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In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Spivey Consulting's Derek Meeker interviews a Harvard Law 2L (and former client) who transferred from the University of Idaho. They talk about his background and story, his non-traditional path to law school, his initial 1L application, his transfer application (and what made it shine), the expectations vs. reality of transferring law schools, and more.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and Google Podcasts.
Note: Discussion of Max's transfer admissions process begins approximately at the 32-minute mark.
Derek Meeker is a nationally respected professional among law school admissions and career services deans. His more than 20 years of experience include serving as Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid for the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as Recruiting Manager for global law firm Paul Hastings, and as an admissions reader for the University of Chicago Law School.
As Dean of Admissions at Penn Law, Derek evaluated and made the final decision on every J.D. application—over 6,000 per year. During his tenure, Penn Law received a record number of applications, increased selectivity, and expanded need-based, public service, and merit scholarship programs. As a consultant, he has guided hundreds of law school applicants through 10 admission cycles and has advised law schools on their admissions and career services strategies. He also has counseled law students on the big law hiring process, interviewing skills, and etiquette. He has spoken at dozens of colleges across the country and served on committees and panels for various professional organizations, including as a research assistant and Chair of the New Admission Personnel and Faculty Members Workshop for the Law School Admission Council (LSAC).
A first-generation college student from rural Ohio and member of the LGBTQ community, Derek is most proud of his legacy of increasing racial, sexual orientation, and socio-economic diversity at Penn Law and in helping to launch diversity scholarships at Paul Hastings. He also has served as a career mentor and writing coach to first-generation college applicants in the Los Angeles area.
A former practicing attorney, Derek holds a B.S. in Journalism and takes continuing education courses in the Writers’ Program at UCLA. He is passionate about writing and loves coaching students to be better writers. Derek is based in LA and enjoys acting, yoga, meditation, biking, and camping.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Anna Hicks-Jaco discusses the strategy of reapplying to law school, joined by former law school admissions officers and Spivey consultants Sir Williams and Julia Truemper. They give a great deal of insider insights and strategic advice, including common reapplication mistakes (8:11, 17:57, 34:26), how to explain why you’re reapplying (32:15), whether admissions officers review reapplicants’ previous applications (2:31), whether they hold a previous denial against reapplicants (5:25), how discrepancies between the previous application and the current application can be problematic for reapplicants (3:52, 30:06), whether and how you need to revise and create new materials for a reapplication to the same school (6:32, 16:06), how to critically assess your previous application (10:43, 17:57), how you should change your school list (23:07), advice for the sometimes difficult process of rewriting your personal statement (25:42), how law schools look at reapplicants who were previously admitted (and how to mitigate potential negative impacts of that) (30:41), advice for reapplicants who weren’t admitted anywhere the previous cycle (40:01), and more.
You can find Part 1 of this two-part series, “Should You Reapply to Law School,” here.
Other resources mentioned in this episode:
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 has a conversation with Vincent Sheu, an attorney and AI startup founder with a JD and a Master’s in Computer Science from Stanford (in addition to degrees in Statistics, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Bioengineering).
Mike and Vincent discuss how he uses AI in his legal work today (19:20, 22:20), how he expects to be using AI in legal work in the future (37:23), how important his human contributions are vs. the contributions of AI (25:32), whether AI will be able to learn EQ (27:12), the sorts of AI tooling skills that employers are (and will be) looking for (29:19, 42:45) and how they screen for those skills (33:39), the benefits of using AI for legal work as well as the risks (24:04, 31:21, 44:23), how the next generation of lawyers will be advantaged and disadvantaged in the new landscape of legal practice (30:03), whether Vincent would hire a new lawyer who was brilliant and likable but has no familiarity with AI (32:52), Vincent’s recruiting process out of law school (14:03) and what his hours looked like in biglaw vs. as an in-house general counsel (19:36), how Vincent went 23 for 25 during his law school admissions cycle as a “super splitter” (3:32), and more.
Near the beginning of the episode, Mike and Vincent chat about a viral video from 2014 in which Vincent rapidly completed a Rubik’s Cube at a college basketball game. While the original video is now private, you can find the referenced SportsCenter article here.
Mike also mentions the recent case of a defendant attempting to use an AI avatar to make their opening argument in court. You can find that video here.
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 Spivey consultants and former law school admissions officers, Kristen Mercado and Nathan Neely, on the decision whether to reapply to law school. What are good reasons—and what are bad reasons—to reapply? How much of an LSAT improvement is enough to justify reapplying (6:00)? How much of an impact can improved work experience have (16:09)? Can it be a game-changer if the only thing you do differently is applying earlier (36:09)? Does it ever make sense to reapply based purely on the hope that next cycle will be less competitive overall (38:17)? And what advice can we share for applicants who weren’t admitted anywhere (47:10)?
This is part one of a two-part series. Coming late next month: part two all about the STRATEGY of reapplying.
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.
