*Unfortunately, we are unable to accept new clients at this time. Limited openings may become available in mid-December; please check back then.
X
Spivey Consulting Group fully supports equitable access and diverse representation in legal education, and in 2025, this responsibility is more important than ever. As a part of this ongoing commitment, we are excited to announce the fifth year of our annual Spivey Consulting Group Pro Bono Program.
We are thrilled to announce that Mike Burns has joined Spivey Consulting Group as our new Chief Operating Officer and Admissions Consultant!
Please note: we will stop accepting submissions for this program on Thursday, June 20, 2024, at 11:59 PM EST.
Today has a special meaning to me, and I write to outline our firm’s upcoming growth and diversification of services in 2024.
Spivey Consulting Group fully supports equitable access and diverse representation in legal education. We are excited to announce that, as part of this ongoing commitment, Spivey Consulting Group is launching its third year of our formal Pro-Bono Consulting Program!
We get asked a lot for advice on how to get ready for law school, so we’ve asked the Pre-L coaches on our team to share a few habits and mindsets to adopt to succeed as a 1L.
We are excited to have recently completed and submitted to publishing the upcoming PowerScore/Spivey Consulting Law School Admissions Bible, scheduled to go to press next month (November 2022)! Here's a preview of the Table of Contents.
Below is the formal announcement from Syracuse University College of Law.
As the new school year kicks off, we are excited to announce that the team behind our Pre-L program will be expanding the support that we provide to include managing the challenges (both academic and personal) presented during law school.
In this episode, Mike speaks again with "Barb," an applicant this 2021-2022 cycle with a ~177 LSAT, a ~3.3 GPA, and ten years of work experience. The last time we spoke with Barb, which was in December, she had submitted most of her applications but hadn't yet heard back from any schools, and her anxiety was mounting. She now has six admits (in addition to one waitlist, one priority hold, and three denials), and we spend this podcast talking about her thought process for each of those schools, plus discussing and giving advice on next steps, including assessing whether to pursue the waitlist, navigating scholarship negotiation and seat deposit deadlines, and deciding where to attend.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike interviews law school strategy coach Angela Vorpahl about some of the most common mistakes that 1Ls make and how to set yourself up to get great grades. Prior to starting her own firm to assist law students, Angela graduated from law school in the top 1% of her class, clerked for a federal judge, worked in biglaw, and practiced as a human rights attorney.
You can find Angela online on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and her website.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike discusses the recently released 2023 edition (2022 release) U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. You can view the full rankings (including +/- from last year) here.
As always, we want to disclaim that it is our strong opinion that rankings should not be a major factor in where you decide to attend law school. You can watch our video on how best to use rankings to decide on a law school here, and you can always visit our site My Rank to create your own custom law school rankings based on the metrics you prioritize.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
In this episode, Mike gets together with PowerScore CEO and LSAT expert Dave Killoran to discuss the closing months of this current 2021-2022 cycle, early indicators and predictions for next cycle 2022-2023, and the development of the LSAT over time as it has shifted from a five-section, in-person, pencil-and-paper exam, to a three-section, at-home, virtual exam, then back to its current four-section format (and what to expect next).
At the end of the episode, Mike and Dave share an announcement: the PowerScore/Spivey Consulting Admissions Bible is coming this fall! Sign up here for updates on the release date and ordering info.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
This is a brief podcast on being denied from law school. For more on rejection, listen to our podcast with Dr. Guy Winch, renowned psychologist, author, and speaker.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
You can find Part 1 of this episode here.
In this episode of Status Check with Spivey, Mike and Dave answer more questions from the Law School Admissions Reddit! Part 2 discusses personal statements topics, reapplying, letters of recommendation, the relative importance of "softs" generally, Why X essays, work experience vs. going "K-JD," how law schools look at leaves of absence during college, and undergraduate record addenda.
Relevant links from this episode:
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
** A note on our personal statement examples: Probably not every personal statement in this post will be your personal taste, and that is perfectly fine! However, they are all essays that contributed toward the applicant achieving great results, i.e. multiple acceptances where they were below both medians or substantially below the LSAT median. The examples come from our team of consultants with collectively over 250 years of experience reading law school applications and making decisions on files, and they were each deeply authentic and genuine for the applicants who wrote them (in addition to fitting well within the greater context of their applications). Ultimately, those are the personal statements that are the most positively differentiated—those written sincerely from the heart—so certainly don't try to write something like one of these essays if it's not your cup of tea. We hope they are helpful examples nonetheless.
