How We'll Work Together

An admissions consultant provides knowledge, experience and insight into the application process. Guaranteeing you the best application possible requires careful attention to every step of the application process.  Here are the highlights of the process.  

General Information

As soon as you sign your contract and send your payment, you'll receive the Client Guide ™ explaining our approach to choosing law schools (and writing essays telling the schools why you've chosen them), preparing resumes and essays, and completing applications.  As we continue through the process, you'll receive information on attending law forums, answering correspondence from law schools, and lining up your 1L summer job.  

Getting Acquainted

Meeting each client is the best way I've found to facilitate working together. A first-hand meeting answers many unvoiced questions and gives a sense of personal style that cannot be gained by phone, fax or e-mail. Each client must make every effort to meet with me at a Law Forum (for which there will be no extra charge) or at another mutually convenient place (which may incur travel costs). Clients choosing to complete Early Action applications must meet with me before their personal statements are completed (usually before the Law Forum season).  

Choosing Law Schools

Choosing the best law schools for you requires an investment of time and effort on both of our parts. We'll each put in about four hours on the initial phases of choosing schools. You'll then spend many more hours requesting catalogs and cruising web pages.  

Once I understand what you want from a law school (and you know your LSAT score), I will recommend a number of law schools that seem to meet your needs, consulting my data base (which contains over 500 fields for each school), my interview sheets (with 20 years' data collected at Law Forums), and my personal knowledge (gleaned from site visits of over 140 law schools).

We'll discuss the list together in depth, fleshing out the statistical data with my impressions of the law school and its surrounding community, and prepare a list of ten to fifteen law schools that will meet your needs.

Recs and Evaluations

Even before you have your LSAT score and applications to become available, we'll begin the important process of choosing your recommenders and revising your resume to fit law school specifications. These simple but important steps take only two to four hours of our time.

You'll send me your transcripts from all the schools you've attended and your LSAC User ID and password, so we can review your work without the hassle of PDFs or snail mail.  

We'll review these together to see who will write you the best recommendations, both in terms of content and in terms of showing a complete picture of you.  We'll decide whether academic recommenders show the whole picture, or whether a work or activity recommender will counter a particular weakness in your file that needs addressing. We'll also decide whether you're sending the same recs to every school, or targeting special recs for certain schools.  

Since 2010, LSAC has offered the option of submitting an evaluation based on selection of pre-printed answers rather than a letter-format recommendation. We'll decide which format best represents you, and which people are the best choices for completing each format.

Resumes

Your resume is your greatest chance to shape the image you show to a law school; your sense of style and your inclusion of important activities can show sophistication, sincerity, or expertise in a field.

You'll send me your resume so that I can suggest revisions, highlighting the portions a law school admissions officer will consider most important. If you don't have a resume, we'll work together to decide whether you need one and help you to prepare it.

Once I've received your draft resume meeting all the requirements -- schools, jobs, activities and honors -- I'll format it and return it for your review. Any changes needed during the application year will be included at no charge.

Personal Statements

Expect to spend at least twenty hours writing the 8 to 10 single-spaced pages of material we need to begin. This material will come in the form of answers to the preliminary question in the Client Guide.   We'll review your answers, and I'll ask further questions based on the particulars of your life.  We'll repeat this process as often as is necessary to learn your life story.  

With all of your answers in hand, I will review your entire file and indicate which pieces will be of interest to admissions officers and which should be omitted. If one or more of your answers to me clearly addresses the ideas needed, we will use it as the basis for your personal statement, editing and clarifying as needed.

In addition to a personal statement, many applicants will need a diversity statement, an explanation of a leave of absence, academic probation or arrest, or other essays requested by the law school.  In many instances, the answers to these questions will already be part of your file. If so, we will retrieve and edit the relevant essays and polish them for the law school. If not, we will discuss the question together and explore topics so that you can prepare the needed essay.

Completing the Applications

In addition to gathering information for each school we've selected, you'll begin working on the computerized application service offered by Law Services.  As soon as you have an LSAT score (or when the program is available in September), we'll begin the process of preparing the applications. This important process takes two to four hours per school.

 You'll start by completing the Common Information section of the LSACD.  Once we're sure that the basic information is correct, you'll complete one fairly complex application with several additional questions.  I'll review the application to make sure the information you've given is what was wanted and proofread final copies of all your apps.

Compiling and Submitting Applications

If you have followed all the previous steps, you should not need any assistance from us at this stage. We've reviewed your application, verified the essays you need, and polished every piece of your file together. However, if you have questions, we're available to answer them for you even in the hours when folks seem to settle in to assemble files. Our regular office hours are extended until 10:00 p.m. Pacific time in December and January, so we're available when you're working on your file.  

Miscellaneous Support

Financial aid applications, complaints about frustrating questions on the applications, and nervous questions about when you'll hear are an inevitable part of the application process.

• Although not officially included in the Program, we'll be happy to offer help or listen to an occasional kvetch session.
• We'll offer kudos and consolations as appropriate, toast the celebrants and remind each grieving applicant that if you're not rejected someplace, you're either going to Yale or we didn't aim high enough.
• If you like, we'll provide contacts among our former clients at the various law schools or in their home cities, help you choose among several offers, even provide tips on finding housing in your new city.