[blindlaw] Seeking guidance

Kelby Carlson kelbycarlson at gmail.com
Tue Dec 25 22:35:39 UTC 2018


I am going to be the contrarian here and say that, absent some very
specific circumstances, you probably should not go to law school. I
will explain why at some length.

First, law school is extremely expensive. We are talking at least
$40,000 per year, and considerably more than that if you want to
attend a good school (which you do, as I'll get to in a moment.) There
are scholarships, of course, but they are competitive and there aren't
that many. If you are planning on being an evening student, you can
add another year of tuition to your costs. You may be able to get a
state agency to pay for some of the education. I am not sure how your
vocational rehabilitation handles career transitions like the one you
envision. It is still likely, however, that you will be atking on a
considerable amount of debt. This debt is probably going to be very
difficult to pay off unless you get an extremely high-paying job.

Let's talk about law school a little more specifically. You were
asking whether or not you should take the GRE or the LSAT. I am not
familiar with the law schools that accept GRE schools, but I suspect
they are in the minority. THe schools that will give you the best
chance at a good job will almost certainly want an LSAT score, and
your chances of getting a scholarship are considerably higher with
one. The LSAT is a demanding test. Believe me when I say that
self-study is probably not a good idea, and considerable study is
required. (I did not take a course and am positive my score suffered
for it.) As was stated above, the LSAC is miserly with accommodations
even after the 2015 consent decree requiring them to grant more and
better accommodations to those with disabilities. (I can say this with
some confidence as I just took the MPRE, which is administered by the
LSAC.) So be prepared to pay a decent amount for a prep course, to
study a lot (and to learn nothing of relevance), and to spend several
months trying to get accommodations.

If you get a high LSAT score, you have a better chance of getting a
spot at a good law school. If you cannot get into a top 20 law school,
you shouldn't even bother going. (I went to the Columbus School of
Law, which is underrated but still nowhere near the top.) The top 20
schools are the only ones that give a really, really strong chance of
knabbing a high-paying job or a prestigious clerkship right after law
school. You will want one of those given the debts you will probably
accrue during your studies.

If you go to law school, you need to realize a number of things. First
of all, you will be getting a three year education that should
probably be two or even one year. You will essentially repeat your
entire first year over again while studying for the bar exam. Second,
all law school exams and some law school papers are graded on a curve.
This means that not only will you need to do very well objectively,
you will need to do better than all of your classmates consistently
over 6 semesters to maintain a high GPA. (If you are thinking about
trying for a 4.0, know that my school's head registrar said that he
has seen only one student ever receive a perfect GPA.) If you are not
in the top 10 percent of your class, finding a high-paying job that
will give you good experience will be extremely difficult unless you
are fabulous at networking.

Keep in mind also that law school takes up all your time. if you are
an evening student with a full-time job, you will have very limited
time to spend with your family over the next four years if you want to
maintain an extremely high GPA. The material you will be studying is
extremely dry, but you will need to know all of it cold by exams. Your
exams will probably all be closed-book; if they are open-book,
however, they might actually be harder--professors will often up the
difficulty of their exams if they allow you to use the book or the
outline.

If you want to do law review or journal as an evening student--this is
possible, I know several people who did--you will be devoting even
more time to largely thankless, tedious work for which you will never
be acknowledged. (If spending hours correcting minor grammatical
errors in citations and trying to handle MS Word's abhorrent footnote
interface appeals to you, than journal is definitely for you.)

So, all in all, law school itself is a tiring, unpleasant experience
that will waste a lot of your time. I am speaking as someone who
really liked his law school and has some very fond memories of it.

Let's move on to the question of what else you will be doing in law
school. If you do not get internships after your first year during the
summer and probably every semester thereafter, you are dooming your
potential in the job market. Much like scholarships, internships are
extremely competitive but absolutely necessary if you are going to get
the most out of your legal education. You will need to find an
internship that will actually give you meaningful work, which is
harder than it sounds. You will also probably want to find one that
pays, which is extremely difficult. The best kind of internship is a
summer associate position between your second and third years of
school, but this is a full-time position that will be harder to
arrange if you are an evening students. Once again, if you aren't
extremely highly ranked in your class your chances are low.

Let's say that you don't manage to grab a lot of paying internships,
but you do get several government internships and maintain decent
grades throughout law school (as I did). In your third year you will
then begin applying for jobs and judicial clerkships. You will
probably send out hundreds of applications and get responses from
almost no one. If you want to clerk with a federal judge, you will
have already begun applying your second year of law school because
most federal judges are looking two years out. Much like prestigious
firm jobs, federal clerkships are highly coveted because of their
resume-building potential and you will be extremely lucky to get one.
Even state clerkships will be challenging to obtain; hundreds of law
students will be applying for each one. If you are lucky you will
perhaps get around ten interviews. If you are extremely lucky you will
get offered a job by more than one employer. However, unless you have
managed to obtain a high-paying job at a large firm your dividends
will not be large. I will give you my own example: by the time I had
obtained employment out of law school it was as an attorney in a very
rural county making $35,000 a year. And you know what? I was ecstatic
when I received the offer, even though I would be making $5,000 less a
year than my wife who works as a nanny.

