Pre-Law Guide

The first step in gathering information about law schools is to find a set of schools that possess desirable characteristics and offer a realistic chance of acceptance. Law school guides and/or internet resources can be used to select a broad range of schools that appear to meet your search criteria. Some of the most useful internet resources for this purpose are listed below. The Career Services office located in room 606 Culkin Hall contains an extensive collection of information about law schools, including the PreLaw Handbook (published by the Law School Admissions Council). The Career Services office also sponsors campus visits by representatives from several law schools. Information about these visits are available through the Career Services office and through a pre-law information listserv. To subscribe to this listserv, send an e-mail message containing the words:

subscribe lawinfo-l

to majordomo@oswego.edu (note that the name of this listserv ends with the letter "l" and not the number "1"). Do not include a subject line or any other text in this message. If you experience any problems in subscribing, send an e-mail message to Steve Abraham at abraham@oswego.edu.

The second step of the process is to conduct a more intensive search, acquiring more detailed information about these schools. Most law schools have web sites that contain information about their programs. If you are still interested in a school after visiting it's web site, send an e-mail or a letter to the designated contact person requesting information on their program. (Law school guides and several of the web sites below contain postal addresses for those law schools that do not yet have web sites.) Most law schools will send you a package of information containing detailed information about their program, their faculty, and the placement of their graduates. How to Pick a Law School is a good place to look for hints and tips on choosing among law schools.

Useful internet sites:

FindLaw's list of law schools
This site contains an extensive alphabetical list of links to law school web pages.

Hieros Gamos' Law School Listings
This page, provided by Hieros Gamos, provides an extensive list of accredited law schools in the U.S. as well as lists of non-U.S. law schools, and joint degree programs in law and other academic disciplines. Links to law school web sites, sorted by state, are provided where available. Postal addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information is also provided for those law schools without web sites.

Counsel Quest,

"Law Schools, Reviews, Libraries"
In addition to providing links to law school web pages, Counsel Quest provides links to law libraries and law reviews for many U.S. law schools.

Law School Admissions Council's list of member law schools
The Law School Admission Council provides links to the web sites of member schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Law School Locator
The Boston College Career Center provides a listing containing the 25th and 75th percentiles for LSAT scores and college GPAs for a large number of U.S. law schools. This site allows you to quickly locate schools that accept students with similar academic credentials. It is generally useful to apply to several schools in which you would be a competitive candidate, one or two "long-shot" schools, and one or two "safe bets."

The Law School Ranking Game
This web site, provided by Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington, contains an online ranking system in which you can create a customized ranking of law schools based upon the criteria that you believe to be most important. One of the things that you will find is that small changes in the weights on particular characteristics can result in dramatic changes in rankings.