Here are some of the best law school tips I have found:

1. Managing life during law school:
   5 Easy Ways to Increase Productivity in Law School
2. Tips for the 1L who is trying to figure out this new world of law school:
   Top 5 Tips for Entering Law School Students
3. 10 quick tips to do better in your law school courses:
   Top 10 First Year (1L) Law School Tips

Here is a list of some tips I previously wrote to help law students improve their experience in law school:

Guide to Law School: 127 Tips & Resources for Law School Success

See also: Tips for Pre-Law Students Preparing for Law School

Law school is great preparation for the practice of law because it forces you to

• prioritize and eliminate “noise” and distractions in your life
• focus on consistently proceeding towards goals
• organize massive amounts of information into concepts and principles (taking a scientific approach to thoughts and ideas)
• deal with discouragement and doubt from constantly coming up short with your grades (you used to get top grades, but only 1% will see all A’s in law school)
• dialog with very smart peers, which can be both inspiring (some of them) and annoying (other law students)
• become flexible at adjusting to the change and evolution while proceeding through the stages of law school

While some of these challenges may not be enjoyable at the time, they will give you experiences and character that you will always value. Law school is challenging enough, so I hope these tips for law students are useful to you.

Similar to the ways that law students can stay connected on Facebook, LinkedIn provides new attorneys opportunities to stay connected and expand their network as they meet other professionals.

For ideas particular to the legal profession, Lawyerist offers these great tips for law students who are wondering how to use LinkedIn: How law students should use LinkedIn.

Here is a good video from Stanford on how to use LikedIn as a student:

Click here to view the embedded video.

To get started, see this introduction for students at Linked In: Students Getting Started on LinkedIn

Or watch these videos:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Does that mean there are no dream jobs left? No.  Rather, there are just less of them.

The lesson for potential law students is this: go to law school if you believe you will enjoy

1. being an attorney or
2. using your law degree in another job you will enjoy.

However, do not go to law school because

1. you want to make a lot of money (few recent law school grads do) or
2. other motives that do not relate to loving legal work.

Before you give up three years of your life and $200,000 for law school, consider talking with some attorneys or possibly even shadowing them for a few hours. Learn what the job is really like

As you probably know, real lawyer jobs are nothing like lawyers on TV. Lawyers on TV have excitement, action, and intrigue. In real life, most of an attorney’s day is analyzing information and drafting documents.

If you still have dreams about working at a large law firm, here is a good blog post. This is an honest look at a recent law school graduate who found an attorney job at a big firm, and one who did not. A Tale of Two Law Students: One Summering at Cravath, The Other Still Searching For a Job.

In this video, CNN’s Tony Harris speaks to a law school graduate struggling to find a full-time law job and repay her law school loans.

She earns $7.50 per hour at a coffee shop and $12 per hour part-time at a law firm.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• An internship may help you earn credits towards your course. Check with the appropriate department in your school to see how many hours of intern experience you will need to earn enough credits.
• It helps you decide which area of law you wish to pursue and which specialty you’re cut out for – most law students find it difficult to decide on this issue, and many times, they think they know what they want, but only when they spend some time exploring other options do they realize what their true calling is.
• Law internships help you gain valuable experience before you step into the professional world of lawyers. It’s good to have a glimpse of what your responsibilities will include once you leave the comfort zone of law school and step into the real world of practicing attorneys and court cases.
• They look good on your resume and add to your desirability when you’re hoping to find a position with a prestigious law firm on graduation.
• You get to work with many great thinkers in the law industry and gain the advantage of working under a mentor who could most often make a significant difference in your professional life and the course you choose for your career.
• It’s common to make errors of judgment and mess up when you first start out in the professional world, but with an internship, you get to make your errors even before you start your first job, and you’re better prepared not to repeat them again.

Internships also help when you’re undecided about law school and want to test the waters before you apply. These pre-law internships not only help you earn course credit, but also work to your advantage in gaining admission to the top law schools in the country. Some interns get paid, others don’t – it depends on the kind of internship you get or choose. The broad exposure and the vast experience you gain as an intern make up for the lack of payment, and the other advantages also make it worth your while to spend your summer breaks working as an intern at a law office or clerking for a judge or at the courthouse.

About the Author:

This guest post is contributed by Chris Jacobson who writes on the topic of Criminal Justice Degrees . Chris can be reached at his email id: chris.jacobson7-AT-gmail-Dot-com

The legal industry has seen a number of trends in recent years including a shift towards a paperless office, a move away from hourly billing towards more flat fee billing, and an increase in Internet advertising for legal services. For the past few years, a number of question and answer websites have arisen on the Internet including Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, etc.

Legal Advice Sites

Now similar sites are offering legal advice. For example, consider Ask a Lawyer, a recent offering at JustAnswer.com. This website gives examples of the types of questions that can be asked of attorneys:

• Financial: ask a lawyer about your debt, foreclosure, or bankruptcy
• Family: ask a lawyer about your divorce, custody, or child support
• Traffic: ask a lawyer about your accident, ticket, or DUI
• Government: ask a lawyer about your immigration, VA, or IRS problem
• Disputes: ask a lawyer about your lawsuit, injury, claim, or defense

How Do Legal Advice Sites Work?

How do these legal advice websites work? The process is fairly simple:

1. The user asks a question.
2. The user notes the price the user will pay for the answer.
3. The user makes partial payment.
4. The user waits for an answer from an attorney.
5. Once receiving the answer, the user send final payment and can tip the attorney.

