On Wednesday Oct. 12, 2022, New Jersey had its 40th Annual Law School Admissions Fair, hosted by Montclair State University’s Pre-Law program and co-hosted by Drew University and various other New Jersey schools. The Law School Fair was open to anyone interested in pursuing a legal profession in the future. The schools all had a variety of different concentrations, including corporate law, international law, criminal law, bankruptcy law and so on.
The fair was set up in three parts. The first part of the fair focused on a panel discussion and presentation on how to manage the cost of law schools. According to Forbes Magazine, “$84,558 is the cost at public universities for in-state students, and $147,936 for students that attend private universities.” The tips consisted of applying for loans, applying for scholarships and grants and possibly working a part-time job.
The second part was an open fair that had schools like UMass, Charleston Law School, Rutgers Law School and even California Irvine Law school. Each law school had its own booth with one representative that answered questions, talked about their respective school and gave recommendations to students on what future steps they should take.
The third part of the fair was a virtual LSAT workshop with James Lorié, a test developer for the LSAT. The LSAT is an exam that tests how ready students are for law school. Lorié creates all the questions for the 3-hour exam along with his team. In this webinar, the criteria of the LSAT were very important. The LSAT is broken up into four parts: reading comprehension, logical reasoning, analytical reasoning and a writing sample. Lorié gave tips on how to prepare for this exam, as well as a 3-month minimum requirement to begin your study journey.
Overall, this annual fair was informative and walked attendees through the process with no pressure. It provided information about what to have on a resume, what GPA to shoot for, what LSAT score to have and how involved one should be on campus. If any student is thinking about applying for law school, they should attend future fairs or reach out to Gwen DeBenedetto in the Career Development Center to plan the right pre-law track for you.
Features image courtesy of Nicole Giao
