuff 101″ — so that should make it a little bit better I hope…
…but it’s basically just like Property for dead people 
Upside: it gives me a chance to get caught up on Twitter and Facebook?
***
That’s the rundown on Day 1 of classes Tomorrow is the first day for Legal Letters, then more ConLaw and ZombieLaw before I’m done for the day.
For anyone else reading this who’s already started classes, I hope you have an excellent week! And to everyone else, have a great night!
Tags: 2L, ConLaw, Duke Law, DVLaw, Evidence, NCCU Law, Prof ConLaw, Prof DVLaw, Prof FRE, Prof ZombieLaw, UNCCH Law, ZombieLaw
Posted by TDot on Jun 2, 2010 in
Site Stats That’s the only reason I can think of to explain the search results from last month
I wasn’t surprised when “law:/dev/null” turned out to be the most frequent query leading people to law:/dev/null, used by 20 separate visitors from across the web last month. But what was the #2 most frequent search term, used by over a half-dozen?
law:/dev/null Pageviews and Unique IPs over time
“nomnom”
Yeah. I don’t understand it either
But before we get into the amusement that is our monthly search queries, I wanted to give an über-huge *THANK YOU!!!* to y’all for helping May outpace April as our busiest month yet!
An updated graph is on the right for those of you who are visual people.
The data this month is interesting, because we had a -2.2% drop in unique IP addresses served — not a surprise given the summer break from school — but somehow still had a +13.6% bounce in average pageviews per day and a +17.3% jump in total pages overall.
I could be wrong here, but to me that means we’ve got more regular visitors who actually enjoy reading this stuff 
Assuming I’m right on that, to all of the new folks I just wanted to say: 1) welcome!, 2) read the disclaimer!, and 3) thanks for visiting!
# of unique search terms
Also on the “this was unexpected but still pretty cool” front, we had a real explosion in search queries used to find this site — jumping +76.2% from 84 to 148.
I made a graph for that one too…
I’m not entirely sure what prompted the search spike, since most of the terms go to entries that have been indexed by search engines for awhile now. If any of you happen to work for Google (our #1 referrer again) feel free to share some insights!
***
And now for those queries. Here are 20 of the 140+ search terms that brought folks here in May:
- nomnom: Maybe the folks who tried this one were hungry for Contracts?
- what is taking nccu so long: There were literally about a dozen different variations on this search, including “how long did it take to receive a decision from nccu law?” and “north carolina central university school of law admissions taking a long time” and “still no decision from nccu law”. All I can say to you folks is this: try not to think about it. In my case I got my acceptance letter from NCCU Law on 05/04/09, one week after I received an email that my application was “complete” and that I’d receive a decision “six to eight weeks” thereafter. The admissions staff are dealing with the recurring issue of having thousands more applicants than there are seats, and this year they have an added wrinkle with politics: the N.C. General Assembly has a provision in the House version of its budget currently being considered that would severely restrict enrollment growth at all institutions in the University of North Carolina… which means available fewer seats than anticipated. I know that’s approximately -0- solace to those of you who are waiting, but the admissions folks have a tough and thankless job so it takes awhile
- when does the nccu law packet come in the mail?: I got my packet around June 22nd or so.
- conservative corporate taglines: Not sure what you’re looking for, but the only mention of taglines here is this entry on Men’s Wearhouse. Sorry.
- segregated lunch counters: Are thankfully a thing of the past. I wrote some thoughts in this entry on the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins.
- nccu law school section 102 grades: I’ve been told y’all have 3 of your 6 grades in already
Be thankful you’re not §103 — we’re still waiting…
- mock trial: people v andrew madison: There were several searches related to this one too, looking for opening statements. Can’t help you with the opening, but feel free to check out my closing in the #4 entry of our monthly Top 5 list below.
- nccu law summer reading list: If you haven’t gotten it already, you should get it around June 30th. I read To Kill A Mockingbird but didn’t read a single other book on the list. In my opinion you’re better off spending your time enjoying your summer
- blogs about north carolina central university school of law: There are 3 I’m aware of: us here at law:/dev/null, one by Madame Prosecutor, and one by the Prophet. If you find any others let me know!