How These Sites Address Potential Concerns

Legal advice websites raise a number of questions:

Are the lawyers giving legal advice?
It’s pretty clear that the lawyers are giving legal advice. That is the whole point of many of these websites.

Are the lawyers doing conflict checks?
The websites appear to have no system for conflict checks, but users may offer that information during the question and answer process, or the individual attorneys may request it. I imagine that an attorney would be in a difficult position if the attorney already received confidential information from the user and then the attorney determined that there was a conflict of interest.

Are the lawyers licensed to practice in the state where the reader is located?
With most legal advice websites, lawyers must go through a qualification process and provide their license information before answering questions. It seems to be up to each attorney to assess whether the legal question has the appropriate connection to their jurisdiction. But attorneys should be able to handle this on their own, because attorneys are required to analyze any legal matter to ensure that they are properly qualified and licensed to handle it..

Are the lawyers receiving enough information about the facts and circumstances to competently offer legal advice?
Again, individual attorneys answering the questions must decide this for themselves. Ultimately, it is the attorney who is liable for malpractice and responsible for ensuring that the advice is sound. The written nature of the Internet ensures that there is written evidence of the advice provided by the attorney.

Impact on the Legal Industry

The final question is how legal advice sites will impact the legal industry. There are a number of possible effects.

Lower Attorney Fees? The rates on legal advice websites are extremely low. For example users may pay $10-$50 for the answer to a question. In a law firm, an attorney may receive $250 per hour for  meeting with clients. From the questions I reviewed, it would be difficult for an attorney to answer enough questions per hour to make the same amount of money as an attorney’s usual hourly rate. However, when answering questions on legal advice sites, the attorney doesn’t have marketing costs or other overhead required for traditional law firms. It should be noted that the service takes a portion of the fee paid. It’s unclear whether this amounts to fee sharing, which may depend on how the fees are structured. Quality legal advice at the low rate could be very valuable for society. It could also have an economic effect of reducing fees paid to attorneys for simple advice.

New Approach to Attorney Marketing? Obviously, these websites offer legal advice with out ongoing representation of the client. However, it will be interesting to see if attorneys can use this sort of service to allow new clients to retain them for more substantial work. Theoretically, this could be a whole new way for clients to find attorneys. Already, the Internet is replacing phonebooks. Will this be a new marketing route for attorneys?

Opportunities for Law Students & New Attorneys? When law students graduate from law school, the way that consumer law attorneys provide services to consumers online could be different from what they are today. This provides an opportunity for new attorneys. First, new attorneys are more likely to be open to technology and new marketing ideas than old attorneys who are stuck in their ways. Second, these legal advice websites don’t seem to put much attention on attorney credentials — the attention is on price — so new attorneys with short resumes may not be disadvantage when competing with experienced attorneys on these sites like they would be in the real world.

Other Models for Websites Connecting People with Attorneys

Providing legal advice on websites isn’t the only option for attorneys. There are other models. For example, Minnesota Lawyer has a Question and Answer page where people can get free answers to Minnesota law questions. The difference with this site is, the site makes very clear that the site is not legal advice—it is education about the law. Minnesota Lawyer explains:

You should not rely on what you learn here without first consulting with an attorney. The purpose of this site is to answer general Minnesota law questions for free, but this is no substitute for legal advice based on an attorney’s full analysis of your circumstances.

Still, many other sites provide a way for people to contact an attorney, and then the attorney follows the usual law firm process for working with clients. The real challenge for these lead-generation websites is the ethical prohibition on fee sharing for attorneys. In most states, attorneys can pay an advertising fee but they may not pay for leads or pay based on the number of leads that convert into clients. Rather, payments should be based on traditional advertising methods such as a monthly rate.

It is still too early to know if these websites will fail, succeed, or revolutionize the way that legal services are provided to the general public. Website owners are testing a number of different models, and presumably the best ones will survive. This may alter how people search for an attorney, especially in the consumer law areas such as bankruptcy, criminal defense, personal injury, and family law.

It’s clear that the decision’s already been made to attend law school and that those sleepless nights are bound to happen, but living frugally and being happy about it is doable for the next two to three years that one beats their head against their books. How? Consider it elementary.

Here is a list of law student do’s and dont’s for living frugally:

The Do’s

1. Use the law school library’s wireless server for email and web work. Remember, students foot much of the on-campus operating costs through tuition dollars. The same goes for entertainment like movies and sporting events.
2. Brown bag lunches and snacks whenever on campus and take advantage of free food events.
3. Close that personal TV cable account. Who has time to watch Season 2 of anything anyway?
4. Simplify when it comes to the latest and greatest gadgets to pop on the market every 3 to 6 months. There’s really no need to update that cell phone model once a year when the one in the backpack still works.
5. Caffeinate yourself by brewing coffee at home rather than walking into the corner coffee joint every morning and forking over $3.00 bucks for a weak ‘cup of joe.’ Besides, who has time to stand in line?
6. Go generic. Shampoo is shampoo is shampoo. Who cares what your hair looks like at 2 in the morning?
7. Budget before buying anything. Try to budget for the next month’s expenses – rent, groceries, unexpected school expenses – before the month starts. Even better, budget for the semester as soon as that student loan refund check hits the mailbox.
8. Hang up clothes that can be worn more than once like jeans, jackets, and dress shirts worn only a few hours. Doing so will save on laundry and dry-cleaning costs.
9. Cook meals at home and buy staple foods: pastas, breads, eggs, whole meats, fruits, and veggies.
10. Opt for student-run services such as haircuts and teeth-cleanings.