So, you need to ask yourself several questions. First, can you get
into a top 20 law school? Second, what kind of law will you practice?
What makes you particularly well-equipped to do so? If you cannot
answer this question, then you will not be able to effectively plan
your career during law school. Third, are you willing to sacrifice the
time and financial rewards you could have received, and incur a
potentially large amount of debt? Fourth, can you confidently say that
you can maintain a consistently high GPA at a prestigious school and
procure good internships (which may not pay) every semester of law
school? If your answer to any of those questions is no, you should not
go.

In my opinion, law school is worth it for almost no one and is
basically a scam. The legal job market is terrible, but law schools
will not make this clear to you because they are desperate to maintain
their student body (many of them expanded pre-recession and are trying
to recover.) If you do get a job, it will probably not pay well, and
it it does you may very well end up hating it, because the legal
profession is nothing like how it is portrayed on television. This
video is essentially accurate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM7K0LtkAvs

I hate to be the one to rain on everyone's parade. I'm sure there will
be many people who disagree with me here, some perhaps justifiably
(Laura Wook, a member of this list, clerks for Clarence Thomas.) But I
feel that I needed to state these things because a lot of people will
not.

Best,

Kelby Carlson



On 12/24/18, Nicole Poston via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> All,This is a very interesting thread for me.  In some ways, I am not like
> Maura....I do not have children of my own.  However, I have in the last few
> years been encouraged by numerous individuals in practically every facet of
> my life to consider the idea of going to law school.  Like Maura, I would be
> considered a non-traditional student and I do not have any interest in
> working at some big NYC law firm...my expectations are more reasonable.  I
> am currently in my 17th year of my current professional career and have a
> masters degree I finished like 10 years ago. I'm required in my current
> profession to get at least 6 credit hours every 5 years, which I have done
> online...but that has been the extent of my recent experiences at the
> collegiate level.  I definitely have an interest in pursuing law but the
> idea of leaping into a completely new realm is definitely daunting.   I
> guess one of my nagging questions is.... can some of law school be done
> while still working?  Or does one need to plan on just doing law school and
> putting work aside for those few years?  Any advice on this or anything else
> you might find helpful is welcome and appreciated, either on this thread or
> privately.
> Happy Holidays!Nicole
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Spiry via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> To: 'Blind Law Mailing List' <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: b.s.spiry <b.s.spiry at gmail.com>
> Sent: Mon, Dec 24, 2018 5:46 pm
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Seeking guidance
>
> Greetings Maura.
>
> I can relate to your itch to go for your J.D. despite what some may be
> telling you are bad odds for success. I took that plunge at the age of 48
> with an established 22 year professional career already behind me, married,
> couple of teenage kids still at home, and plenty of uncertainty. It was
> Scary as hell, and what my heart was telling me to do. I paid a price for it
> and I do not regret my decision.
>
>  So that is my first advice, take the time to listen carefully to your heart
> on this. You need to do it because it's  what is right for you, not for
> anyone else. And if it is right for you and you know it, ignore those who
> will try to convince you that you'd be crazy to do it as someone without
> sight (including other blind lawyers).
>
> for the most part, I agree with the comments and advice from others on this
> list regarding testing and strategy. So know this,  yeah, it's going to be
> damned hard and you're going to hit some walls that will be tough to get
> around/over/through but you probably know if you've got the metal for it in
> you. So go for it if you know it's right for you and you believe you've got
> the metal to find your way through some unique challenges. Follow your
> heart.
>
> My best wishes to you and yours for the holidays and the new year.
>
> Bill
>
>
> Bill Spiry
> Attorney at Law
> Spiry Law LLC
> (541) 600-3301
> Bill at SpiryLaw.com
> Bill.spiry at gmail.com
>
> "what's within you is stronger than what's in your way" - Erik Weihenmayer
>
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Maura Kutnyak via
> BlindLaw
> Sent: Monday, December 24, 2018 7:42 AM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Maura Kutnyak <maurakutnyak at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Seeking guidance
>
> One more thing, having sent this message from your iPhone, did you use a
> separate keyboard or have you found the Braille input useful?
> On Dec 24, 2018, at 9:27 AM, James Fetter via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
> wrote:
>
>> First of all, I agree with Paul. If this is your dream, go for it. Just
> know that more than a sane amount of work, work, and work, awaits you.
>> As to your questions:
>> 1. Having taken both the GRE and LSAT, I can state with a high level of
> confidence that the GRE does not present half the accommodations barriers
> the LSAT does. The logic games section of the LSAT requires either the
> drawing of diagrams or the use of Excel. There are no accessible study aids
> that teach you how to use Excel to ace this section. And at least when I
> took the LSAT, getting basic accommodations from LSAC was like waging a war
> of attrition. So if you don't mind being limited to the programs that accept
> the GRE, then do that and save yourself some pain and suffering.
