TIPS FOR APPLYING TO LAW SCHOOL

[1]

Applying to Law School

How to Stand Out in the Crowd

 

You have finally made it through all of undergraduate school. It may have seemed like a holding pattern keeping you from finally getting where you have wanted to be all along. Law school. But now that the time has come to apply, what is it exactly that you should be focusing on? The LSAT is only a portion of your application package, so after the test is over, the real work begins.

The most important piece of information regarding the application process is the one that applies to nearly every area of the process: remember that law schools are looking at your whole person. Admissions officers are seeking to understand who you are as a person, not just as a student. While LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA factor greatly into the decision, schools look beyond statistics to gain a better sense of the person behind the numbers. This is where the personal statement takes center stage. This is the applicant’s opportunity to show off not only writing abilities, but a spark of personality. Humanizing yourself to the admissions officer makes a stack of papers stick out. Are you the first in your family to attend law school? What do you plan to achieve by earning a juris doctor? Be genuine and honest in your answer, giving a complete picture of who you are as a person. This can also be the place to compensate for a lower LSAT score or GPA if a standardized test is not the best representation of who you are as a student.[2]

Including letters of recommendation with your application can only help your chances of gaining acceptance. Ask for letters from people such as employers, professors, or mentors who can sing your praises. Make sure that these writers have known you for a significant period in order to give the letter greater weight. If the recommender can attest to your personal growth and achievement over a considerable time, all the better.[3]

Apply to a school that meshes with your goals. If your dream is to be a litigator, search for a law program that boasts trial teams and moot court competitions. If public speaking sounds like your idea of a nightmare, look for a school that touts clubs which focus on transactional studies. Not all schools are equal for every person. Think beyond the law school ranking tiers and find a program the coincides with your plans for the future. Opportunities abound at every level of law school, so fixating on rank alone will keep you from a full scholastic experience.[4]

An area to an application given little thought, because it exists outside of submitted materials, is social media. With growing regularity, social media accounts are scoured as a potential source to accept, or reject, a potential candidate. Using your own name as your account handle is best practice if you plan to keep your social media public as an avenue to display to admissions officers that you have what they will look for in a potential student. Be sure that all the information you make public is of a nature that should be public. Check the photos you are tagged in and remove all traces of activities that would reflect poorly on your potential for academic success. If having your account set to public seems like too much exposure, ensure that your account is set to private. Your masthead photo will still be viewable, so make certain it is a photo you would be comfortable showing to the world, because the world is watching!

Finally, start early! The longer you wait to begin, the greater the margin for panic. While procrastination is peaceful in the moment, nothing compares to finishing your application in enough time to proofread for errors. All the time and hard work spent on your application would be cast in the shadow of missing commas and misspelled words. Can you imagine hitting send only to review your submission and be faced with a screenful of mistakes? Save yourself the heartache and get to typing. Your dreams deserve a head start.

Alexa Wallace is currently a third-year law student at Samford’s Cumberland School of Law, where she is the Research and Writing Editor of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy and Associate Justice of the Henry Upson Sims Moot Court Board. Wallace holds a master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas as well as a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lee University. None of this would have been accomplished without the existence of croissants.

[1] https://www.shu.edu/pre-law/law-school-application-process.cfm.

[2] https://www.lsac.org/blog/deans-share-tips-law-school-application-process.

[3] https://www.thebalancecareers.com/law-school-admissions-tips-2164363.

[4] https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/college-planning/admissions/5-law-school-admission-tips.htm.

from The Nomberg Law Firm – Birmingham Workers' Compensation & Personal Injury Lawyers https://www.nomberglaw.com/blog/tips-for-applying-to-law-school/

CAN I FILE BANKRUPTCY TO STOP A GARNISHMENT?

One of the most difficult forms of debt collection to overcome is wage garnishment.  Creditors, such as credit cards and medical bill collectors, can often take up to 25% of your net pay.  Debts owed to taxing authorities, such as the IRS, may result in even more being deducted. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, a wage garnishment can ruin your family budget.

A garnishment works like this:  The Creditor will file a Process of Garnishment with the court where it has obtained a judgment against you.  The court will then serve the Process of Garnishment on your employer or your local bank depending on where the Creditor believes it can get the most money.  After your employer or bank is served, you will receive notice of the garnishment giving you an opportunity within 30 days to claim an exemption or file an objection to the garnishment with the court.

Your employer is required to start deducting up to 25% from your wages and send the money to the court.  The Clerk of Court holds the money until the funds are condemned by the Creditor.  The Creditor must file a Motion to Condemn the funds before they are paid from the Court to the Creditor.

This is where bankruptcy can provide you the relief that you so desperately need. The bankruptcy code provides a powerful tool called the “Automatic Stay” which stops the garnishment cold in its tracks.  Once a bankruptcy petition is filed, the automatic stay goes into effect and requires creditors to cease any further collection efforts on the debt.

WHEN DOES THE STAY APPLY?

The stay takes effect as soon as a Voluntary Petition is filed. When filed, a notice is sent to all creditors, informing them of the stay. The notice is usually sent out within a day or two of filing. Rather than waiting, a copy of the notice can usually be obtained from the court docket on the date of filing.  It can then be hand-delivered, faxed, or electronically delivered to the creditor. Since an employee’s wages are being garnished, a copy should go to the employer’s HR department.  The sooner this is done, the sooner the garnishment can be stopped.

