Patent Bar Review Course for 10% Off

I'm passing this on to my fellow engineers and technology professionals with an interest in the legal field. IEEE, the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology has an agreement with The Practising Law Institute (PLI), a non-profit, continuing legal education organization, to offer members a 10 percent discount on PLI’s Patent Bar Review course. This type of discount is often available to students when in law school, but who has time to take the patent bar while in law school. Far better to student for the test and take it before law school. That is what I am planning to do. Study over this coming summer for 3-4 months and then take the test in the fall.

The PLI Patent Bar Review course is one of the top preparations course in the country for the Patent Registration Exam and is available live or via home-study. Anyone with an undergraduate degree in engineering or science or the equivalent is invited to take the Patent Bar Exam to become a patent agent. (Visit http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/examregist.htm for eligibility details). IEEE members should reference IEEE and their member number when registering to receive the member discount.

For more information on the Practising Law Institute or the Patent Bar Review course, visit http://www.pli.edu/barreview/patentbar/ieee.asp, or call toll free at (888-296-5973). To learn about other IEEE Education Partners programs visit http://www.ieee.org/partners.

No, this isn't a pay-per-post. I'm just trying to pass on a great deal. Also, for those science or engineer folks who aren't IEEE members yet, you should know that student membership is $30 for a full year or $15 if don't join until after March. The IEEE name was originally an acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Today, the organization's scope of interest has expanded into so many related fields, that it is simply referred to by the letters I-E-E-E (pronounced Eye-triple-E). It is a great professional society to belong to and comes with many member benefits like the offer above, publications, conferences, etc. I would highly recommend becoming a member if you are in an IEEE field. Maybe I should pass this tip onto the Frugal Law Student.

Think I Could Win Enough to Pay for Law School?

I'm sure the frugal law student would frown upon considering gambling as an alternative way of paying for law school, but if it worked for Matt Damon maybe it could work for me. I have a meeting this weekend in Vegas. Neither hubby or I had been and conveniently we had a $50.00 companion ticket so my trip is expensed and his is only $50.00. With Martin Luther King day on Monday we decided to extend the trip by a day and have a three day weekend in Vegas. I think I'll save my money for shows and food and leave the gambling to others. My problem is, I don't really know what to do in Vegas. My brother-in-law is a big poker player so he only has suggestions for which casinos are best. Unless bridge is a really big table game in Vegas I think I'll be out of luck. So for anybody out there who has some suggestions I'm looking for advice. If you had three days in Vegas for free and all you had to do is attend a 4 hour meeting. What would you do with the rest of your time?

The 1st Amendment Rocks

Or better put, I rocked the first amendment! I got an A in my Mass Media Law class. Our school doesn't give +/- so that's the best grade. I'm stoked. Now all I want for Christmas is A's in my two grad classes so I can show a perfect 4.0 on my graduate school transcripts. Maybe that will help balance out my undergraduate GPA on my law apps.

I Heart Law Mommies

Law Mommies are brave in so many ways. If you haven't heard about Kim or Lag Liv you need to take the time and visit their blogs. They are both going through their own nightmares and law school at the same time.

Letters of Recommendation for Law School

I requested two of my letters of recommendation for law school last night. One is my old department chair and one is a professor. They both know me really well from my work with our professional society so they have seen both my in class performance and my leadership/volunteer work. I was thrilled that they were both so enthusiastic to write letters for me. I'll be sending them my resume and personal statement from last year soon to give them some material to work off of. I really want to get good letters though and these being engineering professors I'm afraid they'll write a MS program reference. "This is a good student, I heartily recommend them to your program and you should believe me become I'm a really impressive academic that you should respect as your peer." This isn't what I think law schools are looking for. An official letter on official stationary from an academic is probably less meaningful that thoughtful commentary on my strengths. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase my letter request to solicit the "right" kind of letter.

The other one that really freaks me out is my third letter. This professor/friend said, "Just write the letter and give it to me to sign." I don't really feel comfortable doing that, but it really seems like an opportunity. Any advice?