- does nccu school of law have midterms?: Yes we do, and with few exceptions they make up 20% of your final grade. That’s not always a good thing
- 3.0 gpa as a 1l: I need to know what school you’re at to give you any meaningful commentary. If you’re attending a law school with a 3.333 curve (like UNCCH Law or Duke Law), that means you’re not doing so hot. If you’re attending a law school with a 2.000 curve (like NCCU Law), it means you get a 100% tuition scholarship.
- nccu law school trial team: Kicks ass — and that’s just the 1Ls
- ashley yopp: Has been dubbed the Pickle Princess here on the blog. She worked with me last year running the UNC Association of Student Governments after she basically created the Student Senate at East Carolina University.
- what states still elect clerks of superior court: Don’t know the answer to that question, but I know 100% for certain that North Carolina is one of them
- unc asg stipends: Have been slashed to the lowest point they’ve ever been, and are now at a level where I’m worried it’s going to negatively affect the effectiveness of the organization if they’re not increased. See entry #5 in the monthly Top 5 list below for details.
- why does nccu school of law have first year orientation: Because when it comes to law you’re not going to know your ass from your elbow when you start school, but you’ll be reading dozens of cases in every class every night for the first several weeks starting on Day 1. Orientation lets you get familiar with the school first, so you can get your locker, grab your ID card, buy your books and such — that way there are no excuses for you when the work gets piled on
- is nccu law accredited: Yes, as it has been since it was founded in 1939. The better question is: are there any law schools the ABA won’t accredit?
- law school student mental breakdown: Those apparently happen on occasion. NCCU Law has its own full-time psychiatrist for that very reason. Remember to breathe and everything will be fine…
- how to answer contracts ii final exam: Not like this
- people that start drama and then expect apologies: are insane. Just my $0.02.
It’s been an interesting month. Now I kinda want July to hurry up and get here so I can see how the June queries turn out…
***
And finally, here are the Top 5 most-viewed posts for the month of May 2010, including two repeaters at #4 and #5:
- On my product-purchasing pathologies: Some signs you might be a law student… (05/04/10)
- On last month’s site stats: “You like me, you really like me!” (05/02/10)
- On LRP reducing me to tears: Illiteracy FTL (04/22/10)
- On my first ever closing argument: Alice in Wonderland (03/24/10)
- On political hacks-in-training writing commentary: On UNCASG, $1, and the UNCCH Daily Tar Heel (03/30/10)
*THANK YOU* again for your continued support of this blog, I truly do appreciate it I’m heading to bed so I can wake up on time to knock out some class work — have a great night y’all!!
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Past Site Stats entries:
Tags: Blawg Love, Damned Lies and Statistics, Dr Psych, Duke Law, Legal Eagles FTW, LRP, Madame Prosecutor, NCCU Law, The Curve, The Pickle Princess, The Prophet, UNCCH Daily Tar Heel, UNCCH Law
Posted by TDot on Apr 14, 2010 in
Mail This was originally a TDot’s Tips entry titled “Tips for the Pre-L’s” — until I started writing it Monday afternoon, when Delta the 2L sat down next to me in the Fishbowl and wanted to know what I would be doing at 7:00pm that night.
I’ve learned the only acceptable answer when she asks me that question is “What would you like me to be doing Delta?”
Turns out the Pre-Law Students Association at my alma mater was holding a panel discussion titled “What is Law School Really Like?” and she wanted a partner from the N.C. Central University School of Law to help rep for the Legal Eagles.
Since I came at law from a non-traditional angle I had to say yes. Besides, y’all know how I am about competition
There were about 30 undergrads in the audience, and the panel turned out to be a solid mix of folks with 3 students from Campbell Law, 3 from UNCCH Law, 2 from Duke Law, an alum from Wake Forest Law, and of course Delta and I from NCCU Law. I think 6-7 of us were 1Ls, but the 2Ls/3Ls/post-Ls were represented by at least 1 person apiece.
The questions covered a wide range of topics that you’d expect from aspiring law students: workload, types of classes, “gunners” and competition, and so on. But some panel members did tend to commandeer the discussion and recognize new questioners before folks had a chance to answer the previous question, and yesterday one of the sophomores in attendance shot me a message.
Rather than do the usual Q&A format for past mail entries, I figured I’d post what he sent me and offer my $.02 from there. Here’s what I got:
Overall, I enjoyed listening to the panel and attending the event. I do wish the the questions/answers had been more organized so that each student from each law school could have given a more direct answer and that every student could have been given the chance to answer each question.
