Highway 2 L

School is right around the corner which means that law school application season is too. I wanted to take the lull between my wedding and moving to discuss personal statements, supplemental essays, and addenda. Personal Statement Getting Started Make sure you know how long your personal statement can be for each school. Most of my schools wanted no more than 2 pages, but one was okay with 3 pages. That extra page gives you a lot of room to set yourself apart. Also, start writing drafts early. You want to have plenty of time to find a good topic and edit your final draft to perfection. I didn't start writing until my applications were pretty much done; around January. I got my essays done and I was happy with them, but I was ran out of time to write all of the supplemental essays I'd wanted to write. Choosing a Topic I really struggled to find a topic for my personal statement. Everything felt either too generic or too much like a sob story. I wrote probably 10 di...

Well, it happened. We did a thing. Garrett and I have been married for two weeks now and we are loving it so far! We had an incredible day: the weather was perfect, our very good friend officiated a beautiful Jewish Catholic wedding, my friends played me down the aisle on their violins, and everything was just gorgeous. I do want to say that planning a wedding while applying to law school and preparing to graduate was a giant pain in the ass. It took a heavy toll to be stressed out about 3 major things at once. But the day was so beautiful and seeing Garrett at the end of the aisle was a moment I will never forget. We spent our honeymoon hiking and hiding in a cabin in the woods and talking about the next three years. Obviously being married is a lot of work and while the last two weeks have been a walk in wedded bliss, we are about to move and I definitely sense arguments about things to donate in our near future and other spats in the future to come. We also have never really...

After the Admitted Student Event, the school hosted a housing fair. Garrett and I had started looking at listings on sites like Trulia and Apartment List  for cities where I had been accepted to law programs. It was an extra hard search for us because we have a Bullboxer, Callie, who weighs about 55 pounds. Many apartments near the law school either don't allow pets at all or no dogs over 25 pounds. So we broadened our search. Garrett and I are kinda picky and had a lot of things we wanted for the lowest price we could get. We're moving from out of state and didn't want to lug our washer and dryer, so we needed them to be included in the unit. We also wanted to be near green space for our doggo. We had it narrowed down to two places: one was 20 minutes from the law school and was cheaper and the other was right across the street but cost a bit more. My suggestion is to really calculate how much you'd save. I don't have a car (my beloved Penny died two Octobe...

This past weekend was jam-packed with an admitted student event, an apartment tour, and my bridal shower. I've been taking week-long excursions home to take care of last minute wedding things in between stints at my fiancé's apartment to pack, declutter, and organize. This will be a three part series - one post on each - to address all of the facets. First Up: Admitted Student Event I hadn't gotten the chance to visit my law school yet since it's 4 hours from where I'm living and I don't have my own car, so this was an important day for me. Of course, I woke up Saturday morning with a monster migraine and let me tell you, it's hard to make a positive first impression when you can't think straight, want to puke, and have the feeling of a knife sticking out of your head. 1. What do I do if I wake up with a migraine? I am fortunate to have medications that are effective at treating my migraines - if you have chronic migraines and take a triptan t...

The LSAT is the bane of every up-and-coming lawyer's existence. Some cave under the pressure of having to do well: I mean your future depends on it. It's no secret that the LSAT's importance outweighs that of GPA at many institutions, and it's sometimes possible to "make up" for a crappy GPA with a stellar LSAT score. This...did not happen to me. I will admit my score was pretty meh, but I still managed to receive a full scholarship to a Tier 2 school. If I'd studied more diligently and without complications from my migraine disorder, I may have scored higher, but I'm not complaining. I feel lucky that I scored as high as I did despite many complications.  Here's how I studied and what I would and would not recommend: September 2016: I couldn't afford a tutor or a prep program so I studied with cheap or free materials. I bought a 3 month prep schedule from LawSchooli  and used free materials from the site and the recommended ...

25 days after being handed my diploma, here I am on my couch binge watching House of Cards  and typing out my first blog post. My diploma, though it sits proudly next to my fiancé's, is already gathering dust. Not for long as I will be attending law school in the midwest beginning in August, but what to do in the meantime? Professors, law students, and lawyers all say the best way to spend one's summer as a 0L is to enjoy not being a law student: read for pleasure, travel, wrap yourself into a blanket burrito and watch Netflix until your eyes fall out. Well, I have a lot of excited, nervous energy that I have poured into researching the law school experience. I've been reading Scott Turow's One L and probably a hundred articles dedicated to various aspects of law school success. I've run hundreds of Google and Pinterest searches, followed several blogs, and watched countless YouTube videos. However, there were a couple of areas where my searches didn't ...