The Dont’s

1. Avoid impulse buying. Write a list of needed items before going to the grocery store, the drug store, and yes, the department store too.
2. Just say no to credit card companies on law school campus that lure wide-eyed students in with a free T-shirt and bottle-opener key-chain.
3. Think twice about driving to the corner market that is within walking distance from home. Gas isn’t cheap. Besides, walking or biking around the block can clear the head and it’s great exercise.
4. Limit paid memberships to health clubs, movie theaters, and sporting centers. Those extra fees add up and are a waste when services aren’t rendered continually.
5. Quit the vices like smoking, drinking, and gambling. If this is too much trouble, allow yourself one vice and limit activity.
6. Don’t waste water, electricity, or gas, especially when paying utilities separately. If it’s chilly, throw on a sweater and socks. If there’s a pot of water on the stove from boiling potatoes or pasta, reuse it for dishwater.
7. Stay clear of vending machines. These money-munchers do nothing but empty pockets and add to waistlines.
8. Avoid banking fees by using approved ATMs, paying credit charges on time, and keeping a positive bank balance.
9. Don’t own a pet. They’re expensive and demand attention. Volunteer at the human society to be next to man’s best friend.
10. Try not to buy anything new. Use freecycle instead.

Living frugally as a law student is as possible as passing that bar exam and reaping its benefits after months of studying.

This article was written by Nicole Morales, an expert
in the Legal Careers category at www.yoexpert.com

The outcome of these exams often determines whether you are eligible for a particular career track and able to get into the schools you want. The test score may have an impact on your finances worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over your life. So preparing for these exams is critical.

Here are a few tips that I have learned can be helpful for these monumental exams. Although these tips may be useful for small tests, the ideas suggested here may be overkill for small exam situations.

Test preparation starts months before the big exam.

Three Months before the Exam

At least three months before the exam, you should identify everything that needs to be done for the exam. This includes registering for the exam, knowing what topics will be on the exam, buying or loaning from the library a book on preparing for your particular exam, obtaining practice exams and scheduling on your calendar days you will do them, and possibly making a list of people you know who have taken this exam to talk with them about their suggestions and experience. If you don’t know someone who’s taken this exam, you might consider searching online for blogs that discuss your particular exam (LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, etc.).

Once you know what you have to do, schedule when you will study for the exam and when you will take practice exams. During the following three months, remind yourself that sticking to your schedule is critical to your future success for decades of working in a career you will love.

10 Days before the Exam

About 10 days before the exam, start gathering what you’ll need for the exam. Make sure you know where the exam is located, have your registration ticket, and have the rules. Review the rules for the exam to know whether you can have food or drink, calm, a stopwatch, earplugs, pen and paper, or other things you may want to have with you during the test. If you need special accommodations because of a disability, be sure you notify the test center well in advance.

Start making a list of everything you need for exam day. Consider starting a little pile in your bedroom of the things that you need on exam day. You should include some taxi money in case your car breaks down and you don’t have anyone who can give you ride. Make a schedule of your next 10 days as it relates to procure them for the exam to ensure that you buy anything you need, have all the information you need, and are ready for the exam. The key is to leave nothing to chance, eliminate anxiety of forgetting things on the morning of the exam, and be able to relax the last few days before the exam knowing that you are prepared.

As you schedule the next 10 days, keep in mind that you will need a break one day before the exam, and possibly two.

48 Hours before the Exam

The two days before the exam should be focused on rest and peacefulness. This doesn’t mean sleeping more than normal, because you don’t want to mess up your normal sleep schedule, which could cause you to have a difficult time sleeping the night before the exam or feel tired on exam day because your usual sleep schedule was altered. What you want to do is give your mind and body a break so they have energy on the big exam day. Especially during the last 24 hours, don’t exercise more than normal, don’t study at all, don’t work on a job, and don’t get in fault in stressful situations. Instead, do things that you find somewhat relaxing. This might be a hobby, a movie, gardening, organizing your house, socializing with friends or family, or reading a light book.

Another useful exercise is thinking through the entire exam day. Visualize yourself getting ready in the morning, driving to the exam, the instructor telling you to begin, working through the problems, and being done. Medical and psychological studies into how the human mind works have found that the brain does not know the difference between imagining you are doing something, and actually doing it. These studies realized that the brain actually works at learning a process by thinking through it over and over again, which in part accounts for why we dream of all things that cause us anxiety, which is the brains attempt to prepare for a stressful situation. These studies concluded that your mind will be more prepared for a particular activity if you have thought through that activity already.Olympic gymnasts use this exercise to think through their routines before doing them. Studies have shown that plan your brain has thought through an entire sequence or experience, is more prepared to make quick decisions during the actual experience because it has already worked through the basics of the situation once. So spend 15 minutes thinking through your exam day. It might also help you remember something you’re forgotten so far, like the fact that you need to get directions to the test location, you don’t have any number two pencils, or other things that may not cross your mind until exam day.

The Day of the Exam

If you have done everything discussed here, you should have little to worry about on the day of the exam. You already have piled everything you need in your bedroom. You’re a list of everything you need to take with you. You have studied for the past three months in accordance with the schedule you determined would prepare you best for the exam.

If you want, spend up to 15 minutes reviewing any flash cards, key concepts, or other important information you want to commit to short-term memory. But don’t do more than 15 minutes because your brain needs all of its mental energy for the exam.