I would have liked to have learned more about the admissions process from the students also. I believe the bar exam was only mentioned once or twice in the whole forum; from what I have heard the bar exam is one of the top things that law students are trying to make sure they pass, that was one dimension that was almost forgotten about….and I’m not quite sure why?
It seemed like the whole time all of the students were all up tight and bashing the amount of work load and la la la the whole time. I was like okay I get the point that law school is a lot of work, I’m aware of that now, I am more than willing to put in the time and effort, enough with the talks about how much work it is, tell me more about WHAT LAW SCHOOL IS REALLY LIKE – tell me about the professors, tell me about the elective courses you can take, tell me about the mock trials you can participate in, etc etc.
I fully understand, and *commend* every single law student out there for the amount of work they have to put into law school; but this forum was not meant to whine about the work load if you get my gist.
Let me preface my thoughts by pointing out I’M NOT NORMAL. You hopefully figured this out at some point amid (i) Student Government being my preferred hobby, (ii) picking a T4 as my first-choice law school despite higher-ranked options, or (iii) deciding to go the law route at all after getting a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. I’m strange, I’m upbeat about my own law school experience, and I’m even optimistic about the future prospects for the legal industry.
I’m also apparently one of the very, very, very few who feel that way
So before reading on, I’d encourage you to check the other bloggers in the list at the right of this page. Dennis Jansen in particular has a ton of advice well worth reading — I read it myself before starting law:/dev/null, that’s how legit it is.
Now back to that email…
Admissions
Admissions was actually something I studied quite a bit as a side project when I was an undergrad. I’m not an expert by any means, but here’s some of what I’ve learned both in NC and nationwide:
- The admissions process is going to vary by school of course, but pretty much everyone uses some form of indexing in their decisions. Essentially take your undergraduate GPA and multiply it by a given fraction, take your LSAT score and multiply it by a different fraction, take whatever “special” factors your chosen school considers (e.g. legacy status, socioeconomic status, etc), add all those numbers up and you get your Academic Index score. Students above a certain number get in automatically, below a certain number get rejected automatically, and the folks in the middle get a closer look at your actual application to decide if you should be accepted, rejected, or waitlisted.
- Any school that tells you they read all the applications is lying to you. There are simply too many applications for every school, and your typical admissions committee is roughly 3-5 people — usually 1 or 2 administrators, and the rest senior faculty. In other words they’re all busy people, and are simply not going to read 1,000+ essays or more per person. Period.
- Apply early! Most schools also use “rolling admission,” which means they start accepting students throughout the application cycle — including those folks with the high Academic Index scores. Typically that means by the time the advertised “deadline” approaches for a given school, all of the seats have admitted students filling them and you’re competing for spots that only open up when the accepted folks go somewhere else. The odds already are not in your favor; they get precipitously worse by the deadline.
- Consider applying at public law schools in your state (if they’d be a good fit for you of course). Most state-supported institutions have caps on out-of-state students, making it comparably easier to get in if you’re in-state. For example, UNCCH Law limits out-of-state students to 25-30% of the student body even though out-of-staters typically make up 75%ish of the applications received. Private Duke Law, by contrast, had over 80%+ of its Class of 2012 coming from outside North Carolina.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I call this the “nontraditional” approach to admissions: if you know someone who’s an alum from your school, or back when you were a kid you used to mow the lawn for one of the professors, or one of your parent’s coworkers knows a friend of a friend who plays golf with the Dean, see if they have any advice they can offer to help you be as competitive as possible. The era of a well-placed phone call to the right person securing your acceptance has largely died off, but there are always “intangibles” in every process and there’s no harm in trying to line up as many as you can in your favor.
Bar Exam
At most undergraduate universities, when you finish all your required courses you’re usually entitled to graduate, get your degree, and start working in whatever field you studied.
Not so with law.
After you graduate, you’ll sit and take a bar exam for the jurisdiction where you want to practice. This is essentially a 2-3 day affair featuring multiple choice questions, essays, and similar tests on a variety of subjects to verify your competence to become a lawyer. Pass the bar, and you get to jump through the next set of assorted hoops to get your law license (“character and fitness” reviews, etc). Fail, and you get to wait 3-4 months to try again while desperately trying in the interim to find some way to pay your bills.
