Plowboy (2022-2023)

06/26/08: Non Traditional Student (i.e. old, just turned 40, graduated early 90s). Just took the LSAT on the 16th of June...awaiting my score.

07/03/08: Damn the LSAT is a harsh mistress! Cannot manage the time constaints of this infernal exam format. Already debating whether to retake in October or just roll the dice this cycle with T4 schools.

Just told my wife and kids my score, and they said that they were proud of me. God love them, they have no idea how medicore a 146 is on the LSAT. I asked her if she would mind living in Lansing, Detroit, Grundy, Harrisburg, or Tulsa. She responded with a piqued expression, but no reply of course.

07/06/08: Well, back to the drawing board! Just gave the "gatekeepers" another $127.00 to retake in October. Discussed with wife and we feel that with the ABA's recent rule change regarding law schools and LSAT scores; that they can accept the highest LSAT score rather than an average score , there is nothing to lose by retaking.

06/23/09: Did not retake LSAT back in 10/08. Decided to roll the dice and apply to several schools that I thought that I might have a chance of getting into, and was pleasantly surprised to be accepted by all three. Wish I had applied to more schools, but with a low LSAT score, why waste money in this economy on application fees and rejection letters.

Decided to visit all three schools.

Appalachia is beautiful, but too isolated for me, nothing to do in Grundy, but drink heavily in your spare time and watch the mountains disappear from radical strip mining. Moreover, Appalachia's Bar passage rate for 2008 was appalling at a dismal 48%! Must be something in the well water, I remember a brackish taste when sampling the water fountain in the school's front lobby. Beware!

Visited University of Detroit Mercy and Cooley at Aurburn Hills the same day.

It was a no brainer, my wife and I on the drive back home decided on UDM. The visit to the admissions office went very nicely, and they made my wife and I feel at home and surprisingly paid attention to detail about my needs and why I wanted to study law. Furthermore, it is a good Roman Catholic school, its not Georgetown or Notre Dame, and thank God its not right wing idealogically drivin Ave Marie, but a Jesuit law school with a century of tradition. It is going to cost a lot more than Cooley, but UDM's overall Bar passage rate, especially, the last two years, 90% and 92% respectively, and its reputation regionally is what finally swayed my wife and I.

Did not have that same feeling at Cooley. I felt like I was a number and a burden even visiting, since I had to visit them on my time, and not during their usually choregraphed tour of the campus with other prospective students.

Cooley is not a bad school, in fact, I was very attracted to their program because of their curriculum stressing a practical legal education, rather than the theory based "Paper Chase" elitism that is taught at most law schools since the late sixties.

Also good for my decision process on where to attend is that UDM, since 2006, has also changed their curriculum from a theory based, to a practical-theory based integrel curriculum (i.e. like Cooley, they are teaching students to pass the Bar, and probably why their Bar passage rate has jumped from traditionally being in the low to mid- eighties to the low nineties the last two years).

Cooley would have been fine with me, and I would not have been bothered by any juvenile comments by those who attend other law schools and think that somehow they are better then Cooley students and graduates. Students of other law schools know that Cooley has a huge reputation of turning out courtroom beast who are competent and extremely aggressive litigators, and who regularly pulverize their opponnets. Ask anyone who has attended another law school and particiapted on a moot court team and has had to face a Cooley team in a competion.

Anyway, hope everyone had a good cycle this year! Mine has ended! Good luck to all 1Ls this fall! Go Titans!