Holiday Law School Admissions AMA with Mike Spivey

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna has an in-depth discussion on law school admissions interviews with two Spivey consultants—Sam Parker, who joined Spivey this past fall from her position as Associate Director of Admissions at Harvard Law School, where she personally interviewed over a thousand applicants; and Paula Gluzman, who, in addition to her experience as Assistant Director of Admissions & Financial Aid at both UCLA Law and the University of Washington Law, has assisted hundreds of law school applicants and students in preparing for interviews as a consultant and law school career services professional. You can learn more about Sam here and Paula here.

Paula, Sam, and Anna talk about how important interviews are in the admissions process (9:45), different types of law school interviews (14:15), advice for group interviews (17:05), what qualities applicants should be trying to showcase in interviews (20:01), categories of interview questions and examples of real law school admissions interview questions (26:01), the trickiest law school admissions interview questions (33:41), a formula for answering questions about failures and mistakes (38:14), a step-by-step process for how to prepare for interviews (46:07), common interview mistakes (55:42), advice for attire and presentation (especially for remote interviews) (1:02:20), good and bad questions to ask at the end of an interview (1:06:16), the funniest things we’ve seen applicants do in interviews (1:10:15), what percentage of applicants we’ve found typically do well in interviews (1:10:45), and more.

Links to Status Check episodes mentioned:

• Five Categories of Law School Admissions Interview Questions & How to Answer Them
• “Why X” Essays: Deep Dive with Former Law School Admissions Officers
• How Law School Hiring Has Changed (Rapidly) & How That Impacts Admissions

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike interviews Miller Leonard, author of How to Get a Job After Law School: The Job Won’t Find You (free online ⁠here⁠), on the lessons he’s learned about networking and getting a legal job in his 25+ years as an attorney. Throughout his career, Miller has been a prosecutor, public defender, legal aid attorney, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Municipal Judge, and he regularly shares legal employment and practice advice for his 40,000+ followers on ⁠LinkedIn⁠.

Miller discusses concrete steps anyone can take to network with lawyers in their field of choice (8:03), the jarring dynamic shift that happens when high performers go from being students to job-seekers (17:01), networking advice for introverts (19:34), predictions for the future of the legal hiring market and AI (25:16), what law schools are doing right (31:35) and wrong (38:06), overlooked opportunities for new law school grads (42:22), and more.

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.

In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco has a conversation with two of Spivey’s newest consultants—Sam Parker, former Harvard Law Associate Director of Admissions, and Julia Truemper, former Vanderbilt Law Associate Director of Admissions—all about the law school admissions advice that admissions officers won’t give you, discussing insider secrets and debunking myths and common applicant misconceptions. 

Over this hour-and-twenty-minute-long episode, three former law school admissions officers talk about the inner workings of law schools’ application review processes (31:50), the true nature of “admissions committees” (33:50), cutoff LSAT scores (23:03, 46:13), what is really meant (and what isn’t) by terms such as “holistic review” (42:50) and “rolling admissions” (32:10), tips for interviews (1:03:16), waitlist advice (1:15:28), what (not) to read into schools’ marketing emails (10:04), which instructions to follow if you get different guidance from a law school’s website vs. an admissions officer vs. on their application instructions on LSAC (14:29), things not to post on Reddit (1:12:07), and much more.

Two other episodes are mentioned in this podcast:

• Making Your Law School List: Advice & Resources for Deciding Where to Apply
• “Safety Schools” and Making a Law School Backup Plan

You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠. You can read a full transcript of this episode with timestamps below.