Training you to pass the bar, enabling you to become a competent attorney, is the #1 job of a law school. It’s also not easy — so make sure you pay attention in your law classes, because that info will be coming back in a few years.
The Work
There’s not much I can say here that will be useful to any of you, since I honestly don’t think the work in law school is that hard.
Why? Because I was horrible at my undergraduate major
As a result I was/am already accustomed to sitting in one place in perpetuity (e.g. at a desk) doing the same thing for hours non-stop (e.g. debugging code) and giving up certain necessities of life (e.g. sleep and a social life) to get projects done on time. Law school has been a cakewalk by comparison, since the only “project” is generally a midterm and final exam — and reading case law for a few hours is infinitely easier than tracing Java code looking for an elusive bug.
Trust me
Law school is a sizable volume of work, for certain. You’ll want to read all the cases you’re assigned so you’re able to understand the discussion taking place in class, which in turn will make it easier to digest the material and study for finals.
But law school is also a huge mind game. If you go in knowing you’re going to have a large volume of work and you take a disciplined approach to getting that work done, you’ll be fine — and should even have time for sleep and a social life
Professors
They’re all different, and it shows. MDG and Professor CrimLaw both have witty and disarming personalities — and are merciless graders who force you to know your material. Professor Torts takes a more disciplinarian approach. Professor Ks represents the “new school” and is more laid back than the others, while The Traveling Professor holds it down for the “old school” with her regal demeanor.
One unifying characteristic of the professors is that they’re all smart people. And the vast majority are friendly, approachable, and go out of their way to help students succeed at learning the law. After all, even these folks were 1Ls once upon a time.
The key is to not let yourself get intimidated — as your legal elders they’re entitled to a certain level of deference, but not to the point where you’re afraid to talk to them.
Electives
I’m not really qualified to say much here, simply because for almost all law schools your 1L year will be set in stone for you and cover “core” classes like Property, Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law and Constitutional Law.
If you want to browse around, NCCU Law has most of its electives posted online. Typically law schools will have electives on a huge range of topics (intellectual property, bioethics, veterans law, etc) and offer law clinics for students to experience first-hand different areas of the law where they might be interested in practicing.
But given the breadth of offerings and the differences between each law school, the best I can recommend here is to check out the individual offerings for every school you’re interested in.
Extracurriculars
This is another area where the philosophies of law schools tend to differ, but at many schools 1Ls get to participate in most of the exact same stuff as their upper-level colleagues.
Speaking for myself here at NCCU Law, I took part in 3 different mock trial competitions just for 1Ls, signed up for the 1L Moot Court competition (before realizing it conflicted with a UNCASG meeting), participated in an ABA-sponsored client counseling competition, played on the 1L basketball team in the annual Law Week tournament, attended several events for the Black Law Students Association, and got elected Treasurer of the Student Bar Association.
And there are literally dozens of other groups and activities that I could have done if I had other interests (or more time).
Most law schools will have class councils that throw parties, hold forums, host speakers, and so on. You’ve got legal fraternities like Phi Alpha Delta and Phi Delta Phi. You’ve got BLSA and HLSA and undoubtedly other LSAs I don’t know about. You’ve got liberal orgs promoting things like workers’ rights, conservative ones promoting things like constitutional originalism, and everything in between.
So as far as extracurriculars go — at least in my admittedly limited experience — law school is as much a full-spectrum experience as college.
“What would you do differently?”
If I could change one single thing about my experience here at NCCU Law, I wouldn’t be as nervous.
Those of you who are long-time readers at law:/dev/null might recall the comedy of unforced errors that was my orientation experience. I’ve taken my Socratic beatings too. But you know what I found out over the course of the semester?
Everybody experiences the same thing at some point.
All the 1Ls are going through the same trials and tribulations. Some folks are more adept at it than others, but there isn’t a single person out of the 50ish in my section who haven’t been flummoxed by a professor. Rather than the “gunner”-filled atmosphere you read about, most of your classmates will be on Facebook or Gchat or “whispering” hints at a slightly-above-whisper level, all trying to help you succeed — because they’ve either (i) been there too or (ii) will be soon.