Plan to arrive at your exam location at least one hour before the exam is scheduled to start to eliminate the anxiety of problems that can cause you to be late. You don’t want to have to worry about traffic. If your car breaks down the way there, you want time to call a taxi. Parking can be bad and exam site, so you may need additional time to find a parking place and walk to your exam. You may show up at the exam and realize you forgot something critical, and need to decide how to deal with that. Registration may take longer than normal. And most importantly, you do not want your mind and body exerting energy on anxiety about being late. By arriving well in advance, you can sit at the exam site and mentally prepare for the exam.

After the Exam

When the exam is over, congratulate yourself on having taken the exam. The past few months will have been in marathon, and you completed it.

If you thought the exam was very hard, that’s okay. It was. Those who produce exams often have to answers that seem right, so you are correct to observe and that another answer to a particular question could also have been the right answer. In fact, students who felt and exam was very difficult often did much better than students who felt the exam was easy. Students who felt the exam was easy had missed something, but students who felt the exam was difficult were able to identify the intellectual challenge of the exam and their higher scores reflected it. So don’t beat yourself up if you felt the exam was very difficult. It was.

Congratulate yourself on being done. When you are done celebrating, life will return to normal, and you will try not to think about your test score as you wait weeks for it to arrive.

Other reading:

• How Long Should I Prepare for the LSAT?
• How to Prepare for Law School Exams

But the rising costs of law school tuition and the decreasing average salaries for attorneys are causing many to question whether law school is the right choice for them.

One article makes the case that you should seriously reconsider your motives if you are planning to attend law school: Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider! The article notes that the cost of law school is rising and law firm jobs are increasingly difficult to get, making it difficult for law school graduates to get jobs that pay enough to cover their six-figure student loan debt.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t recommend hiring a law school admissions consultant, but this admissions consultant does seem to have a good understanding of the process and the admissions process at law schools.

One tip I would add to this video is this: pay attention to the individual requirements of each law school for the personal statement. Some law schools have specific questions or topics they want covered in the personal statement, and failing to follow those requirements almost always results in the prospective law student being rejected.

Learn more by reading Mastering the Law School Personal Statement: law school personal statements.

Most law students know they should never interrupt a judge. It should be even more obvious that you don’t interrupt by saying, “That’s your opinion.”

In defense of the law student, arguing with a judge is probably much more tempting in an entertainment forum like Judge Milian’s television studio in The People’s Court. Judge Marilyn Milian previously served as a Florida state circuit court judge.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is one example of how a law student’s work made a difference.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In short, a 50-year-old California woman was released on parole after nearly three decades in prison thanks to the efforts of a law student who believed she was innocent.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is Easy Legal Billing?

Easy Legal Billing is 100% web-based software that allows for usage on any internet-connected computer. Easy Legal Billing is a web-based legal invoicing platform that allows for on-demand LEDES file creation and attachment along with traditional invoices.

Easy Legal Billing is SAS (Software as a Service). It is essentially a website, like gmail or Google docs, that operates like software. Easy Legal Billing includes time tracking and fairly sophisticated invoice generation (as a PDF file or LEDES file).

Easy Legal Billing provides a way to track your time online, from within your web browser. Easy Legal Billing allows multiple users and customized invoices. Various plans are available including a free 30 day trial.

What is a LEDES File?

If you are asking what a LEDES file is, you probably don’t care about this feature. LEDES stands for Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard. The Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard is a set of file format specifications intended to standardize bill/invoice data transmitted electronically (“e-billed”) from a law firm to a corporate client. It is abbreviated LEDES and is usually pronounced as “leeds.”

Who Are Competitors to Easy Legal Billing?

Easy Legal Billing’s competitors are generic billing services like MC2 Anywhere, Freshbooks, Easy Time Tracking, and more, like these and these. There are also some other SAS options that focus on a whole suite of features for attorneys, such as Clio and Rocketmatter.

I use a similar service, MC2 Anywhere, which is simple and most importantly, exports directly into QuickBooks for easy invoice generation from within Quickbooks. It was unclear whether Easy Legal Billing can export directly into QuickBooks.

Should You Use Easy Legal Billing?

I didn’t use Easy Legal Billing enough to honestly assess how well its features work. If exporting to QuickBooks is important to you, I suggest you check out MC2 Anywhere. If LEDES billing is important to you, Easy Legal Billing looks promising.

DISCLOSURE: I was paid $20 to do this review of Easy Legal Billing. This review is an honest assessment of their services.

The two big players in the online law firm software niche are Clio and Rocketmatter. This is a review of Clio, followed by a comparison to Rocketmatter and traditional law firm software.

This review analyzes Clio in each major area, noting what is good and bad about Clio. As you will see, despite the “bad,” Clio deserves high marks, and I currently believe it is the best option for solo attorneys and small firms.

Online and Offline
Good: The most unique aspect of Clio is that it is available online and offline (not connected to the internet). Being able to access your law firm software online is great for attorneys who own multiple computers, when attorneys work away from the office, or for access with an iPhone or BlackBerry. Even though Clio is primarily available online, it has software that makes it available offline, which is great if you are on a flight or otherwise temporarily away from the internet.
Good: Clio backs-up your data, so you don’t have to. You will still need backup software for documents on your computer, but everything in Clio is backed-up multiple times per day.

