Preparing the Right Way For the LSAT and the Bar

This week in the Law School Insider we are bringing you Jeff Thomas, Executive Director, Pre-Law Programs for Kaplan Test Prep. It was great having Jeff Thomas on the show as he talked to us about the LSAT, Bar Preparation and many other things. 

Jeff Thomas likes to get students to rethink what the LSAT really is and what it shows law schools. Jeff Thomas stated that he tells students that the LSAT allows you to show law schools what skills you have walking in the door to their program and should not be seen as a huge barrier or roadblock to your law school dream. The LSAT was designed to test the skills that lawyers do such as:

• To evaluate the strength and structure of arguments
• To differentiate amongst dense texts
• To deduse seemingly conflicting rules and information and assemble them together in an order that makes sense.

The more that you prepare for the LSAT and every point that you can squeeze out of the LSAT makes you that much more prepared for law school in general.

One of the mistakes that Jeff Thomas notes that students make in preparing for the LSAT is that they will take practice test after practice test teeying to get better. While research shows that this type of preparation may show you short term changes, the long term changes are minimal. As Jeff Thomas shared, as Albert Einstein stated the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a better result.

So it is important to take a practice test but then it is also important to analyze your performance on the test itself. What were your strengths and weaknesses in the test that you took? Once you do this you can focus on individual skill building on theareas where you need the most improvement and potentially get a few more points off this effort.

When you are looking at test preparation programs ask the following questions:

1. Is it one size fits all where all students get the same questions and materials or is the program personilzed to allow you to identify your personal strengths and weaknesses throughout the program?

If you decide to take a Kaplan test preparation program and d not get the score that you hoped for, Jeff Thomas mentioned that they work with you individually to examine how your studied for the test the first time and what would need to be done differently the second time. 

As a student you have to understand that you can only take the LSAT three times in a two year period.

These days law schools are not surprised to see students coming in with multiple LSAT scores. You will need to look at their requirements in regards to the LSAT and what they will accept. Also, some schools may require you to write an addendum explaining what you did to get the higher LSAT score.

As you get into law school and are working through your law curriculum you will have to start to prepare for the bar exam. To do this you will have to make sure to not only take advantage of local law school resources, but also taking advantage of external bar preparation programs too. As you are looking at the different companies that have this available it is important to consider:

• The Bar Exam is a aggregation of content knowledge
• Look for a course that uses data to drive the course experience. Thus, a program that adjusts based on the data inputs that are collected throughout the program

As you are considering law schools you need to be purposeful in your decisions, Making sure that you make a decision based on all of the facts was something that Jeff Thomas stated that he wishes that he would have done.

In looking back on his own experiences in law school Jeff Thomas stated that you need to make sure that you:

1. Cherish and make the most of your law school experiences and experience as many practical legal experiences as you can to use the legal knowledge that you are attaining.
2. Try courses that you typically may not have taken and do not just stay with the prescribed courses that you think you have to take to be ready for the bar exam.

Did you like this interview? Do you have a question for Jeff Thomas? Leave a comment below to let me know!

Are you a practicing lawyer? A law student? Would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Law School Insider or do you have a topic you would like to hear about? Send me an email at lawschoolinsider@cooley.edu