So don’t be nervous. Go in confident, know you’re going to slip up at some point, and take it all in stride. It’ll make your law school experience far more enjoyable
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That’s my $.02 on what law school is really like, at least on those few topics Feel free to hit me up if you have any other questions!
Until then, have a great night everybody!
Tags: Delta the 2L, Duke Law, Fan Mail, Legal Eagles FTW, LSAT, MDG, NCCU Law, NCSU Wolfpack, pre-Ls, Prof CrimLaw, Prof Ks, Prof Torts, The Traveling Professor, UNCCH Law
Posted by TDot on Jan 21, 2010 in
Mail After Torts today I let myself get convinced by Rico to stick with my exercise routine for the New Year and go for a run outside… even though it’s only around 37ºF and raining. I couldn’t feel my fingers after the first mile They’re still defrosting, so I figure today’s as good a day as any to answer some mail since there’s plenty of point-click-copy-paste involved
And yes I know it’s literally been months since I answered reader mail here at law:/dev/null… but that’s mostly due to the fact it’s literally been months since I got any reader mail
A few of the recent entries must have triggered some latent inquisitiveness from a handful of folks though, because the inbox got e-bombed over the last week I figured I need to answer them before folks lose faith in my responsiveness
So here are your questions… well… answered
***
Q: Liz asks in response to a post I linked off the Kilpatrick-Stockton update, where I mentioned disliking BigLaw:
What really made you dislike BigLaw? You seem to be a workaholic, so the workload argument seems like an excuse.
A: It’s no excuse, I promise you that Am I a workaholic? Maybe. But there’s 1 key difference between when I was a BigLaw paralegal and what I do now: I actually enjoy it
Law school has been an adventure and I’ve been privileged to meet some amazing people, and running UNCASG gives me an opportunity to improve the lives of 215K+ students here in North Carolina. Compare that to law firm life, which consisted mostly of attorneys giving me things a couple hours/days before deadline or the partner I worked for deciding he needed yet another weeklong vacation and wanted me chained to my desk in case anything happened in his absence.
With law school and ASG, working during a holiday is something I do by choice; with BigLaw, it was a mandated part of my job. I’ll take the former over the latter 7 days a week
***
Q: Clarence wants insight into the Kilpatrick-Stockton post itself:
I thought it was interesting 2 of the top 4 K-S finalists were T4 schools. Any theories on that?
A: I’ve got plenty of theories, I just can’t guarantee any of them are valid
The first thing that comes to mind is the fact it’s a North Carolina-based competition, and a majority of the state’s law schools are in the lower ranks. In the latest edition of the US News rankings, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill and Wake Forest are all now in Tier 1; Campbell and NCCU Law are both Tier 4; while Elon and Charlotte both only have provisional accreditation and can therefore functionally be treated as Tier 4. So even though the bulk of teams came from UNCCH and Duke, the natural odds of the 4 finalists including a pair of T4 schools are non-trivial.
There’s probably a cultural aspect to it as well. At least here in North Carolina, NCCU Law and Campbell Law both have well-earned reputations for producing high-quality trial attorneys and judges, and that legacy is worked into things like the aggressiveness of the Socratic method in 1L classes. The T1s by contrast have a reputation geared more toward BigLaw, international affairs, research and teaching; anecdotal evidence from friends at those neighboring schools is that classes are a challenge, but not intensely so.
Running with the cultural theme — and at the risk of getting shot by my T1 colleagues — I wouldn’t be surprised if the curve plays an impact too. Both Duke’s median and UNCCH’s median are set at 3.33 (B+), while Wake Forest sets theirs at 3.00 (B). The T4 schools set their medians far lower, with Campbell’s median around 75 (C+) on their numeric system, and NCCU Law standing by its strict-C curve at 2.00 (and capping a course grade at A versus A+ elsewhere).
Most employers know that curves are set all over the place at different schools, which is why class rank is so important to landing a job rather than GPA. But for the chronic overachievers who go to law school, there is a fundamental shock to the psyche when a “good” semester is full of B-’s or B’s compared to your fellow 1Ls at neighboring schools banking straight A’s.
Combine those latter two points — reputation and curves — and what you get are 1Ls who feel like underdogs compared to their peers, with a hunger to “show up and show out.” That’s basically what happened at the Kilpatrick-Stockton competition this year IMO (at least I know that’s what we did )
***
Q: Courtney expresses faux concern over the lack of structure we’ve had here since 1L Fall came to an end:
What happened to Tweet-sized Tuesdays and the Friday Drive-by??