Tasks
Good: Creating tasks is simple. Billing a task when it is complete is as easy as clicking a button and typing the time you spent on the task.
Good: Tasks can be delegated to anyone in your firm who has an account with Clio. Delegating is as simple as selecting that person from a dropdown list.
Good: Task have a due date and can be sorted by due date, title, or client.
Good: Tasks can be downloaded in iCal or Outlook format, which might be useful to some.
Bad: You cannot add a priority to tasks.
Bad: You cannot add notes on a task. Notes would be useful if a task has subparts or if you want to jot down a few items to remember for a task.

Calendar
Good: The calendar is full-featured including start and end times, repeating events, an option to bill the event to a client, the event location, and notes (Description) about the event.
Good: The calendar can be viewed by day, week, and month.
Good: You can download your calendar items in an iCal and Outlook format.
Good: You can allow your calendar to be seen by others or hidden by easily setting the permissions.

Contacts
Contacts are clients or anyone else associated with Matters. This could be judges, opposing counsel, experts, witnesses, or others.
Good and Bad: There aren’t many contact fields (name, address, email, etc.) which simplifies the process. However, I realize that some people might want more fields to enter all kinds of information about clients (spouse’s name, birthdays, second address, etc.) but that information can easily go in a note. I’m glad Clio didn’t overwhelm users with tons of contact fields. If there are too many fields, law firm staff don’t know which ones to use. Clio kept it simple, and thus, having only the basic contact fields will make most people happy.
Good: For each contact, users can enter an unlimited amount of notes. Each note is attached to the contact. Thus, notes can serve as a log or provide details about the contact.
Good: When viewing a contact, click on “Ledger” and you can see items on the client’s bill and the client’s recent payments.

Matters (i.e. cases)
As any attorney knows, matters are projects associated with a client. For example, a case is a matter. A matter might also be drafting a contract, negotiating a deal, or forming a business.
Good: In Clio, once a Matter is created, it can be selected to associate with a task, a calendar item, and billing time. Under the Matters tab, you can see all information associated with a matter including the following items: contact information for the client, other contacts associated with the matter (e.g. opposing counsel), tasks, calendar items, notes, timekeeping entries, expenses, and documents. As with other law firm software, users can view a list of open matters, closed matters, or all maters.

Activities (another place to log your time)
As stated earlier, attorneys and paralegals can log their time in Tasks and Calendar by clicking on a task or calendar item and marking it as billable. Clio also provides timekeeping entry in the Activities tab where you can enter your time manually. Where ever you choose to log your time, the time is kept in a central log that can be listed by date, matter, client, or in other reports.
Good: Time entry is simple and quick. You won’t waste time waiting for a slow server or confusing user interface.
Bad: If a sophisticated client such as an insurance company requires certain billing codes, there is only one field (Description) in which you can enter those codes. Most insurance companies require two such fields, one for the type of work and the other for the stage in the litigation. Of course, most solos and some small firms won’t care much about this.
Details: Time entry includes a number of fields including Matter (the case you are working on), Description (a dropdown menu that you can customize with the types of work your firm does and billable rates for that type of work), Duration (how many tenths of the hour you worked), Rate (keep the default or enter a custom rate), and a Note field (to provide a custom description of the work).

Documents
Good: Clio allows you to save documents and files right in Clio. It’s a way to keep all documents related to a matter in one place. This is especially useful when multiple people are working on a matter.
Suggestion to Clio: In Clio, files must be manually uploaded. While this is normal, it would be great to see Clio implement software like DropBox, which our firm uses, to sync a folder on everyone’s computer. The contents of that folder can include countless other folders and files, such as a folder for each client. The files are synced to each computer as well as the online server, so it serves as an online backup in addition to ensuring that everyone has the latest copy right on their computer. To be fair, no law firm software does this. But DropBox does it, and someday I expect the Clio will license such a tool or develop it on its own.

Bills and Invoicing
Good: Invoicing on Clio is simple. Clio tracks bank accounts (operating accounts) and trust accounts. Clio can export to Quickbooks for those with more advanced accounting or invoicing needs.
Good: Clio’s ClientConnect feature enables online bill-paying for your clients. You simply send your clients a link to an outstanding invoice, and the client can pay the invoice via PayPal or other online payment systems.
Good: Clio allows a discount to be added to a bill.
Bad: Clio has no way to add a discount to some items and not others. Clio’s discount feature merely applies a discount to the entire bill. I want an invoice to show the discounted items, the value of the discount per item, and total value of the discounts at the bottom of the invoice. Currently I do this in Quickbooks and clients love seeing that they received discounts. For example, if I make an 18 minute call for a client but don’t want to bill for the entire call, I might log .3 hours with a discount equal to .2 hours. UPDATE: You can add a line below any item you want to discount and subtract (write-off) the amount you want to discount. While this isn’t the same as having a discount column, it accomplishes the same purpose of highlighting for clients that you provided a discount.
Suggestion to Clio: Currently, Clio’s export to Quickbooks is done manually. Our firm has used online timecards at MC2 Anywhere, which can directly connect to Quickbooks using a little application running on the Quickbooks computer. MC2 Anywhere makes a seamless transfer of time from the timekeeping software to Quickbooks.

Reports
Good: Clio has a useful “performance” report that shows attorneys the number of their billable hours per day, week, month, and year compared to their goals.
Bad: Clio doesn’t have any other reports.
Good: You can run any possible report from Quickbooks after exporting the data to Quickbooks. Clio can export time entries in a Quickbooks CSV or Quickbooks IIF format.
Suggestion to Clio: Provide a “Reports” tab and include 10-20 of the most popular law firm reports. For example, let users print out their billable time by date, matter, or user so they can quickly analyze their time entries at the end of a billing period without having to first generate an invoice or export to Quickbooks. It would also be nice to print a task list, events on the calendar for a week, or a list of open matters.

