Resurgam

I am sitting in the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics. It’s one of those old-fashioned grand libraries: a wood paneled room, topped with a glass dome, its walls lined with portraits of former university presidents. Various bookshelves are ranged against the walls, heaving with dusty books, their spines yellowed and tilting behind milky glass. Red upholstered armchairs are clustered around the room. The library is only sparsely populated, most students having finished their exams and decamped, setting up in pubs to relax, drink and watch World Cup. The ones that remain in the library study or write feverishly; some are on Facebook; some are asleep.

I have not experienced the hush rustling quiet of a student library since I finished my master’s degree. I have spent the last two years planning on re-entering academia this fall to begin a law degree. I could just as well have said, ‘to begin my life’. The last four years, since I moved to England, have felt like a long and fruitless detour to the one thing I have wanted to do since I was a junior in college: go to law school and become a lawyer. I bear the most blame for this. The first year, while my husband was in graduate school, I spent temping. It was a job of mindless number crunching and paper pushing. The second year I did my master’s degree. I thought it would help me get into law school. The third I spent doing an internship that, in practical terms, finished four months before I left it. I thought it also would help me get into law school. The eight months since the end of my internship have constituted a long and punishing period of unsuccessful job hunting. I put this down to the recession and consequentially the scarcity of job openings in my field, combined with my lack of substantial work experience. I am classically over-educated and under-experienced. I have been very frustrated and discouraged by this situation but I have taken comfort in the thought that I would enter law school in the fall after which I would have gained some qualities of employability. I was very sanguine about it... until the rejections began pouring in.

In the meantime, my husband was accepted to a PhD program with full funding, a teaching position and a stipend. We planned to move back to the US, something I was so very excited about, until I realized that I was not returning to do anything. I only faced more of the same situation as London: endless fruitless job hunting—only this time it would be more difficult because we would be moving to a much smaller city with fewer job opportunities in my field. A few weeks ago I began submitting applications to various jobs in New York and Washington D.C., where I thought I might have more success. It would require my husband and I to live a substantial distance apart from each other—at least 2 hours by plane—but my husband understands that I can’t spend another year doing nothing of value for my career. Law school? It seems impossible. I have an offer from University College London but feel I don’t want to live in London anymore, much less with my husband halfway across the world. I have been rejected or waitlisted at every US school to which I applied. I have never felt so hopeless and so helpless about my future. I have contemplated giving up on law altogether. I have tried to accept (once again) reduced expectations for my future. I have even contemplated getting pregnant and resigning myself to a life of stay-at-home motherhood simply because I am clearly not smart enough to have a career.

It was around this time that my wonderful (though sometimes meddling) mother-in-law mentioned my situation to some lawyer friends of hers who also happen to work on the Law Faculty of my first choice Midwest Law School. One of them suggested I call him. I was not happy about having to discuss my failure with a member of the profession I wanted to enter but talking to him raised my spirits a bit. He gave me very useful advice about people in my Home State to contact who might know of job opportunities there. He also suggested that likely the reason I did not get into law school this year was because it was simply a particularly difficult year. Many more people applied and would likely accept admission because of the recession and this made it very challenging for more mediocre (my word, not his) candidates like myself. He also said that it was possible I could still be accepted because, at this time of year, a lot of candidates are sifting their various offers, declining or accepting offers, which may open up places for people to be taken off waitlists. Consequently, if candidates who are accepted to one school are offered a position at a better school, this opens up more places, which gives everyone still waiting a bit more of a chance. After talking to him I was more optimistic but still generally skeptical that anything would change.

Only two weeks later I got an email asking me if I was still interested in entering Midwest State School to study law and what was the likelihood that I would accept if given an offer. I said: 1.) Hell yeah I was still interested and 2.) The likelihood that I would accept was 100 f**king per cent. That was last Friday.

This Monday, I got the email that I had been accepted to study law at my first choice, Midwest Law School. So as it turns out, I’m going to be a lawyer after all!

Recap

I have not been writing on this blog because there is not much to report except a steady stream of rejections and, frankly, I'm embarrassed. At this point and for the foreseeable future, I am certainly common, but I am no law student. I think, however, that it might still be useful for me (and for you) to try to understand what has happened. I am trying to decide what is the best way to approach this project which will include, as I promised, full disclosure on the Oxbridge interviews. A good place to start is to take a short inventory of where I have applied and the outcomes. I am deeply disappointed in this list and embarrassed but I figure internet anonymity protects me to a large extent. Here is the list:

US Schools:

Midwest School (1st choice): Wait Listed

Northern School: Unsuccessful

Great Lakes School: Unsuccessful

UK Schools:

Cambridge: Unsuccessful

Oxford: Unsuccessful

King's College London: Unsuccessful

London School of Economics: Unsuccessful

University College London: Accepted

The executive summary is that I've been accepted to a UK school and wait listed at my first choice, but rejected everywhere else.

Going forward, my goals are: to describe the application process I went through both in the UK and the US; to discuss what happened after I submitted my applications; to discuss what has happened since I heard back from all the schools; and finally to describe what my goals are from here on out.