A: The lack of structure that comes with winter break
Not sure what the future of Tweet-sized Tuesdays will be. They were created last semester because the schedule for my section looked like a camel hump, with 5 classes on Wednesdays — that meant Tuesday nights spent studying instead of blogging. This semester has the pain spread throughout the week. I’ll have a better idea as we get closer to midterms if I need to curtail the time spent writing here and bring Tweet-sized Tuesdays back
As for the Friday Drive-by, that’ll be resuming at some point here in the next few weeks
***
Q: Michelle wants the rest of this story:
How did that CivPro exam turn out?
A: There was a 22-point curve, so even though I almost failed I didn’t do too badly I’ll post a full rundown of my 1L Fall grades at some point over the next couple days.
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That’s it for this edition If you have a question you want me to answer, send an email to tdot [at] lawdevnull.com or hit me up on Facebook!
Have a great night everybody!
Tags: Campbell Law, Charlotte Law, CivPro, Duke Law, Elon Law, Fan Mail, K-S 1L Mock Trial Competition, NCCU Law, Rico, The Curve, Trial Team, UNCASG, UNCCH Law, WFU Law
Posted by TDot on Jan 6, 2010 in
Randomness A pair of readers noticed that my kk-inspired run-through of the 2000s assiduously avoided any reference to New Year’s resolutions.
It’s not that I don’t like them or don’t make them, I just intentionally set the ball so laughably low that they’re not really resolutions at all so much as statements of things that will happen (barring an utter catastrophe). A quote that Jansen posted here pretty much sums up why I haven’t had “real” resolutions.
Last year was a case in point, when I only had 3 “resolutions”:
- Graduate from N.C. State
- Win reelection as UNCASG President
- Get into law school
The first one was going to happen come hell or high water — the only question was whether it would be in the spring, summer session I, summer session II, or fall I couldn’t let myself come into 2010 as a perennial undergrad.
Reelection was also a relatively foregone conclusion, since a majority of the voting delegates asked me to run again. The only catch was that I had to be enrolled in a UNC institution, and I wasn’t sure either NCCU Law or UNCCH Law would accept me — so I just planned to pick up a Master’s in Econ at NC State as a fallback. Sad, I know, but I love my job
“Get into law school” was intentionally worded that way too: even if I didn’t get in where I wanted to go, I was going to get in somewhere even if it meant applying to some JD farm Luckily I got my first choice.
So 3 “resolutions,” 0 of which were actually in doubt.
Since setting a low bar worked so well last year, I was going to take it a step further this year and set no bar at all. But I felt bad when I was talking with some friends who were sharing their own resolutions, expecting me to do the same… and then I said I had none. So after that I came up with a few for 2010. Here goes:
- Finish 1L year with at least a 3.0 GPA. A friend of mine who graduated from a T2 law school this past May said that law school grades were 1 part your effort, 2 parts your classmates’ efforts, and 3 parts random chance. Even if his aphorism turns out to be true, I’d really really really like to finish the year with at least a B average. Considering my grades in undergrad, I’d like to be considered a “good student” again
- Make it to, and through, Marine Corps OCS. Last July I started the application process to become a JAG officer in the USMC, got to the Physical Fitness Test… and discovered I was more out of shape than I thought. I’ve been doing physical training since then but progress has been slow, especially last month when I was on crutches. Getting to Officer Candidate School this June is going to depend on getting to 20 pull-ups, 100 crunches, and 3 miles in 18 minutes. I’ve got a long way to go and only 3.5 months to get there.
- Finish strong. My term as UNCASG President ends on April 30th, which also marks the last time I’ll be involved as a Student Government official of any kind at the campus- or state-wide levels. Even you new readers to law:/dev/null know I take SG seriously — for reasons I’ll elaborate on in a later post — so I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to adjust But if this is going to be the end, I want to finish on top. After breaking so many records in a year I’d like to knock down a couple more in the few months that are left.
So that’s my list of resolutions for 2010. They’re a little more difficult than the resolutions from last year, but hopefully when I write a post like this a year from now it’ll turn out the bar was still set pretty low
Off to bed, UNC Board of Governors meeting in the morning. Have a good night folks!