LSAT....Finished...Again

I started off awfully. I didn't get to the last game. I hate LSATs that start off with games. I was off my pace and read the clock wrong, thinking I had 10 minutes left when the 5 minute warning caught me by surprise. It was all up from there though. I finished every other section before the 5 minute warning and was able to go back and look at my unsure answers. The experimental section was reading, hardly surprising since they are getting started developing a pool of questions which have comparative reading in them. The writing sample was more one-sided than last time. That's about all I can disclose, unlike my fellow test takers. I for one took the warning seriously that we aren't to discuss the test until it has been disclosed by LSAC. Others began gabbing in the restrooms as soon as we hit the break. It was also interesting to me that out of the 13 people signed up to take the test at my location only 6 bothered to show up. That's a lot of money to take a test if you're not going to show up. If I get all the questions I answered right and missed only the ones in the games section that I didn't get to and assuming that I get none of them right purely by bubbling in a D to fill the space that leaves me with a maximum score of 172 using the conversion table from the December 2006 administration. Of course people keep getting better at the test so that conversion may not be reliable. I really doubt that I got all of the questions that I got to correct. I average -4 on those sections. That would put me at a total of -9/-4/-4/-4=-21 or 163, a mere 3 point gain. Anything can happen of course, for all I know the final 9 questions of logic games could all have had a correct answer of D and I could have rocked the test, doubt it. Oh well, sigh, no 180 for me, wasn't expecting it anyways.

LSAT isn't everything though. I need to do my personal statements, get my recommendations and request my transcripts. This is my to do list for the next 2 weeks. So until October 20th at 10 am EST I get to live in blissful ignorance. Ack, no, did I get off on my bubble sheet by one, did I skip over an important point on the writing section, no, no, must not think about the stupid test. I have a 160, I can't do worse than that.

Top 15 or Don't Bother?

The news for law schools lately has been bleak. Seems to be the message is, Top 15 school or don't bother.

Law School Personal Statement Tips

Once all this LSAT business is over I'll be turning my attention to applications. I saw this link on Ann Levine's blog linking over to the University of Chicago's tips and tricks page. It's a good set of tips to keep in mind when writing a personal statement.

http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/adayinthelife/2007/09/tips-tricks-1-t.html

LSAT Angst (2)

Less than a week to go before the LSAT. I spent most of this past week in bed sick and chiding myself for not studying. Today, in celebration of the fact that I can string a multi-syllabic sentences together again I took a practice test. I first chalked the 162 up to the fact that I'm still recuperating and require Cold Tylenol just to get off of the sofa. Now that excuse isn't working and I'm starting to freak out. My dedicated studying was paying off, I finished all the game questions with time to spare and only missed 3 questions. My reading is staying at a steady -5 questions, but my pace has improved so I'm getting through it all on time. If I had maintained my average -4 each on the logic reasoning I would have actually improved my score by several questions, instead I had a -3/-7 split. This is frustrating. Where is this -7 suddenly coming from? Stress, stress. I need to miss less questions, stay on time and keep track of what row I'm bubbling in. This is all too much!

What to do with old LSAT tests

Once I'm done with all of this LSAT prep, I'll be guilty of killing more than a few pieces of paper. I started out trying to take the tests based on PDFs of the tests, but decided that wasn't really authentic and switched to printing them out. My printer doesn't do double sided so I've really been going through a lot of paper lately. I stumbled across this fact today: Recycling a 3-foot-high stack of newspapers can save one whole tree. I'll have saved a tree or two by the time this is over. Those of you with LSAT tests, law school notes or outlines, junk-mail, etc. should definitely consider recycling it all when it comes time to purge.

Breakfast of LSAT Champions

We just had a coffee run at my office. I asked for the largest soy mocha possible. All the other folks in my office are traditional engineering types who think that coffee comes in two types, caf and decaf and that decaf is really like white chocolate, not really chocolate at all. When the designated coffee fetcher came back with the order he told me with amazement, "Did you know there are 4 shots of espresso in that?!" Yeah, why do you think I ordered it. So now I'm sitting here enjoying the goodness that is a combo cranberry scone and soy mocha breakfast and contemplating why I'm so tired as to require said nourishment. Well, it probably has something to do with the fact that I stayed up until 11:30 last night doing LSAT games. I got so frustrated that I enlisted hubby's help. He had never seen an LSAT game before and threw up his hands with disgust claiming them to be impossible. But, after I showed him my way of diagramming rules and breaking it down he turned out to be pretty helpful. Basically I discovered that I need to figure out what rules can be derived from the rules in the question and not forget to apply everything that I know. I also need to make sure what the question is asking me. For instance, I got two wrong because I answered "Which of the following can be true?" instead of "Which of the following cannot be true?" Simple mistake, but it makes all the difference.

I also went to my school's law school forum. We aren't a big destination for law school recruiters. There were a dozen or so schools there though and I got to personally talk to all of the recruiters at schools I was interested in, all 1 of them. Sorry, you're not getting me to apply to Golden Gate University. They are on probation aren't they? Also, hubby would never survive in California, too many people. If that is what the LSAC Forum is going to be like, I'll pass. I don't need to fly to New York to collect brochures. I'm still looking for advice on whether these are worthwhile. I've received no comments yet.