Bits and Pieces

Hey ya'll I just wanted to say thanks for the comments by DA and by Alistair, I appreciate your support on my disappointment about Oxbridge. I still have a second shot but not too hopeful. Anyway, no need to dwell!

DA, to answer your other question. Was I ever serious about applying to King's College London, University College London or the London School of Economics? In truth, no, I wasn't interested when I first applied, but it was a matter of dragging and clicking boxes on a screen, so I did it. I also thought I was testing the waters as a precursor for Oxbridge admissions, but in fact the Oxbridge admissions period is almost over and I have heard next to nothing in the meantime from the other three. They have each confirmed receipt of my application and I have responded to their various requests for transcripts (by the way, transcripts are expensive!). Now that the Oxbridge admissions period is over, and I'm also doing my American applications, I'm beginning to get really nervous that I won't get into my preferred American law school at my Midwest State School alma mater. The application numbers have been massive this year and--looking at the calendar--I am submitting my applications much later than I should have done. These nerves make the potential of getting into the other three British schools much more important to me, as I don't want to delay law school another year. It's a sensitive and difficult thing, the admissions process.

DA, I'm glad to hear you've got through the UCAS and the LNAT. How did the LNAT go?

Anyway, speaking of my Midwest State School. I have had a strangely fateful and luck-driven life so far. I don't believe in fate or luck in my rational mind, but I cannot deny my life has been filled with some strange coincidences and connections, not all of them necessarily good. This requires a bit of background. When I was a child, my family and I did not live in my Midwest State but were driving through it when we were in a car accident in which my father died. As a result of this accident the rest of my family moved to this Midwest State permanently. I then grew up and went to school in this state. I met my husband in high school in this state. My husband brought me to Britain where I refined and clarified my career goals, to be a lawyer.

Now, going back to my Midwest State School's college of law. It has become my first choice, until I hear finally from Cambridge. I began to really worry that I would not qualify as a resident to get in-state tuition anymore, which would change my view of things considerably. As I read the university policy online, I didn't completely understand it so I called the registrar's office to run the situation by them. I grew up in my Midwest State and did my undergrad there, as a resident. However for the last 5 years I have been living out of the state--would I still be considered a resident for tuition purposes? The lady had the strangest attitude about it. She said the only important criteria were:

Did I graduate from a high school in this Midwest State? Yes. And do I have one parent living or buried in the state? At first I panicked because my mom moved out of the state a few years ago. Then I remembered, wait, my father is indeed buried in the state. So, yeah, I guess as a result of this totally random, accidental car accident I get in-state tuition at this Midwest State School.

Okay, now I've totally creeped everyone out. It's cool, people, but like I said my life has been filled with weird, serendipitous coincidences and connections. Honestly, I tentatively hope they don't stop now.

Something Completely Different!

And now for something completely different: actual legal issues!

I have been following the trial of Radovan Karadzic since he was arrested almost a year and half ago. International justice is an issue that is near and dear to my heart. This morning Karadzic refused to leave his jail cell to attend the first day of his trial, which means the trial can't go anywhere yet. He wants a few more months to prepare because he wants to defend himself.

What is with these war crimes suspects wanting to defend themselves?!?!? Is it just a delay tactic? Do they think they can teach themselves how to be effective defense lawyers while delaying their trial for a few years thus killing two birds with one stone? This article claims that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has three choices--appoint Karadzic a lawyer, drag him to court, or grant him extra time to prepare. I may be missing some key information here but isn't he in prison? Doesn't that mean he has to go where they tell him to go... because he's a prisoner? Even Charles Taylor eventually showed up, even if it was only to rant and rave about the illegitimacy of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. That trial is also starting up again today.

Reading up on this stuff after focusing on other areas for a while is getting me all excited about international criminal law again. I'm thinking... law school, maybe an LLM in International Public Law, practice domestic criminal law for a few years, do an internship at an international criminal court/tribunal, then maybe become a staff lawyer. Could be amazing. And as I understand it the ICC is bleeding staff because everyone thinks it's so poorly run. Having been unemployed and unemployable for as long as I have been makes you willing to put up with things other people would not be willing to put up with, just to have a paying job that is interesting.

LSAT Tomorrow

I'm taking the LSAT tomorrow and I think it's a good time to describe my thoughts about it.

I took the LSAT once before after doing a 5-week Kaplan prep course and I did better than average, but not by much. I don't have too much difficulty with reasoning and reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is probably what I'm best at. I am slightly less successful with logical reasoning my greatest weakness being formal logic statements. My downfall, my Everest, is the logic games section. What logic games have to do with being a lawyer or even with studying law I have yet to understand. I think it has to do more with mental dexterity and juggling multiple details under pressure than solving problems. I've always been terrible at logic puzzles, since I was a child and could do them in math for extra credit. If it weren't for logic games, I would probably score pretty high on the LSAT. So I tell myself.

When I first started practicing them, I was lucky if I was able to finish one game out of four. I found them really, really difficult. Then I took the Kaplan course and improved somewhat, but not as much as I had hoped to improve. I was disappointed in the Kaplan prep course's approach to teaching logic games. I will explain why in a moment.

