Applying to Law School

For a majority of law school applications, they are done online through the LSAC’s Credential Assembly Service (CAS). CAS is similar to the Common App which is used to apply for colleges, but CAS is for law schools specifically. Some schools may not use CAS, you will need to check the schools that you want to apply to know. These components of your law school application are compiled online using CAS:

• Resume
• Personal Statement
• Letters of Recommendation (see below for more information about LoR)
  • You should secure 2-3 letters of recommendation. Most schools will require at least 2 and may allow for an optional third as well.
  • At least one of your recommenders should be an instructor who is familiar with your academic work and can speak to your potential to study law. Other recommenders can be work/internship supervisors, coach, advisor, or anyone else who knows you well and can speak to your work, skills, and abilities.
  • Be sure to give your recommenders enough time to write a strong letter for you. Talk with them about why you want to pursue law school and provide them with your resume, personal statement, and anything else that can help them write the best letter for you. You can coach each recommender to highlight a different part of you that they may be more familiar with.
  • Recommenders will submit their letters through the LSAC website. You input their information on your LSAC account, and LSAC will then generate a recommendation form and send it to your recommender. Recommenders will upload the letter directly to LSAC.
• Academic Transcripts
  • How to request UO Transcripts for LSAC
  • Don’t forget to include transcripts from transfer or study abroad institutions
• LSAT Score
• Other school specific essays/statements
• Character and Fitness
  • This section in your application will ask you to disclose any past misconduct that falls into two general categories: academic and criminal. Reporting an incident does not necessarily mean that you will be removed from consideration, but providing an inaccurate or incomplete response will. 
  • Each school will ask the question different, be sure to read each question carefully to make sure that you are answering accurately. Most law school applications don’t ask if an incident was recorded, they ask if it happened. So even if something is not on record, you are still obligated to report it.
  • Honesty is key! Err on the side of reporting everything. In the future, if your answers from your law school application and your bar exam application don’t match, it may be difficult being admitted to the bar. 
• Addenda (if applicable)
• Optional Essays (such as Diversity Statement)

Give yourself enough time (months!) to draft and revise your application materials. Have multiple people review your materials. UO Pre-Law Advising is one resource for this!

Application season usually begins September for most schools for the following fall. Early application is encouraged, as many schools utilize a rolling admissions process. This means that they review applications as they are received and may have more seats and funding available to offer competitive candidates who apply earlier.  Use Thanksgiving and Winter Break as a general deadline to submit applications. You can still be admitted into a law school if you apply up to the deadline, but remember that funding amounts may also be impacted.

Some schools have specific early decision deadlines for funding, binding-decision deadlines, or they may accept candidates well into the spring. Closely review the admission timelines for each law school to which you hope to apply, and ensure you take the LSAT early enough to support an on-time application. Typically, LSAT scores are released 3 weeks after taking the exam, so plan accordingly.

There are many considerations to take into account when deciding what schools and how many schools to apply to. You will need to do some reflection on what you are looking for in a law school as well as research into what law schools offer. Consider YOUR criteria for the law school that you want to attend. What is important to you? Here are some (and definitely not all) things to think about:

• Where do you want to live while you’re in law school?
• Where do you think you might want to practice law after graduating from law school? Different states have different court systems and sets its own rules for bar admission, so this is important. Some schools can offer flexibility to the states you may be prepared to practice in while others are state specific.
• How much debt are you willing to be in? Are there funding programs/resources/scholarships/loans at the law schools that you are interested in to support you? Weigh the importance of how much debt you are willing to be in vs. the prestige/ranking of an institution specifically to you.
• Does the law school offer an expertise area in a type of law you want to pursue?
• Does the law school offer other opportunities that you might be interested in? Clinic availabilities, connection to local community/community organizations, opportunities to mentor aspiring law students, student organizations, etc.?
• How does the program “feel” to you? Reach out to student ambassadors, current students, law school admissions staff, faculty, alumni and visit the campus if possible. Does the law school feel supportive to you as a law student?

One strategy for submitting applications involves comparing your own LSAT score and GPA to schools’ median admitted scores and GPA’s. Guided by this comparison, you can apply to a spectrum of “reach” schools, “target” schools, and “safety” schools to help ensure you have options throughout the application and admissions process.

For example, after applying to a range of schools, you may receive an offer to one of your “reach” schools and a “target” school, but because your numbers are more competitive at your target school, this second offer may come with a financial incentive. With multiple options (and financial incentives!) you can then choose which offer to accept based on the factors that are important to you.

The decision, of course, is ultimately up to you. Much of the criteria you should consider are listed above in the guidance on what schools to decide. Now that you have been offered admission, you may want to continue connecting with folks who can speak to their experience/knowledge of the law school that you have been offered admission to.

One new piece of information that you may be receiving is your financial aid (FA) package. Talk to the financial aid folks at the law school to figure out how the funding works and if there are any requirements that you must meet every term/semester/year. You may also be able to use your FA to help leverage funding at another school that you want to attend.

You want to make sure you are doing research on what you need to do in order to plan for financing for law school. Talk to the folks in charge of financial aid at the schools you are interested in/have committed to attending. AccessLex has a helpful Loan Calculator and Scholarship Databank to help you get started. 

Some things to keep in mind when planning:

• Cost of Tuition
• Fill out the FAFSA! Available October 1 of every year.
• Financial Aid. What types of aid are available? What types of loans are available?
• Merit-based scholarships v. need-based scholarships
  • Check with individual schools about what is offered and available.
  • Check external funding sources. There are often external scholarships that you can apply to.
• After reviewing your financial aid packages, there may be opportunities to negotiate/ask for more funding.
• Consider the cost-of-living in the area where you will be moving to. Things like:
  • Rent
  • Utilities
  • Groceries
  • Car/Renters/Health insurance
  • Textbooks
  • Other

Part of deciding which law school that you want to attend is also the financial piece of it. You may be debating between a school that is offering you a larger financial aid package compared to another school that you are also interested in attending where you may have to take on more debt. The decision is, again, up to you, however you also want to think about how much debt you’ll be in, what loan payments may look like after graduation, what your income may look like after law school, and how it may impact your personal finances (ie. Buying a phone/car/house which often requires credit checks).