Are LSAC Forums Useful?

I have a business trip coming up the week after the New York LSAC forum. It turns out that its only $20.00 more expensive to leave the Friday before my Monday meeting and spend Saturday and Sunday in New York attending the LSAC forum. This would still necessitate cab fees and of course a hotel for two nights. Are these worth it? Also, would going to the one in New York, even though I'm primarily interested in West Coast +DC schools be worth it, or would the LA forum be better, even though I'd have to pay for the whole trip?

Weekend LSAT Results

Results of weekend of LSAT taking, improvement of score by 4 points to 164. Still not where I want to be. I did miss 4 less questions in the reading based on suggestions by my helpful readers so that is good. I did however still miss 8 games questions, mostly due to being rushed and stupid on the last game. I need to get faster at these! I think I'll start doing a bunch of really old LSAT games sections, rather than just whole tests until I see some improvement in this area.

LSAT Countdown Week 1

Hubby has Army Reserve drill this weekend so I have the whole house to myself. On top of catching up with laundry and other household chores I have a big stack of LSAT tests to take. This weekend I will try and get through 3. I will then use the Logic Reasoning Bible and Logic Games Bibles to analyze the ones that I get wrong. We'll see if it improves my score. *sigh* Sounds like a stellar weekend is ahead of me, but it needs to get done.

LSAT Registration

Registration...done. Money...gone. Ouch! This better be worth it!

LSAT Timing...Again

I took my weekend LSAT yesterday, forcing myself to finish each section and not let questions go unanswered, guessing on the toughies and moving on. My reading and games scores that I was so worried about went up! Bad news was that I kept up that pace finishing 5 minutes early on each logical reasoning section and was too brain dead to go back to all of my starred questions that I wasn't sure about. Sure enough, I got them wrong, making my score of 158 pretty similar to my score of slowly but steadily answering and running out of time on two sections. So, I need to keep the pace up on reading and logic games and go back to taking my time on logical reasoning, using ALL of my time to check my answers on the toughies in those sections. Hopefully when I do that I will have a net score increase. I will attempt to do another practice test tonight keeping that in mind and if my score improves I'll be registering for the test by the deadline of, ack...tomorrow!

Law Firms for Women

I have a feeling some of these firms will be seeing applications from me. I'm not a mother now, but I hope to be one in the future and I would never pursue a career that I thought would eliminate that option. That is why I was heartened to see that this month, August 2007, Working Mother published its first list of "Best Law Firms for Women." I was kind of surprised to see two or three of them on the list, but I'm glad to see that their reputations aren't as tough in all possible lights.

THE 2007 WORKING MOTHER & FLEX-TIME LAWYERS BEST LAW FIRMS FOR WOMEN

Alston & Bird (Atlanta, GA)
Armstrong Teasdale (St. Louis, MO)
Arnold & Porter (Washington, DC)
Baker & Daniels (Indianapolis, IN)
Baker & McKenzie (Chicago, IL)
Bingham McCutchen (Boston, MA)
Blackwell Sanders (Kansas City, MO)
Bryan Cave (St. Louis, MO)
Chapman and Cutler (Chicago, IL)
Covington & Burling (Washington, DC)
Cravath, Swaine & Moore (New York, NY)
Debevoise & Plimpton (New York, NY)
Dickstein Shapiro (Washington, DC)
DLA Piper US (New York, NY)
Dorsey & Whitney (Minneapolis, MN)
Duane Morris (Philadelphia, PA)
Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott (Pittsburgh, PA)
Farella Braun + Martel (San Francisco, CA)
Foley & Lardner (Milwaukee, WI)
Folger Levin & Kahn (San Francisco, CA)
Gibbons P.C. (Newark, NJ)
Heller Ehrman (San Francisco, CA)
Hogan & Hartson (Washington, DC)
Holland & Knight (New York, NY)
Howrey (Washington, DC)
Hunton & Williams (Richmond, VA)
Ice Miller (Indianapolis, IN)
Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago, IL)
King & Spalding (Atlanta, GA)
Kirkland & Ellis (Chicago, IL)
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis (Pittsburgh, PA)
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel (New York, NY)
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (Los Angeles, CA)
Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw (Chicago, IL)
McDermott Will & Emery (Chicago, IL)
McGuireWoods (Richmond, VA)
Miller & Chevalier Chartered (Washington, DC)
Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo (Boston, MA)
Morrison & Foerster (San Francisco, CA)
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (New York, NY)
Patton Boggs (Washington, DC)
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (New York, NY)
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman (New York, NY)
Reed Smith (Pittsburgh, PA)
Sidley Austin (Chicago, IL)
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (New York, NY)
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (Chicago, IL)
White & Case (New York, NY)
WilmerHale (Washington, DC)
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice (Winston-Salem, NC)