The first time I took the LSAT was two years ago. I had just started my master's degree and was already in classes when I took the exam. Once in my classes, I had very little time to keep up the LSAT prep and I felt that I did not do as well as I could have done. I also felt that I had failed to focus adequately on the area that gave me the most trouble and the area in which I could potentially see the most improvement, the logic games section.

This time around I began studying earlier in the hopes of improving, especially by focusing most of my time on logic games, while not ignoring improvements I could potentially make in the other sections. I kept up a fairly rigorous study schedule throughout the summer, accommodating holidays and special occasions as best I could. I worked long and hard, I have to admit that. I also have to admit I could have worked harder, although that would be true no matter how much I worked. I did LSAT practice between 1-3 hours every day for the past 17 weeks, and a practice test each Sunday morning. Looking at my little printed schedule right now, I'm faintly proud at how much I worked. But also disappointed. I can never seem to shake the thought that I could have done more.

In my study schedule, I spent 4 days each week doing logic games exclusively, then the other two between a mix of logical reasoning, reading comprehension and more logic games.

Over the 17 weeks, I have raised my LSAT score, according to my practice tests, by 6-7 points. I set an initial goal and have surpassed that, but find I am still disappointed, as on further research my goal score is still not good enough to bother applying for the Top 14 schools. They have gotten a lot more selective, competition has gotten stiffer with more people going back to school because of the recession, and my grade point average is not good enough to make up the deficiency of my LSAT score. I'm heaving a great sigh.

I am disappointed that my 'numbers' are too low to make me a serious contender for the top schools because my subjective factors are pretty good, I think, and I'm fairly certain I would do well at any school. And I was really looking forward to a good legal education at a law school that educates legal minds, instead of just cramming minds with law.

Despite losing that opportunity, I am still really excited about the prospect of studying law at the Midwest State School, for all the reasons I have articulated before. In fact, it will be a form of bliss.

Now about the Kaplan LSAT course. I said I was disappointed in their method of teaching logic games. I felt their teaching style was based too much an assumption of intuitive understanding. The teachers they hire are basically anyone who scored higher than 170 on their LSAT. I have a strong feeling that people who score higher than 170 have an ability naturally that the rest of us who take prep courses are trying to learn artifically. Their style of understanding is much more intuitive and automatic, because they're simply that bright and clearheaded. I however, am not that bright or clearheaded and I need things explained to me, step by step. The Kaplan teachers and the Kaplan method I felt assume you will understand something, or that you will become aware of something, simply by your own brilliance, a characteristic which I lack.

That's not to say that logic games can only be done using intuitive reasoning. Quite the opposite. People who don't get them naturally can be taught to do them, I firmly believe that, they just need more help and more instruction at each step to see the patterns and inferences which seem axiomatic to those more fortunate. I felt Kaplan did not teach to this type of student.

Now, for a digression. My Midwest State School has a study abroad programme for law students to come to London for a semester. I was not aware of that until day I saw a girl walking by on the street with a big sweatshirt of my Midwest State School. I stopped her and had a chat with her (another digression: I was coming home from a bad day and it was too irresistible to not take the opportunity of speaking to someone from home, when I knew it would be so comforting and familiar, and it was both). She told me about what she was studying at Midwest State School, and we discovered we had some friends and acquaintences in common. She also told me she had been a teacher for a prep course that was a rival to Kaplan and that they also felt Kaplan's method of teaching logic games was deficient. She recommended that although I couldn't take one of their courses in London, I should get one of their books.

Well, this year I got one of their books, the Logic Games Bible. If you struggle with logic games, I cannot recommend this book enough. It gave me exactly what I needed in terms of instruction and more importantly it taught me the cues or tools to recognise when there is an intuitive inference to be made. Suddenly it became far less intuitive and mysterious and incomprehensible and much more like a game with defined rules and recognisable patterns. It put logic games in a context such that they were amenable to being solved by skills rather than by luck or intuition.

From using this prep book, I was able to go from completing 2 games in one section to completing 3. The fourth is still elusive and there are still some types of games that I struggle and struggle with endlessly. I am still prone to inaccurate transcriptions, misread rules, a failure to understand the global view of a game (losing the forest for the trees, in a way) and I am still far too slow. If I had another 4 weeks to focus solely on logic games, I might improve.

Then again, I might not.

Sometimes I think I have simply hit my natural plateau and no amount of work will make me better. I struggle with the knowledge that I'm not as smart as I wish I was. Things don't seem to come as easily to me as they do to other people and I seem to need two cracks at something before I can do it right. Obviously, life rarely affords that kind of opportunity. Yes, I think I may have hit my natural wall on logic games. On the day of the exam, that is to say tomorrow, the types of questions they put on the logic games will determine how well I do on the section. If it's 3 relatively simple games and 1 hard game, I might come out all right. If it's 2 simple and 2 hard, I probably won't significantly improve my score. If it's 1 easy, 3 hard, it could very well be a complete disaster. I am doing practice sections from old exams. Sometimes it's a disaster, sometimes it's pretty successful. I guess my success will depend on my luck on the day.