How difficult did you lawyers out there find the LSAT and law school in general?

My brother had no problem with law school, but he had a terrible time with the bar exam. However, he went to UT and skated by with “gentlemen’s grades.” Even one of those tutoring programs for the bar exam didn’t get him to a point where he was able to pass.

My husband and most of our friends are lawyers. It’s almost impossible to work the first year. After that it gets easier. This past May, young family friend graduated 4th in his class with a 3.8 gpa, Law Review, etc. and cannot get a job. He’s working for a non-profit. As are about 80% of the lawyers that graduated this year from Ivy League law schools. There are no jobs, and many who thought they had jobs were let go even before they showed up for the first day.

When you go to law school, regardless of where you go, you are essentially teaching yourself the law. Law school provides structure and a framework. When it gets down to the Bar, either you know it, or you don’t. That’s pretty darn scary.

There are some really good articles about job satisfaction in the ABA Journal, which is online (ABA=American Bar Association.)

If you decide to go, I recommend taking an LSAT prep course. If you’re reasonably academically gifted, Power Score has a weekend prep class for about $350 that is worth the money. They do a great job of teaching how to interpret the questions on the LSAT, which are really different from any other standardized test. The questions are based on logic reasoning, but how the questions are constructed are very different.

All of which is why my brother has made his living for several decades as a musician, not a lawyer.

My friend did great in law school. He has a great aptitude for learning, but I think he stuck to what he really enjoyed when it came to the later courses. I could be wrong on how law school works though.
He had a rough time with the bar. He had to take it twice before he passed. He took it with quite a few friends and not all of them passed the first time, but passed the second time.