How to become a lawyer in the USA.

Getting In:

In order to get into a US law school, an applicant must first obtain a bachelor’s degree from a university or college (takes about 4 years on average to complete). Then, the applicant has to take a Law School Admission Test (“LSAT”). It is a four-hour written exam that combines testing on reading comprehension, logic, and reasoning– the skills believed to be necessary for a successful lawyer. The LSAT score will determine in which law school you could possibly be accepted. For example, the Ivy League schools( the most prestigious ) like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton will look at your application only if you scored at the 95-100 percentiles on the LSAT, i.e., if there were 100 questions, you could only get 5 wrong. Less prestigious schools require at least 70 percentile, and the third-tiered schools will accept you if you got at least half of the questions correctly.

Once an applicant has the LSAT score, he or she will start assembling other application materials. They usually include a personal statement and a few additional essays, recommendation letters, and transcripts from college. The applicants can send the materials to as many law schools as they wish. They will be notified of the admission commission decision via email or by a letter.

First Year in Law School

Once accepted, the student begins his or her law school career by taking a set of predetermined mandatorycore classes, that include such courses as constitutional law, civil law and procedure, criminal law and procedure, contracts, and the whole year of legal writing where the students are taught how to properly write complaints, briefs, motions, contracts, legal correspondence and other legal documents. The students are also encouraged to participate in various student organizations and volunteer for a non-profit or a governmental organization.

Lectures: the first year courses are taught only as lectures. Each class meets 2, 3 or 4 times a week for about 2 hours. The students are expected to read, analyze and understand about between 20 and 50 pages of new material which will be discussed during the class. A professor teaches the class in a form of a discussion called the Socratic Method. The professor calls on someone with a question from the assigned material and the student is expected to be able to discuss intelligently the issue. Students could also ask specific questions but only if they have read the material and did not understand a certain part. Often, a professor would pose a question from the student to the entire class to see if anyone else can answer it.

Exams: All exams are written. Normally, a professor gives two or three fact patterns and the students are expected to write essays in response in an “IRAC” format – Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. It means that the students must be able to spot the issues raised by the hypothetical fact patterns, state the applicable rules of law, apply them to the given facts, and then state a conclusion. The issue spotting is the most important part that earns most of the points.

Sometimes professors also test by creating a multiple choice exam where the possible answer choices are so confusing or so similar that you keep wondering which to pick. The multiple choice tests are equally as difficult as the essay-type exams.

Grading: All exams are graded unanimously. Professors than submit a preliminary grade that corresponds to a particular number assigned to the student by the registrar’s office. This office then matches the numbers to the students’ names. After the preliminary grades are assigned, the professors could change them (but don’t have to) by half a point up or down, for instance, from A- down to B+ or from C+ up to B-. The factors like poor attendance, or lack of participation, constant tardiness, or failure to complete an assignment could cause a drop in the grade. To the contrary, active participation during lectures and other accomplishments during the course could bring the grade up half a point. Other than that, the course grade normally depends entirely on the final exam result.

Работа над вокабуляром

8. Вставьте пропущенные слова.

1. The number of young people who _____ has risen sharply in recent years.

2. The judge _____him to seven years’ imprisonment for armed robbery.

3. After twelve hours, the Jury finally reached its verdict; the prisoner was _____.

4. He was arrested by the police outside a pub in Soho and _____ _____murder.

5. There are two criminal courts in Britain – the _____ _____ for minor offences and the _____ _____ for more serious ones.

6. A _____ is someone who sees a crime being committed.

7. The lawyer who prepares the case for his or her client prior to appearing in court is called a _____. The lawyer who actually presents the case in court is called a _____.

8. The witness held the Bible in her right hand and said: “I swear by Almighty God that the _____ I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.

9. At _____, the barrister who speaks for the accused is called the Counsel for the _____, while the barrister who speaks against him is called the Counsel for the prosecution.

10. Unfortunately at the end of the trial my brother was found _____.

11. Because of his past criminal record, Brian was the main _____

12. Pauline decided to sue the police because she had been wrongly _____.

13. The murderer of the children received a life _____.