Clio on the iPhone
Good: On the iPhone, Clio is accessed using the web browser. However, the website interface is completely customized to the iPhone, which means menus are large, simple, and easy to use.
Bad: Tasks cannot be edited from within the iPhone interface. I’m not sure why Clio would do this, since it would be simple to add an “edit” button to each task. Maybe Clio will fix this soon. In the meantime, tasks can be edited if you use the iPhone to browse to Clio’s regular web pages (not optimized for the iPhone) and click on the normal “edit” button, but that is cumbersome because the normal web interface is not optimized for the iPhone.

Clio Support and Improvements
Good: I have called and emailed Clio a few times and always received quick, knowledgeable, and thoughtful responses.
Good: Last winter, another attorney and I suggested some ideas to Clio. They implemented a number of the ideas. Their responsiveness was impressive. It is obvious that Clio is listening to its users and quickly improving its online software. The difference between Clio last December and Clio today is significant. I could not recommend that small firms use Clio last December, but now Clio seems to be the best option for small firms.

Clio Compared to Traditional Law Firm Software
Clio is simple and intuitive to new lawyers, attorneys who despise computers, and techies alike. This is a stark contrast to PC Law, Pro Law, Time Matters, and all of the other traditional software applications I’ve used. Select Clio if you want basic practice management software that is easy, saves time, has useful features, and provides online access from anywhere with an internet connection. Select traditional law firm software if you want a complex system with thousands of features and options, significant customization, and software that runs on your server. Clio probably isn’t ready for the demands of a firm with over 20 attorneys. But Clio is great for small firms and solos. Especially noteworthy, Clio won’t require a computer support person or training for personnel.

Clio’s strength is its simplicity, but that could also be its weakness for medium to large law firms. Such firms may require (1) customization for practice areas, (2) advanced and complex features found (but rarely used) in traditional law firm software, and (3) permission control to limit each person’s access to information, to name a few. However, as Clio continues to innovate, I expect it will provide some of these features.

Clio Compared to Rocketmatter
Clio appears to do everything Rocketmatter does, but Clio does more and does it better. This wasn’t the case in December of 2008 when I first tried Clio. Rocketmatter was the first online law firm software to allow an attorney to copy a task to the time log. Rocketmatter was also first to use Ajax to simplify the lookup of matters when entering a task or time. But soon afterward, Clio implemented those features and many more.

Rocketmatter does tagging, which is a Web 2.0 idea for giving labels or categories to items. I’m not sure of the practical value of this, but it’s worth noting for those who like tagging that Clio doesn’t have the ability to tag items.

Disclosure
I asked Clio for free access while I examined its service, and they granted my request. However, Clio gives away a free trial period to anyone who visits its site. I was not compensated in any other manner for this review.

Conclusion
Clio exceeded our expectations. Our testing has revealed that Clio largely meets our requirements (with some areas of concern noted above in the “Bad” and “Suggestion to Clio” lines). Even though Clio has room to grow, it far surpasses the complex, slow, archaic software applications used in most small law firms (I previously used PC Law, Pro Law, Time Matters, and others).

We will continue to use DropBox instead of Clio for storing documents, because DropBox synchronizes and backs-up the files on all of our computers without any involvement from us.

Our small firm with a few attorneys plans to convert to Clio. Clio has a great user interface, which makes using it easy and intuitive. With Clio, we can focus more time on clients and less time on the software and computer infrastructure.

The cost for Clio is less than the software and hardware needed to run most traditional law firm software applications. We also appreciate that little to no training is needed, the software is always backed-up, and we can access it from anywhere on the internet.

Clio’s fresh approach and innovation far surpasses the bloated, complex approach that currently exists in the law firm software industry.

December 7, 2010 Update:

In the end, our firm decided to not use Clio. One of the main reasons was that we are dependent on QuickBooks because we bill hourly, with flat fees, and occasionally on contingency, so we wanted the power of QuickBooks to handle the various fees, discounts, and trust account issues.  Since we are locked into QuickBooks, it was important to have time billing software that seamlessly synchronized with QuickBooks. For this, we use MC2 Anywhere.

For a calendar, we use Microsoft Outlook, which is synchronized between computers using Google Calendar and Google Calendar Sync. For contacts, we use Outlook, which is synced to my iPhone. For email, we use Google Apps (free gmail on your law firm’s domain name). For tasks, we use Remember the Milk, which is easy, powerful, and syncs with my iPhones in addition to being available on any web browser. We use DropBox for synchronizing our client files between computers so we don’t need a network.

By using this system, all of our data is backed up “in the cloud” and available from any web browser after our staff or attorneys login, similar to Clio. No network is needed. Our costs are $10 a month for DropBox and $30 a month for MC2 Anywhere, plus the original purchase of QuickBooks and Microsoft Outlook.

If I were to start today, I would try to eliminate Outlook and try to use Google Contacts and Google Calendar. However, the transition away from Outlook at this point would be too time consuming.

In the end, Clio shows promise and is certainly an excellent option for some. I love the Clio interface and features. If it weren’t for our dependency on QuickBooks, we might use Clio. Alternatively, if my circumstances were simpler, I might consider using FreshBooks instead of QuickBooks and MC2 Anywhere, and continue using the other software we use. But FreshBooks may not be robust enough to handle trust accounts for most small law firms (but if you don’t use a trust account much, you could track that separately).