Tags: 1L, Festivities and Diversions, Law Grades, NC State, NCCU Law, Resolutions, UNCASG, UNCCH Law, USMC
Posted by TDot on Aug 15, 2009 in
Background Disclaimer for any of you who become regular readers: any time I write that I’m going to do/say/explain something “tomorrow” or “soon” or “shortly” or any other chronologically-oriented word that would indicate a time horizon in the relatively near future, add at least a week or two to it. I’m one of those folks you hear about who get distracted easily by shiny objects, except in my case the “shiny objects” are random occurrences in life that remind me of random earlier occurrences in life and consequently prompt a story. Consider yourself forewarned, caveat emptor, etc etc etc
Moving on…
A couple days ago in this post I mentioned one of my new 1L colleagues who apparently flagellates himself as restitution for his social awkwardity. Still don’t know the kid’s name because I skipped the past 2 days of orientation (more on that later… maybe), but he essentially tried to demonstrate his Alpha Male-ness by terrifying a young lady I was conversing with about law:/dev/null. I noted in response to his asininity that the ABA requires all accredited law schools to teach essentially the same material to 1Ls regardless of their “tier,” so theoretically my experience helps inform this blog about as well as anyone else’s informs their own. I closed the post by posing this question:
…[I]f everyone is learning substantially the same material, why would anyone bother attending a Tier 4 school in the first place when it would seem (at least statistically) that a top school would give someone better odds at passing the bar and landing a job?…
Computer scientists like binary and powers of 2, the fundamental “on” and “off” that governs electrical circuits and spreads out to all CSC constructs like Boolean algebra, memory sizes, and so on. My figuring is that there are only 2 types of people who go to a T4 law school: folks who aren’t qualified on paper to get in anywhere else, and folks who could (or did) get into a higher tier school but had at least one logical reason for sticking with a T4.
There’s not much to say regarding the first group, so consequently I won’t say much For the folks who don’t have the paper qualifications to get into a top school — bad LSAT score or bad GPA typically, since often these are the only 2 values that matter regardless of how many reams of experience one accrues in a legal-oriented field — the T4s are providing them with a rare opportunity to prove through their work ethic they have what it takes to become attorneys. In that capacity T4s perform a huge public service, because many of the best attorneys are the ones who work hard, meet filing deadlines, and take care of their clients because they know they may not be the brightest and have to make up for their deficiencies (by contrast, at least in my experience, many of the worst attorneys are graduates of top schools who are lazier than a quadriplegic sloth in a drug-induced coma).
The second group is a more difficult nut to crack because many of them have different and varying reasons. This also happens to be the category I fall into — I actually applied to only three law schools (a T1/”T14″, a T2/”T100″, and T4 NCCU) and had already mailed off my acceptance and deposit to NCCU before I even got my letters from the other two. I was lucky to do exceptionally well on the LSAT despite taking it “cold” with -0- studying of any kind, combined with nearly a decade of experience in the legal field during my time as a college dropout and after (more on that in a later post).
So why did I decide to go to the North Carolina Central University School of Law, a historically black college in the bottom tier, when I had two other higher ranked options? Here are my reasons (which conveniently happen to count out to a power of 2):
***
(Before jumping in, I need to stipulate I’m ignoring the T14 school I applied to in these comments — I knew when I applied that I wasn’t going to attend because I didn’t want to move across the country :))
- Cost. In high school, I was one of only two students in my graduating class (so far as I know) who were actively recruited by MIT for their Computer Engineering program. Instead I decided to attend NC State University in Raleigh because, even paying out-of-state tuition, it was a significantly less expensive proposition — MIT’s tuition and fees over a decade ago in 1998-99 was $6K+ more expensive than NCSU’s out-of-state tuition and fees *today* (let that marinate for a minute so you can fully grasp it).
Cost of attendance was a similar motivator for picking NCCU. My tuition and fees for the 2009-2010 academic year come out to $9,097.16, less than half of the T2 school I applied to up the street (I don’t compare total cost of attendance for law schools since there’s so much variability in the housing and retail markets, but it’s worth noting many T1s are in outrageously expensive cities).
