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For Halloween this year, we'd like to share some peculiar stories from some of the Spivey consultants' days as admissions officers.
Here are some things to think about—tips we offer as you go about crafting your list:
Advice for attending law school forums.
A message of calm for applicants who are stressed about timelines.
A big hat tip to Emory Law School for the epically clear C&F instructions. They give reasons behind why they are asking, samples, and explicit instructions on what to do if someone told them not to disclose. Couldn’t have said this better — thanks Emory, and I hope this helps everyone demystify some of the ambiguity around C&F issues. Please do note that C&F instructions is one of the areas where school instructions vary the most, read each carefully. GUIDANCE ON BAR CHARACTER AND FITNESS REQUI
The incoming class' GPA/LSAT stats and look at how they changed from last year.
With more than 100 years of law school admissions experience between us, we have read over a hundred thousand law school essays and applications. That is an incredibly rewarding experience, but there can be times when you start to see the same words used, or used out of context, again and again. The following list of words includes some of the most overused and/or at times aggravating usage of words we see in applications. Keep in mind that not all of these words annoy every admissions officer —
We wanted to help you sort out how to think about the GRE—so we took some of the most commonly asked questions to our friends, law school admissions deans.
When are law school applications opening?
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.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike has a conversation with Rob Baker, a long-time practicing entertainment lawyer who has served on hiring committees for multiple law firms, ranging from biglaw to mid-law to a small firm, and who leads Spivey Consutling’s new employment coaching and law school mentorship program. Rob discusses his law school application process (3:49), what it was like starting 1L year (5:18), how law school prepared Rob for practicing (12:16) and how it didn’t (16:18), how legal employers view rankings (10:00), whether law school is “fun” (19:07), what makes a good lawyer (21:32), one key talent of the highest-earning lawyers (15:15), the one trait that can make all the difference in excelling in biglaw, becoming an entertainment lawyer, or getting admitted off the law school waitlist (17:28), and more.
Mike mentions our podcast episode with Jeff Chapman in this episode, “Interview with a Biglaw Partner (Jeff Chapman, Gibson Dunn Co-Chair of Global M&A),” which you can listen to here.
If you’re interested in learning more about Rob’s coaching and mentorship services, please reach out to info@spiveyconsulting.com.
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 discusses the five reasons that being denied from law school hurts—and the concrete ways that you can handle it.
Mike mentions a few other podcasts and a video clip 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, we take questions from Reddit! Mike Spivey, Mike Burns, and Anna Hicks-Jaco discuss just how slow this cycle is (10:19) and how that might impact late-cycle applicants (6:47), why law schools place applicants on “holds” (1:23), decision timelines and how/why they vary (4:23), advice for scholarship reconsideration (11:20), whether schools rescind admits or scholarships if you ask for more money (13:31), how the new student loan caps might impact your request for scholarship reconsideration (14:00), whether you should email a school if you haven’t heard from them since you applied early in the cycle (23:44) and whether they might have forgotten about your application (24:44), predictions for next cycle (19:31) and waitlist season this cycle (15:00), the cannonball strategy of law school waitlists (25:50), how important softs are and whether “soft tiers” are admissions pseudoscience (27:48), essays about institutional injustice and how to avoid coming off overly negative in a way that could harm your chances (34:36), advice for becoming an admissions officer (37:40), and more.
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 Dr. Nita Farahany—speaker, author, Duke Law Distinguished Professor, and the Founding Director of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society—on the future of artificial intelligence in law school, legal employment, legislation, and our day-to-day lives.
They discuss a wide range of AI-related topics, including how significantly Dr. Farahany expects AI to change our lives (10:43, 23:09), how Dr. Farahany checks for AI-generated content in her classes and her thoughts on AI detector tools (1:26, 5:46), the reason that she bans her students from using AI to help generate papers (plus, the reasons she doesn’t ascribe to) (3:41), predictions for how AI will impact legal employment in both the short term and the long term (7:26), which law students are likely to be successful vs. unsuccessful in an AI future (12:24), whether our technology is spying on us (17:04), cognitive offloading and the idea of “cognitive extinction” (18:59), how AI and technology can take away our free will (24:45) and ways to take it back (27:58), how our cognitive liberties are at stake and what we can do to reclaim them both on an individual level (30:06) and a societal level (35:53), neural implants and sensors and our screenless future (39:27), how to use AI in a way that promotes rather than diminishes critical thinking (44:43), and how much, for what purposes, and with which tools Dr. Farahany uses generative AI herself (47:27).
Among Dr. Farahany’s numerous credentials and accomplishments, she is the author of the 2023 book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending Your Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology; she has given two TED Talks and spoken at numerous high-profile conferences and forums; she served on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues from 2010 to 2017; she was President of the International Neuroethics Society from 2019 to 2021; and her scholarship includes work on artificial intelligence, cognitive biometric data privacy issues, and other topics in law and technology, ethics, and neuroscience. She is the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, where she also earned a JD, MA, and PhD in philosophy after completing a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth and a master’s from Harvard, both in biology.
Dr. Farahany’s Substack—featuring her interactive online AI Law & Policy and Advanced Topics in AI Law & Policy courses—is available here. The app she recommends is BePresent. The Status Check episode Mike mentions, with Dr. Judson Brewer, is 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, Dr. Guy Winch returns to the podcast for a conversation about his new book, Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life. They discuss burnout (especially for those in school or their early career), how society glorifies overworking even when it doesn’t lead to better outcomes (5:53), the difference between rumination and valuable self-analysis (11:02), the question Dr. Winch asks patients who are struggling with work-life balance that you can ask yourself (17:58), how to reduce the stress of the waiting process in admissions and the job search (24:36), and more.
Dr. Winch is a prominent psychologist, speaker, and author whose TED Talks on emotional well-being have over 35 million combined views. He has a podcast with co-host Lori Gottlieb, Dear Therapists. Dr. Winch’s new book, Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life, is out today!
Our last episode with Dr. Winch, “Dr. Guy Winch on Handling Rejection (& Waiting) in Admissions,” is 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.