For blogs written by students preparing for the bar exam (or who previously took the bar), go here: Law Student Bar Exam Blogs.

These tips are especially helpful for first year law students (1Ls) who are wondering how a long school exam is different from undergraduate tests.

For experienced law students, this video is a good refresher right before a law exam.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some of these mistakes are obvious, but this professor does a nice job of reviewing common errors that can befall law students. Professor David Steinberg is a law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

Summer associates often wonder if they should do something to “stand out” from the other summer associates to get noticed by partners. The best way to “stand out” is to work hard and do good work, which normally means good research and writing. A pleasant personality is the goal, not leaning too far into the introvert or extrovert direction.

Bitter Lawyer posted a list of “Nine Summer Associate Don’ts” for law students to be aware of as they tread into the economically sensitive and ultra-competitive law firm arena. The “Nine Summer Associate Don’ts” clarifies a number of ways you do not want to “stand out.” A number of the tips are pretty obvious, but what is obvious to some may not be so obvious to others.

Registration for free Kaplan LSAT practice exams spiked more than 20 percent as students and professionals explored law school as a safe haven option.

The survey also noted that among aspiring lawyers, political aspirations still run much higher for men.

Read more from the Kaplan press release:

New York, NY – According to a Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions survey of 1,040 pre-law students who took the February Law School Admission Test (LSAT), 40 percent say the economic downturn – which includes the highest unemployment rate in 25 years – is motivating their decision to apply to law school.

“Historically, economic downturns spark an increased interest in law school as students and professionals reevaluate their career tracks. Recessions often inspire people to look to law school to ride out the storm, transition into a new field, or broaden their education to make themselves a more attractive candidate,” said Jeff Thomas, director of pre-law programs, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. “We’ve experienced over a 20 percent increase in registration for our free LSAT practice test events over last year, supporting the notion that today’s challenging job market may be affecting people’s career plans, though there are a number of other excellent reasons for pursuing a law degree.”

Thomas noted that during the last economic crisis, which hit right after 9/11, applications to law schools spiked 17 percent, before stabilizing in line with an improving economy. And according to the Law School Admission Council, the administrator of the LSAT, law school applications just saw their first increase since 2004.

Other key survey results:

• The Money Factor: While the recession is a key driver behind this season’s law school applications, earning potential is an even bigger driver: 67 percent say that high earning power “very much” or “somewhat” affected their decision to pursue a law degree.
• Law School Remains a Popular Breeding Ground for Future Politicians: 54 percent of respondents say they will “definitely” or “probably” run for political office. Despite this high overall number, between genders there is a significant gap in interest level, with 68 percent of males answering “definitely” or “probably,” compared with 41 percent of females.
• Trials of the Century: When asked for which historical legal case they would have liked to have served as counsel on if given the opportunity, the most popular response was Roe V Wade (34 percent), followed by the Nuremberg Trials (29 percent). Thirteen percent would have liked to have tried The OJ Simpson Trial.

When it comes time to write your personal statement don’t go crazy and try to be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Likely you will get no points for length or originality; it is content that matters.  Trying to do something out of the box may only lead to admission representatives misinterpreting your meaning, and that’s the last thing you would want to happen.

Do your homework.

Cliché I know, but if you are fortunate enough to get into law school this will become your own personal mantra.  So why not get started early and start a good habit?  Let’s face it, if homework isn’t your strongest quality you probably shouldn’t even be considering law school in the first place.

In this case, doing your homework means getting some samples of letters that have worked for others in the past and studying the heck out of them.  Study the tone that the essays took on, look at how the ideas were clearly developed and formatted.  Remember that you don’t want yours to be too wordy or beyond the scope of what you need to communicate.  Remember that the purpose of this letter isn’t to show them that you are Americas next great author, it’s to reinforce the fact that you have what it takes to get to graduation with honors.  Be precise and concise.

Learn from others’ mistakes.

Well in this case, learn from the mistakes of others actually.  Find and study some essays that were poorly written.  This is your opportunity to learn what not to do.  Look at the formulation of ideas and weak links in each statement.  It may be that you find qualities you have been mirroring or attributes of style similar to your own in the poorly written letters.  Make note of this immediately and make changes to your own style appropriately so that you can improve.

Proofread, edit, and revise.

If you write multiple drafts without getting input from someone you know you can trust, then you may be reinforcing poor ideas and qualities in your own essay.  A proofreader is an essential and required element in perfecting your own letter.  There will be no way to know if you are on the right track, unless you seek the advice of a professional-or many professionals, for that matter.  Remember that in the end you will have to make the final call.  If you’ve done all that you should to prepare then you should have nothing to worry about.

This post was contributed by Alisa Johnson, who writes about the best online college. She welcomes your feedback at Alisa.Johnson1982 at gmail.com

The tips are based on the mistakes they made during their first year of law school and things they did that worked especially well. The tips are helpful, and some are a bit humorous. The video is less than 8 minutes long.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I agree that law school grading is not precise—and some law school professors are worse than others.

For most law professors, it is hard to differentiate between a B+ grade and an A- grade. However, there is normally a noticeable difference between an A and a C.

While the lack of accuracy between grades in close proximity to each other is unfortunate, there is little that can be done about it if humans do the grading (instead of computers). By nature, human grading of essay-style exams is subjective.

Statistically, a law student will benefit from adjustments in their favor and adjustments downward during their time in law school. As a result, the inaccuracy in law school grading doesn’t have a major affect on law student’s GPA.