CAN I GET MY MONEY BACK FROM THE COURT?

If you file bankruptcy before the funds are condemned by the Creditor, the Clerk of Court will return the money to your employer, who will pay the money back to you.  This is why the timing of your bankruptcy is so important.  Once the funds are paid to the Creditor, the funds are no longer property that you can retrieve just by filing for bankruptcy protection.

If the Creditor attempts to garnish your bank account, the funds in the account will be frozen on the date that the garnishment is received by the bank.  A garnishment sent to your bank is considered a “one-time” garnishment, meaning it does not automatically continue like a wage garnishment.  Once the money is sent from the bank to the court, the bank is no longer obligated to continue sending money to the court.  The Creditor would need to serve another Process of Garnishment on your bank to have it freeze any future funds that you deposit in the bank account.  Filing for bankruptcy will stop the garnishment and force the bank to release the funds in the bank account to you.

WHEN DOES THE STAY NOT APPLY?

The stay does not apply to domestic support obligations, i.e. child support and alimony payments. If a wage withholding order is in effect for either of these obligations, the bankruptcy court will not stay the order, and the support will continue to be deducted from your wages.

If you had two previous bankruptcy cases dismissed within a year of commencing the present case, the stay will not be automatic. Thus, garnishment could continue. However, you may file a motion with the court to impose the automatic stay if you can prove that your current bankruptcy case was filed in good faith.

If you are struggling to pay your debts and concerned about the future welfare for you and your family, it is important that you seek the advice of a bankruptcy lawyer to ensure that your assets are protected and the debts you seek to eliminate are dischargeable.  Our attorneys have been assisting consumers and business owners with bankruptcy matters for over 25 years.  If you are considering filing for bankruptcy, please consider contacting the Nomberg Law Firm.  Our office number is 205-395-0532.

Steven D. Altmann has been a lawyer for more than 25 years. Steve has earned an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell’s peer-review rating and was recently named a Super Lawyer and Top Attorney by Birmingham Magazine in the area of Bankruptcy Law.

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We are a Federal Debt Relief Agency. We help people file for bankruptcy relief under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

from The Nomberg Law Firm – Birmingham Workers' Compensation & Personal Injury Lawyers https://www.nomberglaw.com/blog/can-i-file-bankruptcy-to-stop-garnishment/

LESSONS LEARNED ALONG THE WAY—REFLECTIONS OF A THIRD YEAR LAW STUDENT

Entering the world of law seems a daunting task for us mere mortals just making our start in the industry. Television shows, books, and movies memorialize the law field and the powerhouses that fill it. We see men and women command courtrooms with gravitas and the right amount of drama. Last-minute strokes of genius inspire newbie associates to find the hidden clause in a contract and bring the client victory. A lost witness comes forward at the close of a trial to win over the jury and seal the guilty verdict. While these images are awe-inspiring, they tend to make setting foot in the actual field seem an insurmountable goal and the giants that have already “made it” cast shadows over the hopes of first-year students.

As a soon-to-be graduate and newly minted lawyer myself, I have felt the trepidation that walks hand-in-hand with striking out on a specific career path. Nothing compares to the bewildering newness and overwhelming deluge of information packed onto your plate in those early days. It seems like the start of every class is actually the middle of the semester and everyone knows what is happening except for you. Reading lists are distributed a week before classes start and you should be five chapters into every book before day one even dawns. Oh, and you should have at least an intermediate level understanding of Latin and finding cases in the stratosphere of law databases. All in a single day’s work, right?

I fell into that trap myself, thinking I should have it all figured out while I whipped through assignments at warp speed. But standing on the precipice that is the end of school and the beginning of everything that comes next, I can see what law school was really meant to be. Law school is a boot camp not just for the mind but for your character. The pace and volume of material, while torturous at the time, was not meant to drill into my head that I was inadequate, it was a reminder that lawyers are responsible for the burdens of clients.

What those courtroom dramas and glamorized shows got right was the importance of the job. People turn to lawyers to find someone who will stand up for them when they cannot fight on their own. Law students are not given a break because the world does not take a break. There will always be something new to address, some new wrong to be righted. The three years spent in libraries, classrooms, and intern cubicles is transformative. Stripped away is the fear of failure because of all that is still unknown. What remains is the drive and determination to armor ourselves with knowledge and the skills necessary to bring justice to any situation. Because that is what learning the law is truly about. Not the admiration of juries or awards adorning walls, it is the license to stand in the gap for people and be their advocate.

Alexa Wallace is currently a third-year law student at Samford’s Cumberland School of Law, where she is the Research and Writing Editor of the American Journal of Trial Advocacy and Associate Justice of the Henry Upson Sims Moot Court Board. Wallace holds a master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience from the University of Texas at Dallas as well as a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lee University. None of this would have been accomplished without the existence of croissants.

from The Nomberg Law Firm – Birmingham Workers' Compensation & Personal Injury Lawyers https://www.nomberglaw.com/blog/reflections-of-third-year-law-student/