>> 2. Going to law school after grad school is an interesting transition. All
> of a sudden, you're in a classroom with people ten years younger-people who
> are generally used to studying for high-pressure exams and who seem to have
> an inexhaustible amount of energy. Yet, you will have advantages: the
> ability to think in different ways, the ability to write both well and more
> quickly, etc. You will be fine, as long as you don't get sucked into the
> grades/money dynamic (I.e. the idea that the only reason you're there is to
> get top grades so that you can land a job at a NYC law firm). Nothing wrong
> with those goals, but based on your message, they don't seem to be your
> goals.
>> 3. Being blind in law school is like being blind anywhere else. You'll
> need the same auxiliary aids as you would need in grad school. The only real
> difference I found is that, if you're on journal, it can be interesting
> getting accommodations from 3L's (Third-year law students) while you're a 2L
> staff editor. I had to provide a crash course on the ADA to 3L's, who
> thought accommodations were a courtesy they could approve or deny at will.
> But I got through it just fine and am now practicing.
>> 4. Re: going through law school as a parent, I can't help much there other
> than to advise finding other parents going through the same thing as you
> are. Most of your fellow students will be in their early 20's and still on
> Tinder. So find other older law students who took a "non-traditional" path.
> Though my wife and I do not have kids, my best friends in law school were
> other older students who took non-traditional paths. In fact, these
> friendships, in addition to my wife, kept me sane through what would have
> otherwise been a very frenetic three years.
>> I hope some of this is helpful, and I wish you nothing but the best!
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Dec 24, 2018, at 8:45 AM, Maura Kutnyak via BlindLaw
> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thank you Dr. Harpur.  While maybe not practical, your words ring true.
> No one can answer some of my deepest questions other than me, in the moment.
> Again, thank you so kindly for taking the time to write.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Maura Kutnyak
>>> 716-563-9882
>>>
>>>> On Dec 24, 2018, at 8:10 AM, Paul Harpur via BlindLaw
> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You never know if you can live your dream until you wake up and take the
> plunge.  Go for it!
>>>> I am based in Australia but am also an International Distinguished
> Fellow at BBI at Syracuse University.  I will let others give more practical
> advice, but my e-mail is here to encourage you.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dr Paul Harpur
>>>> BBus (HRm), LLB (Hons) LLM, PhD, solicitor of the High Court of
>>>> Australia (non-practicing) Fulbright Future Scholar/International
> Distinguished Fellow, Burton Blatt Institute, SU, New York.
>>>> Senior Lecturer
>>>>
>>>> TC Beirne School of Law
>>>> The University of Queensland
>>>> Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia
>>>>
>>>> T +61 7 3365 8864 M +61 417 635 609
>>>> E p.harpur at law.uq.edu.au TCB Profile/Google Citation Page CRICOS
>>>> code: 00025B
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Scientia ac Labore
>>>>
>>>> This email (including any attached files) is intended solely for the
> addressee and may contain confidential information of The University of
> Queensland. If you are not the addressee, you are notified that any
> transmission, distribution, printing or photocopying of this email is
> prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please delete and
> notify me. Unless explicitly stated, the opinions expressed in this email do
> not represent the official position of The University of Queensland.
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: BlindLaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Maura Kutnyak via BlindLaw
>>>> Sent: Monday, 24 December 2018 11:05 PM
>>>> To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
>>>> Cc: Maura Kutnyak <maurakutnyak at gmail.com>
>>>> Subject: [blindlaw] Seeking guidance
>>>>
>>>> Hello blind law participants,
>>>>  I am writing with more than a little hesitation and an equal amount of
> interest.  If what follows would be better directed else where please point
> the way.
>>>>
>>>>  I am a blind graduate student in Buffalo NY.  Under the influence of a
> few converging forces, a slight interest in law school as a next step has
> grown to a nagging and exciting unshakable desire.  More than a few people
> who have offered consultation as I explore this option have pointed me to
> the collective knowledge of this email list.
>>>>
>>>>  My questions range from broad ideas such as, How could I possibly make
> my way through law school blind and a mother of three?  To, what kinds of
> supports will I need?  Most immediate is the question of which entrance test
> should I take?  I recently learned that The University at Buffalo law school
> started accepting the GRE in addition to the LSAT.  I did not have to take
> the GRE for the MPA program in which I am currently studying.  So, I am not
> sure which test is more friendly to the blind.
>>>>
>>>>  I could go on and on.I will end soon. One additional question is, are
> there any recent UB law graduates in this list?  hearing from someone who
> has spent time in that program may be a very helpful start.
>>>>
>>>>  Thanks to anyone who took the time to read.  I have so many more
> questions but I do not want to clog anyones inbox Too much.  Again, if this
> line of inquiry would be best plumbed somewhere else don't hesitate to
> redirect.
>>>>
>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>
>>>> Maura Kutnyak-Smalley
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
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>>>
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>>
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-- 
Kelby Carlson




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