Of course, some law school professors are a bigger problem than most. You wonder if they throw the exam papers down the stairs and give an A to papers that land on the top stair, A- to papers on the next step, B+ to papers on the next step, and so on down the stairs.

That’s my opinion. What do you think?

If you’re in law school, you probably know what a “gunner” is. In short, it’s a person who frequently raises their hand to talk in class.

Gunners seem like they just want to hear themselves talk. They seem to want to impress their classmates and the professor with their knowledge.

Most law students are annoyed by gunners. But not every student who talks a lot has the same motives as a gunner. Sometimes students who are very interested in the subject matter can get the reputation of being a gunner.

There is an impression for new law students that someone who talks a lot in class must be more knowledgeable or smarter. However, as law school progresses, you quickly learn that the smartest kids in the class are often the quietest kids in the class.

This video interviews law students about their impressions of gunners in law school.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, grades are important. But students with high grades still need a good resume. Law students with medium or low grades are especially position to benefit from building other areas of their resume.

The video is encouraging for students who don’t have good grades. There are many things that law students can do to have their CV represent their strengths.

In this video, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor David Steinberg gives advice to law students on building the law school resume and networking for jobs after law school.

Click here to view the embedded video.

From my experience, this law student’s day is very similar to my average law school days and those of other law students I know. As you can see from the video, the day is a combination of studying, class, talking to friends while studying, studying, and then studying.

Still, many believe that more law students will ultimately have a positive effect on society. To evaluate whether the increasing number of law school graduates is good, we should first consider the cause of the growth.

What is Causing the Growth?

There are more law school graduates each year for two reasons:

1. Current law schools are increasing their class sizes (capacity for total enrolled students) and
2. The ABA has been approving more law schools, increasing the total number of law schools.

Some Believe that More Law School Students is Bad.

One view is that the increasing number of law school graduates is bad because

1. there are not enough attorney jobs for the new law school graduates (this may worry current law students) and
2. more lawyers may foster more litigation in society.

Some Believe that More Law School Students is Good.

The other view is that more law school graduates is good for society because

1. society has more educated and capable individuals in it and
2. more attorneys will create competition to drive down the cost of legal services which, arguably, have long enjoyed a monopoly status by laws that prevent anyone but ABA approved law school graduates from practicing law.

What Do You Think?

Are there additional points that should be raised? Which side do you feel is persuasive and why?

Scenario 1: During Class.

Have you ever been taking notes in class and missed something important that the professor said? Maybe it was a blackletter rule. Maybe it was a point that could be on the final exam. It would be nice if you could just rewind class. Maybe you can ask a friend about it after class. With EtherPad, you can see your friend’s class notes appear immediately as your friend writes them.

Scenario 2: Preparing for Finals.

Imagine that you are preparing your outline for finals. You notice gaps in your notes. You’re not sure if you were day-dreaming, missed a concept, or the professor just didn’t talk about it. You might have time to ask some friends to see their notes, but you might not have time. With EtherPad, you would have a copy of your friend’s class notes next to yours, so you can fill in the gaps.

Alternatives to EtherPad.

Instead of EtherPad, a study partner and I shared a Microsoft OneNote document over the internet. This allowed us to take notes together during class. It worked great. He often noted information that I missed, and vice versa. However, Microsoft OneNote is not free, and it is not as simple as EtherPad.

GoogleDocs allows collaboration like EtherPad, but notes in GoogleDocs are delayed by about 10-15 seconds, which can be annoying. GoogleDocs is free; you just need a Gmail account.

EtherPad Let’s You Chat During Class.

Using EtherPad, you can ask your friend a question or make a comment during class. For example, your in-class notes might look something like this:

You: Um, did the professor just say that the “mailbox rule” was different under the UCC?

Your Friend: Yeah, dude. Didn’t you read the assignment this week?  Compare UCC 2-207 to Restatement(2d) Contracts 59.

Sharing notes in class isn’t for everyone. You need a study partner you trust. However, many law students may find it very helpful. If you don’t own Microsoft OneNote, check out EtherPad. It’s free.

The law student awoke, and the burglar threatened to hurt him with a baseball bat unless the law student turned over his possessions. The law student freely turned over his wallet, guitar, and other items. But when the burglar went to take the laptop, he went too far.

“I was like, ‘Dude, no — please, no!” the law student said. “I have all my case notes…that’s four months of work!”

“I’m going to smash your head in,” the burglar responded.

The law student was not willing to lose his class notes, case summaries, and course projects. He was determined that his GPA and professional future would not be altered by this criminal. The law student took matters into his own hands.

“I basically grabbed him and threw him this way, and he held onto the bat so it threw him to the ground,” the law student said.

The law student had no serious injuries. The burglar went to the hospital for stitches before being arrested.

Afterward, the law student commented about protecting his laptop. “It’s my baby,” he said. “Don’t mess with my computer.”

Read the full story and see after-shots of the burglar here.

Prize: $500.  The winner will receive from Gale Cengage Learning a $500 prize. In addition, the winner will receive up to $1000 to be applied towards travel, lodging, food and other expenses associated with attendance at the Annual Meeting. (Gale Cengage and the Legal History and Rare Books SIS will each contribute to the travel expenses.).

Essay Length: The subject should be explored in depth with appropriate reference to sources.

Essay Topic: Law students are eligible to enter the competition. Papers may be on any topic related to

• legal history,
• rare law books, or
• legal archives.

Deadline: Papers must be submitted by April 15, 2009.

Details: More information is available at: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/lhrb/Cohenessayprocapp.pdf.