The Red Velvet Lawyer

Here's another thing I want to remind faculty, students, alumni, and potential students about.  The nicest people you will ever meet live here. Yesterday, Matt Hardin, a student at Appalachian School of Law, posted this unsolicited comment to my morning blog: "My personal experience is that all of the world's nicest people live in Grundy." The people in southwest Virginia combine Southern hospitality with a heapin' dose of mountain hospitality to create a very open-hearted and supportive community.  They welcome students into their churches, civic organizations, charitable enterprises, and homes. This place and the people who live here embrace you with their beauty, calm determination, work ethic, generous spirits, and loving kindness.  Many have so little and yet they share so much.

A Mission Tied to Its Locality As I noted in an earlier blog, I am using this week to remind faculty, students, alumni, and entering students why the Appalachian School of Law is so special.  Let's move to its unique mission. The Mission Appalachian School of Law (ASL) is a mission-driven school created by local business, legal, and political leaders concerned about the well-being of people living in the central Appalachian Mountains.   ASL’s founders hoped to create an opportunity for central Appalachians to see beyond their own mountain valleys and, having done so, to return home with greater insight, effective legal skills, leadership ambitions, high ethical standards, and a commitment to community service.    A 2008 student survey, conducted in conjunction with the strategic planning process, revealed that on average the parents of ASL students only had “some college” or a “2-year degree.”  Thirty-four percent of our students reported that their mothers obtai

Unique Location of the Appalachian School of law Classes for our incoming 1L students start this coming Friday.  I plan to use this week to remind faculty, students, alumni,and incoming students about what makes the Appalachian School of Law so special. Yes, this is a shameless plug.  But, in a southeastern market where students can choose between being a name at a mission-driven school and being a number at a for-profit school, I want to remind us all why ASL stands out. Unique Location: Located in the  Central Appalachian Mountains  of Virginia; Quiet small town of Grundy is enhanced by recent addition of new stores and restaurants; During 2013, work will begin on the River Walk Project that will create additional green spaces along the Levisa River that flows through town and northwest (that's right!) to Pikeville, KY; Pikeville, Ky, in turn, played an important role in the famous Hatfield and McCoys  feud; Unique local history is tied to coal production an

What do you say to new law students about being successful in law school? We will welcome our incoming law school class at the end of this week. For the first time in many years, I will play a role in our week-long Introduction to Law course.  At the end of the week, I will give a presentation on test-taking skills and strategies.  I gave this talk for the first time earlier this summer during our LSAT prep course. This week-end I updated it with several helpful tips based on a couple of blog postings. The first blog posting  -- Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals -- suggests that fundamental changes must happen at our level of identity.  If you seek change by focusing on your appearance or your performance, the change will likely be short-lived. So, for example, if I want to lose 40 pounds by Christmas (as I do), I can focus on how my body looks in the mirror or to my friends. But, as all dieters know, it takes at least 8 weeks before anyone will no

As you know, I have followed the debate between the authors of the report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree -- and the author of a book -- Failing Law Schools (FLS) . I thought we were about done with the back and forth, but now it seems the author of FLS , the Law Professor at Washington University School of Law, Brian Tamanaha, has gotten help from a member of his faculty.  The story appears  here . Tamanaha has targeted a group of expensive ($40,000+/per year), mostly California law schools, that also have low employment stats when you look only at the category of  full-time jobs requiring bar passage.  I've discussed how to understand the reported employment numbers  here . In the end, I agree that prospective students should carefully consider the decision to go to law school.  They should carefully adopt a strategy that gets them the best education possible at a reasonable cost.  I discuss one possible strategy here .  And yes, they should consider whether they

Appalachian School of Law is one of the most affordable private law schools in the U.S.  Based on the data I have, it is one of the most affordable private law schools east of the Mississippi River.  Even so, our tuition this coming year is about $31,000 per year. Living expenses in excess of tuition -- of about $20,000 per year -- make law school a significant investment in a student's future. If a college graduate asked me whether to go to law school today, I'd say "yes."  But, here's how to do it. Do not apply to a school that is likely to admit you to fill the bottom of the class. You will pay full tuition to claim that spot. Instead, apply to law schools that will happily admit you to fill the top ten percent of their classes -- they will be one or two tiers lower than your stretch school.  Look at the LSAT quartiles for each school for a hint at how you fit in each school's entering class profile.  Disclose the admission package offered by the be

I've enjoyed the blog-based debate about the new report -- The Economic Value of a Law Degree -- which I summarized here .  Michael Simkovic and Frank McIntyre, its authors, have explained their methodology, which to my untrained eye, appears robust.  They have successfully responded over the last several weeks to the points made by Brian Tamanaha, author of Failing Law Schools . Simkovic's last blog post appears  here .  It goes into further detail about the methodology used to compare the two populations -- first, law school grads and second, bachelor degree earners most like law school grads. I am curious why this report has generated this type of debate.  Are we so accustomed to hearing bad news about law school that some good news seems automatically suspect?  Have the scambloggers so occupied the field for so long that we cannot easily make a shift in how we view the value of a law degree in today's market? Yes, getting a legal education continues to be a hug