LSAT Tips (2)

This weekend was spent in a combination of recipe experimentation, house cleaning and LSAT preparation. I took a complete LSAT, timed by my proctor hubby (much better than the real thing) and scored a 162. I didn't get to 12 questions. I went back and did them after I was done with the test, go them all right and scored a 171. So yeah, my timing is bad. At least I know that in the last 7 months my score hasn't really decreased since I took the real thing. However, if I'm going to go through this thing again, I better be practicing at a higher score than last time around. As Ann Levine says on her blog, a score of 5-8 points off of your practice tests is probably right for you. I agree with her, and I am working towards bringing my practice scores higher.

LSAT Tip #4 - When studying and practicing for the LSAT, it's really important to keep track of your pace. Practicing finishing faster than what you will be allowed on test day might even give you time to go back to those tough questions. Which brings me to:

LSAT Tip #5 - All LSAT questions are not created equal. Some are actually harder than others. Missing 5 questions at the end of the test that you didn't have time for is worse than skipping one tough question and getting those 5 right with the extra time. You need to learn to resist the temptation to stick with a "tough" question until you're sure your response is correct. I am used to working through a test. I can get the questions right most of the time if I just keep working through them, but that will get me a lower score ultimately. It's a timed test for a reason.

LSAT Tip #6 - Sometimes questions are just that simple. Don't read too much into it if you think that the first answer is right. You're instincts are pretty good and if you've been right on your practice tests, they are probably worth trusting. Don't let the actual test paralyze you into over-analyzing, wasting time or changing a right answer to a wrong one after reading the question 2-3 times.

My analytical reasoning practice is going great. I'm always finishing on time or early and missing only 2-3 questions per section. My reading, yeah, not so hot. I didn't even get to the last reading. Or I did read it, but had no time for the questions. Not sure what to do about that. I also didn't get to the last game so even though I got all of the previous game questions right, I missed another 5 questions because I didn't get to that game. I did make sure to fill in all of my bubbles to get random points for unanswered questions (apparently D had no random chance in 12 unanswered questions, go figure), but I would really like to be finishing closer to time on these two sections. If anybody has any hints for speeding up, that would be appreciated.

School Supply Lust

I walked into my local grocery store last night to get some digital photos developed and pick up ingredients for my chocolate marble brownie cheesecake. After dropping off the pictures to be processed I had turned my attention to the important task of gathering ingredients when I made the mistake of leaving the food section. I was confronted with my arch-nemesis of the Fall season...school supplies. I have no explanation why, but I love gazing at orderly rows of new unmarked binders, notebooks, freshly sharpened pencils, crayons, organizers, tabbies, ah, the list goes on and on. This year was going to be my year to indulge. I was going to go on a rampage, setting up my law school office with highlighters, tabbies, maybe even a new laptop. Alas, with the decision to wait another year, I have no such justification to buy. I still have plenty of half full mechanical pencils, pens that aren't quite dry, highlighters in at least two colors and a laptop that is only slowly dying, not in dire need of replacement. I stood there with a look of wistful regret on my face in front of a row of spiral bound notebooks as my husband walked up to me: "Honey, the cream cheese is this way. Are you ok?" Yes, I'm ok, but I am lusting after these post-it notes. Tonight I will assuage my desire for school supplies with another forray into increasingly complicated cooking experiments. This Saturday it was a braided nut bread, last night it was fish curry, last week a chocolate cake and this week will be my first ever attempt at a cheesecake. I won't have time for dinners which take hours to cook or having people over for dessert just so I can try a new recipe once I'm in law school so I guess I should enjoy it while I can. Hubby's guy friends certainly aren't objecting to the constant outpouring of culinary hospitality from our house. Hmm...perhaps I could buy some recipe cards and a nice pen to transcribe our more successful attempts. I would be justified doing that...right?

Blawg Student Directory

Clever WoT has updated the law school student blog directory. I've found a lot of my favorite law school bloggers this way and I'm glad to see the major update. I'm still a 0L so I don't count yet. Hmm...something to aspire to.