Graduate & Law School Advice
Resumes and Cover Letters (widely applicable)
Harvard Extension School offers some solid advice on resumes and cover letters.
1. Graduate School
Start here
“So You Want to Go to Grad School: a FAQ” by Lauren E. Cagle (Google Doc). (Read this at least three times before you discuss graduate school with me).
“Want to Go to Grad School in English?” by Paul T. Corrigan. (Read this at least three times before you discuss graduate school with me).
Getting Strong Letters of Recommendation
Paul Corrigan offers great advice on how to ensure that your recommendation letters do you the most good. Please read and follow this advice.
Graduate School Advice & Resources
“On Graduate School and Love,” by William Pannapacker. (“So the rhetoric of “love” has an ambiguous meaning when it’s applied to graduate school. It can be impossibly idealistic, and deeply rooted in powerful experiences that override economic self-interest. It also can be deeply cynical, a means of devaluing the work of some for the benefit of others.”)
“Moving the Goalposts in Graduate Education” by Marc Bosquet (“As responsible analysts have understood since the mid-1990s, this [lack of tenure-track jobs] isn’t because of an oversupply of Ph.D.s but an intentionally created undersupply of tenure-stream positions. Beginning in 1970, administrators began systematically turning teaching-intensive jobs into part-time or nontenurable positions that — they claim — don’t require a Ph.D.“)
“Alt-ac Careers and the Purposes of Humanities Doctoral Programs” (by Alex Reid, on his blog Digital Digs:
“Spending 8 years getting a PhD in the humanities probably doesn’t make good financial sense. So don’t do it for that reason. (I know, that’s a shocker.)
If you want to get a PhD for other, non-financial reasons, then, as they say, “it’s a free country.” However, it’s important to have both a national and program-level understanding of the career prospects of your degree, because at some point you will be looking for a job and you should at least make an informed decision.
For different reasons, we should make an effort to create better careers for college teachers, though even if we did, point #1 would still apply.
Part of creating such college positions should be thinking about the alternative-academic careers PhDs pursue on our campuses and ensuring as well as we can that those are well-paid and secure positions.”
Finding Fit (Cheryl Ball’s advice on understanding the various kinds of academic jobs. Useful for planning where to attend grad school and what you might do after you complete grad school.)
2. Law School
Start Here
Take my “Should I Go to Law School?” quiz. Answer each of these questions in order. Discuss them with me.
If You Are Considering Law School
“If a college student sought your advice on whether to pursue a legal career, how would you answer?” (Answers by attorneys Michael Ritter and Reginald D. Wilson, Jr.)
Advice for Students Considering Law School from the Career Services office at the University of Pennsylvania. (“Most students, upon entering law school and beginning a legal career, have had little exposure to the practice of law beyond what they know from television shows and feature films. Yet despite this relative lack of knowledge, many may embark on a costly and demanding course of study without exploring its professional and personal suitability. Before you begin the process of applying to law school, it is often a wise idea to evaluate your skills, abilities, interests, and goals.”)
PreLaw, an online resource from the National Jurist
Law School Transparency‘s reports by school, which can be filtered by state, etc.
Miles LeBlanc’s review of Glass Half Full: the Decline and Rebirth of the Legal Profession by Benjamin Barton (read this review, then consider buying and reading the book itself).
Preparing for Law School by the American Bar Association (This resource offers advice about which courses might make a difference in an admissions officer’s eyes and which might prepare you best for the rigors of law school.)
Fields of Law (Law School Admission Council) (Generally, what kinds of work do lawyers do?)
How I Lawyer (excellent podcast where lawyers in different fields share insights and experiences about what it’s like to practice in different areas of law)
If You Are Pursuing Law School
“Why Every Law School Applicant Should Use ABA 509 Reports” by Rachel Margiewicz. (“The reports provide intimate details of many crucial aspects of the law school admission process.”)
ABA/LSAC Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools (This annual guide contains a wealth of information about preparing for law school, the course of study in law school, and about particular law schools).
“Game of Loans” (Minimizing student loan debt from the National Jurist)
Download and use these excellent handouts from The Writing Center at Georgetown Law School
Some Friendly Advice to New Law Students by Ken “Popehat” White. (If you don’t know who he is, start following him.)
Law School Materials for Success by Barbara Glesner Fines is a free book (and podcast) orienting new law students to the first year of law school.
To keep abreast of the latest developments in law school admissions and curricula, get a Google account and set a news alert for “law school.” You can set the alerts for a manageable volume, e.g., once a week, and then skim them at your leisure to find the items you wish to read further.
Materials That Every Law Student (and Lawyer) Should Own
Get, read, and annotate the following:
Articles
Orin Kerr’s “How to Read a Legal Opinion” (PDF document) (Great practical advice.)
Lon Fuller’s classic “The Case of the Speluncean Explorers” (PDF document),(See also the extensive commentary by scholars and follow-up opinions, which a Google search will reveal. This is a performance of particular legal philosophies and very useful to see how particular approaches to the law play out in deciding a case).
Ruggero J. Aldisert, Stephen Clowney, and Jeremy D. Peterson’s “Logic for Law Students: How to Think Like a Lawyer” (PDF document) (Terrific primer on logical reasoning in legal situations, often implied rather than taught explicitly).
Books
The current edition of Bryan Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage, Redbook: A Manual of Legal Style, and Modern English Usage (also sign up for his Law Prose Lessons)
The current edition of Ross Guberman’s Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates. Also, check out his Brief Catch Hall of Fame for models of excellent writing.
Bryan Garner, et. al.’s The Law of Judicial Precedent
Richard Susskind’s Tomorrow’s Lawyers (2d ed) and Online Courts and The Future of Justice
The current edition of Wilson Huhn’s The 5 Types of Legal Argument
Richard Farnsworth’s The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law
The current edition of David S. Romantz and Kathleen Elliott Vinson’s Legal Analysis: The Essential Skill
The current edition of A Lawyer Writes: A Practical Guide to Legal Analysis by Christine Nero Coughlin, Joan Malmud, and Sandy Patrick
Brian N. Larson’s free, open-access textbook Legal Argumentation: Reasoning and Writing About the Law (PDF document)
Philip Bobbitt’s Constitutional Interpretation
Courses
Level up your knowledge and value to employers with these courses (for just $1) from the Electronic Discovery Institute
3. Statements of Purpose & Personal Statements
In addition to the #1 bit of advice to “write the statement only you could write” (i.e., don’t be generic, predictable, or a walking cliche), read and consider this advice. These statements will require 10-20 drafts to be truly effective. Here is some good advice:
“Hiding it from the Kids” (A statement of purpose is a painful, awkward, and difficult genre for most, but Graff and Hoberek can help you succeed.) This is a must-read. It is geared toward graduate school, but law school applicants should read it, too. You can retrieve the article via the library from JSTOR. It’s in College English 62.2 (1999), 242-54.
Wheaton College provides examples of personal statements for law school
The University of Chicago School of Law offers examples of successful admissions essays.
Law school personal statement examples and commentary from toplawschools.com
Advice from the University of Wisconsin Center for Pre-Law Advising
Huiling Ding analyzed personal statements for medical and dental schools, deriving a set of genre expectations and moves. (permalink to article via Munday Library). The article may be useful to you, even if you are not applying to medical or dental school. Most likely, the personal statement prompt you are asked to respond to expects you to make moves similar to those that Ding studied.