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  • Archive for May, 2008

    Getting Into Law School

    Saturday, May 17th, 2008

    LSAT and grade point average are two most important things for law school admission. However, you should know that law schools also are interested in students’ work experience. Many law schools require personal statement and letters of recommendation.

    Furthermore, students who apply to law schools must send their college transcripts to Law School Data Assembly Service (LSDAS). The student’s GPA is calculated separately each year. A law school can see the improvement of GPA and overall GPA. The GPA is the average of the grades. If a student has a high GPA, he has good chances of admission to law school. Nevertheless, GPA is not the only factor for admission. A law student must also take challenging courses each quarter.

    You do not need to have a certain major to enter law school. Law schools generally are interested in liberal arts background. You usually want to take wide variety of classes such as math, business, social sciences, and statistics.

    Law schools want their students to be mature and responsible. They want to see that you participate in activities during college. You want to show them your exceptional leadership ability. So you should participate in student government, school newspaper, or special research projects.

    Finally, You should get to know your professors. Law schools generally want you to submit two or three letters of recommendation.

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    Aspiring Illinois Lawyers Need More than Just Law Degrees

    Friday, May 16th, 2008

    The 2004 bar exam results throughout the United States were less than inspiring. Only 64% of bar takers actually passed. The exam is offered twice each year in July and February, and just last month, while many Americans enjoyed summer vacations, 77,000 law school graduates sat for the July 2006 bar exam. Among the 77,000, over 3,000 graduates sat for the Illinois bar exam with hopes of becoming Illinois lawyers.

    Illinois is home to seven law schools, which is more than most states, and according to the results of the 2004 bar exam, only 76% of Illinois bar takers will be licensed Illinois attorneys after graduation. Although 76% is less grim than the national average, it is gut wrenching from the perspective of those who have spent three years of their lives in law school.

    Fueled by enough caffeine to keep a lot of coffee shops in business, many law students sacrifice long evenings hard at work pouring over hundreds of pages of cases. The students who complete three years of this regime usually acquire law degrees and debt loads that go well into the six digits, but those law degrees do not make law school grads Illinois lawyers until they pass the 2-day long Illinois bar exam.

    The Illinois bar exam covers just about everything that is taught throughout 3 years of law school, from Criminal Procedure to Trusts and Future Interests, every subject covered in law school is fair game for the exam. Although most Illinois attorneys never come across bar exam topics like Future Interests in the practice of law, they remain haunted by the topics and able to regurgitate their definitions tens of years later. Thus, many topics that are not even useful in the modern day practice of Illinois law prevent a lot of law school grads from becoming lawyers.

    Many talented law school grads, including Hillary Clinton and John F. Kennedy Jr., have failed their state bar exams. One recent bar taker, Kathleen Sullivan, a Harvard law professor and Stanford law dean, showed the world how difficult it is to pass the dreaded exam when she failed the California bar. The California bar is known as one of the toughest in the country with a 50% pass rate.

    What happens to the 24% of law school grads who fail the bar exam? Some of them take it again, and again and again There is a limit of 6 attempts that law school graduates can make to pass the Illinois bar, however, the passage rate is substantially lower for serial bar takers. Some law school grads attempt to take the bar exam in neighboring states like Indiana and Iowa. Finally, some law school grads find legal careers that do not require law licenses such as writing for legal newspapers.

    And what happens to those top 76% of bar takers who pass the bar? The ABA reports that there are currently 1,116,967 licensed lawyers throughout the United States and 961,000 of them were employed as lawyers in 2005. After passing the bar, young Illinois lawyers must compete with about 47,000 other licensed attorneys throughout the state.

    Again, the 2004 bar exam results were less than inspiring for those who are interested in becoming Illinois lawyers. Nevertheless, whether you want to call them persistent or just downright naive, this generation of students continues to apply to law school. If there is a bright side to the outlook for Illinois and its future non-licensed law degree holders, it’s that throughout human history, it is hard to think of a society that has ever suffered for being over-educated. As more law students compete for positions as lawyers, Illinois will have better lawyers and a more educated populace.

    Emily Gleason is a law student at John Marshall in Chicago. For more information, please visit http://www.FindGreatLawyers.com, a leading resource for referrals to Illinois lawyers.

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    Getting Your Homeschooling Approved By The State

    Thursday, May 15th, 2008

    While most parents would choose public school education for their children, some are choosing the road less taken - homeschooling.. Home schooling, prevalent prior the inception of formalized school systems, is making a return to the mainstream because some parents either do not approve of the curriculum of school systems or are even against the idea of formalized school systems, or find themselves holding greater capacity to educate their children in the best possible manner.

    You may be interested in homeschooling your child, and you have your own reasons for doing it. Like picking a school for your child, making the decision to home school requires a lot of consideration. For many reasons, certain guidelines are set by the state or local education offices before you can actually home school your children. Majority of states in the United States would require a legal minimum of state notification of your intention to home school your child. In a rare few (including Texas, Alaska, Missouri, Illinois, and Oklahoma, among others), you may go on ahead with home schooling your child without informing the state.

    Later on, during the period when your child is already being home schooled, some states may require for you to submit to them evaluation scores, attendance records (states may require a minimum number of ’school’ days for home school too) and even test scores.

    It is important for you to find out the different requirements for homeschooling in your state or country. It will help you make sure that once you home school your child, your child’s education is actually being recognized by the state. Without state approval, your home schooling may not be regarded, which may increase the difficulty for your child to move on to a university or college.

    The state may be able to provide you with various forms and guidebooks for you to home school your children. Homeschooled children are required a marginal number of steps that regular applicants are not required to take in order to qualify for their chosen university. Moreover, by visiting your local education authority, you will also get to find out the various state and local government scholarships for which your child may or may not be able to qualify just because they are homeschooled.

    Make a visit to your state or local government education office in order to make an educated decision, and in order to get the approval you would need to push through with home schooling your child.

    Joshua Poyoh is the creator of homeschoolingreport.com He writes and researches into the area of the Home Schooling Requirements And State Law

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