According to Paul Chill ’78, law school is commonly cited as an ideal follow-up to a liberal arts education because it accommodates so many academic concentrations. Chill, associate dean of academic affairs and professor at UConn Law, made this case in the Butterfield C Lounge last Thursday during a discussion entitled, “How to Prep, Survive and Excel in Law School.”
“Law school is a terrific choice for just about everyone,” said Chill to the approximately fifteen students who attended. “The modes of thinking that you acquire, as well as the license to practice law, are tremendous tools for whatever you want to do.”
Chill described his own path into law as “very non-traditional,” which accounts for what he said are his unconventional ideas about law school. A Wesleyan alumnus, Chill was a government major and a football player. After graduation he worked at Long Lane School over the summer, eventually became involved in worker unions, and went on to law school with an interest in labor issues.
Chill’s first suggestion to students was not to tailor their college education towards law school.
“Do what you’re interested in,” Chill said. “Law school does not begin with any required substantive core. It is a mistake to focus your academics on it instead of studying what you enjoy.”
Chill, an enthusiastic proponent of a gap period between college and graduate school, admitted that getting into law school is contingent on high scores on the LSAT exam. In terms of law school eligibility, admissions boards are concerned with scores, not percentile ranks.
“Regrettably, law school admissions are incredibly number-driven,” Chill said. “And everything revolves around the U.S. News ranking system.”
Chill detailed his experience with the process at UConn Law, a school that has consistently been placed between 35 and 50 in the rankings. Its median LSAT score has just dropped from 162 to 161, although Chill clarified that even people with scores in the low 140s had a chance of being accepted.
“We consider factors besides the LSAT, more so than most schools,” Chill said, speaking about UConn Law. “One of our missions is to contribute to the community; we provide an evening division for part-time students, in which we are exempt from reporting LSAT scores.”
Moreover, Chill explained that he does not believe in a correlation between school rank and quality of education.
“If you are not in the top ten schools, it really makes no difference on your resume which institution you go to,” he said.
Throughout the lecture, Chill placed heavier emphasis on participating in clinics than on achieving stellar exam scores. He also recommended submitting to a law school’s student-run journal, which is invariably a competitive endeavor that provides valuable experience in editing and writing, enhancing one’s resume.
“Clinics allow students to represent actual clients under close faculty supervision,” Chill said. “You really cannot get that experience anywhere else.”
Chill debunked some myths about law school, such as the apparently unmanageable workload of first-year students. He advised students to start practicing for the exam early by doing sample problems. He also suggested that most of the stress comes from an increasingly academically competitive society, the fact that a first-year student’s entire grade rests on the result of a final, three-hour exam, and a grading system that ranks all students in the class relative to one another.
During the question-and-answer session that followed, several students asked about the possibilities presented by earning a law degree other than academia or working for a private firm. Chill waxed enthusiastically about the endless options, but he seemed unable to provide any answers beyond public interest workers.
“I always thought that I wanted to be a doctor,” said Sara Rowe ’08. “I finally realized that I didn’t, so now I’m just looking at what other options are out there.
Joann Chan ’07 said she had not thought about law school until a visit to the Birmingham Center for Law and Civic Education in Alabama.
”The talk was a good basic introduction to law school, but the information was all very general,“ she said.
The informal lecture was the collaborative effort of the CRC, namely pre-law advisor Jim Kubat, and Wesleyan’s newly formed pre-law society. In light of an increasing number of graduates attending law school, the society works to sponsor guest speakers, LSAT study groups, and opportunities for advocacy in Connecticut law.
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