[MRM]

Law school success can't be predicted by LSAT, intelligence or GPA. I read once that the best predictor was a combination of LSAT and GPA, weighed equally. There is almost a knack to learning the law. Once you get it the rest comes easy. All you have to do is master reading 500 pages a day, briefing a half dozen cases per class, and keepign up with your outline. but anyone with an iron butt can do that stuff. Not everyone who is willing to close out the library every night can get the knack. in my experience, the ones who tried the hardest tended to do the worst. I always through they were trying brute force when all they needed to do was sit and think a bit about why the answer was such and such. For what it's worth, I pretty much got the secret on the first day when I figured out no one else was smarter than me or had any special skills I didn't have, and that the rest was going to be a three year long hazing ritual. After that, I kind of liked it. it was like eating an all you can eat buffet without ever tasting anything great, but nothing bad, and never getting full for three years.

As an added comfort to your daughter, law schools care about grades more than LSATs. As further comfort, law schools play games with their acceptance rates. 27% isn't bad. Just tell her to beeee the test and she'll do just fine. The worst thing she can do is stress over it. If she walked in tomorrow and took the test for real with no pressure on herself, she'd probably score in the top 15%. If she stresses and acts like studying for the LSAT is like studying for the bar, she'll run out of the room screaming before she's half done.

One final thought. Why does she want to go to law school? I love it, but it is not for everyone. I can't count the number of people I met who went to law school and denied that they wanted to be lawyers, or even that they were going to be lawyers. They always acted surprised when they graduated and everyone had the strange idea that they were lawyers and the only thing they were good for was practicing law. I mean, really. Where did they get that idea? Then they were unhappy because they found themselves pigeon holed in a profession they didn't really like, doing work that was difficult and stressful, not making as much money as the average MBA who went to school half as long and worked half as many hours.

There is only one reason to go to law school. That is if you look yourself in the mirror and can't stand the idea of being anything but a lawyer. If she's like that, she has the drive to be a lawyer and will make a good one. If she can stand the idea of being something other than a lawyer, or she thinks she wants to be rich, she should go to business school or learn to drive a truck.

The best thing about law school is that no one cares how you spell. It shows, doesn't it?