- Competence. Folks who have worked with me in NCSU’s Student Government or the statewide UNC Association of Student Governments will tell you that I am a notorious micromanager, an unapologetic perfectionist and overly obsessive about details (“anal retentive” is the pejorative most often thrown). When I filled out each of my applications for law school, I quite literally checked, re-checked, re-re-checked, and re-re-re-checked everything before either filing documents online or submitting materials in person. In the case of the T2, I even had a friend from the campus go with me to drop off the application and had him check everything for me. We both confirmed all of the required documents were in the packet I dropped off, including my form declaring North Carolina residency. Yet magically, 54 days after that packet was dropped off, I received an email that the residency form was missing and I’d have to shelve everything I was doing in my life (like trying to graduate) to re-send a duplicate copy.
Compare that to the response of the T4. When the LSDAS didn’t send my transcripts because one of my letters of recommendation had not yet arrived, I got an email from NC Central only about two weeks after they received my application indicating the transcripts were missing… then got a second email a week later as a reminder (fortunately I had more than ample notice to get in touch with the errant professor and get my LOR squared away, so I didn’t receive any further notices). Not only did NCCU not lose any of my paperwork, they promptly notified me multiple times when they didn’t receive stuff in the first place. That’s a level of competence and attention-to-detail that can only come from a school recognizing its rank and striving to improve.
- Character. My time visiting the T2 in-person to gather more information was about what you’d anticipate from a school that loses paperwork and doesn’t notify people until two months later. Trying to meet with the Dean to ask questions was a fruitless endeavor, and the low-grade paper-pusher who finally graced me with her presence acted like it was a burden to talk with me — as though I had just taken her away from the positively riveting experience of playing Minesweeper all day. And this was as a student with an LSAT score well above the institution’s top quartile.
The T4 experience was completely different. The Chancellor of North Carolina Central University met with me for about an hour to answer my questions about the University. The Dean of the School of Law met with me for about 20 minutes to answer my questions as well, even telling me he wasn’t sure I was qualified to attend because “[t]here are students who genuinely want to attend NCCU as their 1st choice instead of wanting to go to Carolina and applying to us as their backup” (which, though I was mildly insulted, I considered an eminently reasonable response from a Dean of a law school). They graciously offered their time to speak with me, provided me with their email addresses if I had further questions, and responded to those emails when I contacted them later. It was a “students first” mentality that comes with trying to build a legacy by taking care of its customers.
- Culture. In line with my earlier reference about T4s providing a public service by accepting applicants who are “sub-standard” on paper, the culture at the North Carolina Central University School of Law is one where every student is expected to learn the material and excel. This is reflected in the institution’s bar passage rate (81.9% in 2007, +7.9% over the state average) which is actually comparable to several T1 institutions and most T2s. My impression is that the intensity of the student body stems from the knowledge they are “underdogs” in the legal arena, competing with law graduates coming from schools with bigger profiles, resources and legacies.
Graduates from top schools, by contrast, seem to lack that same level of intensity. That sense was actually summarized best during my experience working with the North Carolina State Bar (our state agency responsible for licensing and regulating attorneys). I was a college dropout at the time and working as a low-level staff member in the Grievance Division. When I mentioned to one of the staff attorneys my interest in law school and wondering where I should apply, I got this as a response (inflection and hand gestures translated visually by me):
- If you want to be a lawyer who knows the law, go to Campbell (another T4 in the Triangle)
- If you want to be a judge who knows the law, go to Central
- If you want to be a politician who “knows” the law, go to Carolina
(one of the newer attorneys who was still paying down his student loans also chimed in with “If you want to know the law but be homeless, go to Duke” :))
I simply mesh better with an environment where there’s a feeling of “us vs them” and people are willing to help uplift each other because we’re all essentially a family. There’s still competition of course, but all the “gunner” talk you see on other law-related blogs doesn’t seem to apply to NCCU.
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And although it wasn’t an actual reason behind my decision, I thought it was fitting that NCCU’s school colors of maroon and gray were just a slightly darker shade than NC State’s red and white
I realize the length of this post has reached ridiculous proportions, so I’ll clip it here for the evening. At some point over the next couple days I’ll actually get into my other experiences during orientation this week… some of which I’ll admit now were more than slightly embarrassing. Good night folks
Tags: 1L, ABA, About TDot, Campbell Law, Duke Law, NC State, NCCU Law, Orientation, SG, UNCASG, UNCCH Law
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