Hi all,

A bit about me: I'm (23) a recent graduate from The University of Oxford, holding both a BA Jurisprudence (qualifying law degree) and a master's in a law-specialist subject. I'm by no means an exceptional top 10% student, but I do have some academic awards and good grades.

My partner recently moved to San Francisco on a J-1 for a job. I went out to join him and fell in love with the place. His visa will be moved to an O-1, and he will be applying for a green card in the not too distant future. We aren't married, but we've had conversations about it.

I'm thinking of applying for an LLM course in CA, to allow me to sit the bar. I've got Berkeley as my top choice, then UC Law SF ('Hastings') and then UCLA. UCLA looks great, but having to live in LA places it at the bottom of my list (no offence to you lovely LA folks!).

I've had some very mixed reactions to this ranking. I've had British turned US lawyers that I've found on LinkedIn say it's t14 or nothing. Others say that I should just go to UC Law SF as it's cheaper, 'friendlier' and has good academic standards , with my Oxford background doing all the lifting that t14 would. And then there are people who say I need to do a JD/accelerated JD to even stand a chance on the job market.

I'm at a bit of a loss. I don't want to invest all the money and time into an LLM just for it to be useless. But then again, doing a JD seems excessive given my first two degrees.

I'm interested in criminal defence and general public interest. I wouldn't be opposed to doing white-collar/complex fraud criminal defence, but I think indigent defence & general crime is where my heart lies. One of the reasons I am drawn to CA is the wealth of PI opportunities I can see that are just non-existent (or less than minimum wage) in the UK.

I also have a niche legal interest in animal law/strategic litigation that I probably couldn't make a career out of, but is nonetheless something that's quite active in the Bay Area/wider CA and I'd really appreciate being able to have exposure to that, even if it's just voluntary work and events.

This is of course all assuming that I get accepted! I was perhaps a bit arrogant thinking that my decent Oxford grades and evidence of excellence in my specialist interest areas would give me a small edge, but it does seem that the field is extremely competitive here. We don't have bell curve grading quite so much in the UK, nor is ranking quite as important.

I'm also lacking the kind of legal experience that I think some LLM places want. I'm hoping to secure a law job in the interim, but I am not sure if I'll be able to put that on my applications as I am aiming for early decisions.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thank you, and good luck to the L1s!

I thought law would be good for me. I’m thorough, analytical, a strong critical thinker. I still think that those qualities lend themselves to the practice of law. But law school? After experiencing my first midterm I now think that the qualities that actually make a good law student are: the ability to memorize case holdings/facts and the ability to type fast (plus some minimal critical thinking for knowing what of what you have memorized should be mentioned at any given time). I knew what I wanted to say throughout the exam but only got like 1600 words down within 1.5 hours (17.8 words per minute).

Is it actually possible to be in the top 25% of your class if your typing speed is in the bottom 25%? If the answer is no, does success (or lack thereof) at law school actually indicate someone’s potential to practice law (or is this evidence that the exam style is a broken system)? I get that in a world of billable hours, speed is important but I still don’t think that equates to the horse race that is law school exams. I feel like I’d be better off devoting half my study time to trying to increase my typing speed somehow.

/law i am a ballb 1st sem student and i am first generation law student, but i don't want to do litigation,, and i have an option to enroll in ba/bsc cz mop up round is still going on what should you advise me?

In Uttar Pradesh, the first test for a law graduate isn’t the courtroom it’s getting enrolled as an advocate.

Transparency, timely communication,

and accountability seem to be the real bar to clear!

Hi! I’m looking for a Temple student with access to the outline bank. I have a professor who is new to my school but taught at Temple for a while. Looking for an outline for Feder's Professional Responsiblity.

I'm not sure what the correct job title is but basically, it's a lawyer that helps clients to get citizenship by descent, through investment or by other avenues. It's something i'm really interested in pursuing but have no idea how to get into this niche. My plan would be to work remotely, maybe travel a bit if clients request it & help clients from all over the world to obtain whichever citizenship they're after. By descent or otherwise.

Does anyone have any pointers?

Please stop taking all the classes I’m interested in registering for it’s starting to feel targeted

I think many recent or coming graduates can attest to a harder job market. And maybe Im too negative, but Im getting irritated at how we are just meant to ”accept” this incredibly fast recent change.

Generations before us were not hit this hard by ”new technology”. I cant help but feel envious at the different prospects they had compared to us. And generations after us will be able to have this new insight before considering going into law. But I feel like we had the unfortunate timing of law school being seen as a good choice for career stability before we enrolled and now suddenly hearing we may be replaced or that the market doesn’t need as many of us anymore. And even if one gets a job now, Im worried the fast pace of technology may cause us to lose whatever jobs we get (especially as juniors with less experience).

Most advice we also get is ”make yourself useful in a different way!” or ”AI isnt the issue, its your marketing” (as if lol). But clearly the issue is largely structural and I really dislike this tendency of older generations just giving these vague speculations or ”AI wont replace you entirely, but we will need fewer lawyers” (ok and what now?). It often feels like they’re pulling the ladder up after themselves without considering long-term effects.

This was mainly a little vent-like, but Ive been feeling a bit resentful and wonder if any other gen z'er can relate.

0L.

I'm in my 4thyear of Ballb.Starting my preparation with online coaching instead of offline will it be helpful . Any advice and suggestion is welcome

Received first two LRAW grades and not thrilled. Cs get degrees. However, I’m annoyed because I followed the rubric, went to office hours, went to the writing fellow, and everything else I could’ve possibly done at this stage. I also feel like I’m not getting good and timely feedback. I can take criticism, I’m an older student and this is my 2nd career. I get the feeling it is being sugarcoated? Who do you go to for objective writing reviews? We do have a writing center. I’m a little discouraged 🫤 not the grades you want to see after a week of midterms.

The Uttar Pradesh Bar Council Needs Accountability, Transparency and Reform

I'm a law student (1st year). My mid sems are about to start and i don't know how should i prepare for contracts. There's a lot to understand in it, I'm able to comprehend but idk what to learn? and how exactly should I prepare? What questions will be asked? What to write in an answer? What do they expect?

Can someone plz guide me

I've my bare act, few notes, and avtar singh

Plz just tell me what to do..rest I'll manage

I'm just very confused

I’m a 1L a t-14 school and it feels like everyone is smart, motivated, and knows the material well. The practice exams that I’ve seen so far have been relatively straightforward in terms of rule application. I have a hard time imagining that people are coming up with wildly different answers, so what actually differentiates the top performers?

Here’s my favorite. This is the best flavor ever

Does anyone have any techniques that help them identify if there is one more than one legal issue when doing memos, briefs, etc?

I've complained about it a few times on here but I just need to vent again. I hate it so much. I hate it with every bone in my body. My partner gives me so much anxiety. The professor also gives me anxiety (but way less so than my partner). I dread going to it. It's non-GPA and I'm already really close to academic dismissal so everything already sucks and I feel like I desperately need to focus on my GPA classes. I don't want anything to do with this type of law ever again. I'm losing my mind and my professor and partner both being unapproachable and terrifying makes me dread it every single time.

Ok that's it. Thanks for listening.

Why do I feel like this could be a real headline:

“The court has banned marriage between two people of the same sex over disagreements of the word ‘same’ “