Applying to law school can be overwhelming, but mentors can guide applicants as they figure out which schools to consider and how to stand out in an admissions pool.
For some, getting advice from lawyers who were once law applicants is critical.
“I went through this process 18 years ago. I am very glad that I talked to people who had been through the process as I was walking through the process,” says Cordel Faulk, assistant dean and chief admissions officer for the law school at the University of Virginia. “It was especially beneficial for me,” says Faulk, who also attended law school at UVA.
Beyond discussing what to do and not to do when applying or how to prepare for the LSAT, mentors can also give career advice so that applicants know more about the profession they’re interested in, says Peg Cheng, founder of Prelaw Guru, which helps law applicants get into school.
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“Mentors can give you an inside view on what it’s like to practice law. This is incredibly helpful, especially since many law school applicants don’t know what lawyers actually do on a daily basis,” Cheng wrote in an email.
Prospective law school students who want a mentor have a variety of options for finding one, experts say.
Applicants can start by checking in with their undergraduate institutions and finding their schools’ prelaw advisers. These advisers are well equipped to mentor prospective law students who are in undergrad or those who’ve finished college, says Robert Schwartz, dean of admissions and financial aid at the University of California–Los Angeles School of Law.
“They have seen many others go through the process and they are familiar with the process. And they are specifically there to guide you,” he says.
A prelaw adviser can also put applicants in touch with alumni from that institution who went to law school and will make good mentors, says Faulk.
“Folks who’ve graduated from your undergrad who’ve gone to law school can talk to you about, kind of, the path they went through, where their friends have applied, where their friends were successful,” he says. “Lawyers who’ve gone to your undergrad are the most likely to feel invested in you.”
If meeting with a prelaw adviser isn’t an option, applicants can tap into their own network.
“Seek out a lawyer by asking your family and friends if they know of a lawyer or two who actually like their work. You want to find a lawyer who enjoys his or her job and is willing to take some time to give honest advice to a prospective law school student,” Cheng wrote. “There are many bitter and unhappy lawyers out there. Avoid them–their advice is often too tinged with negativity to be of real help.”
Some law schools also have student groups and organizations that are willing to mentor applicants.
UCLA has the Law Fellows program for prospective students.
“They hold a series of weekly academies,” Schwartz says. “They have a hundred prospective law students, primarily from underrepresented and disadvantaged communities, who are there with the sole purpose of getting advice and counseling and then going to law school.” Participants are also assigned current law students who will be their mentors, he says.
Monica Mar, an alum of the Law Fellows Program, says mentoring is a key part of the program.
“Having the support of someone that was in law school just telling me like, ‘Yeah, you can do this,’ was pretty much invaluable,” says Mar, who graduated from UCLA’s law school in 2008 and now works there as the assistant director of academic outreach.
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While mentors can offer a lot to prospective students, applicants should make sure to have realistic expectations of how much a mentor can help them. There are certain things they should think twice about asking a mentor to do, experts say.
“I would not ask a mentor to write your essay for you,” says Karen Gross, who taught at New York Law School for more than 20 years and is the former president of Southern Vermont College. “I would not ask a mentor to call a school to persuade them to accept you.”
Also, mentors might not be the best people for writing letters of recommendation.
“Mentors often don’t know enough about your professional work to write a letter of recommendation for you so don’t ask them for that,” Cheng wrote in an email. “Mentors are often incredibly biased towards their mentees and would not be an objective recommender who could speak to the applicant’s skills in analytical thinking, writing and research, public speaking, etc. Your letters of recommendation should come from your college/university professors and teaching assistants and/or your work supervisors.”
Overall, applicants should lean on mentors for guidance, but ultimately make their own decision about where and how to apply.
“Ask them for advice. Don’t ask them to tell you exactly what to do,” says Faulk, from UVA. “The mentee needs to decide the course of action the mentee is going to take for his or her career.”
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Find a Mentor to Help With Law School Applications originally appeared on usnews.com
