506: Exploring the Increase in Law School Applications (w/Anna Ivey)

Episode Transcript
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Alison Monahan (00:02):
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast.
Today we're excited to haveadmissions consultant Anna Ivey here
with us to talk about the recentincrease in law school applications.
Your Law School Toolbox hosttoday is Alison Monahan, and
typically, I'm with Lee Burgess.
We're here to demystify the law schooland early legal career experience,
so that you'll be the best lawstudent and lawyer you can be.

(00:22):
Together, we're the co-creators of the LawSchool Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and
the career-related website CareerDicta.
I also run The Girl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, pleaseleave a review or rating on your
favorite listening app, and ifyou have any questions, don't
hesitate to reach out to us.
You can always reach us via thecontact form on LawSchoolToolbox.com,

(00:42):
and we would love to hear from you.
And you can check out the Bar Exam Toolboxpodcast if the bar exam is on your radar.
And with that, let's get started.
Welcome back to the LawSchool Toolbox podcast.

(01:03):
Today we're excited to haveadmissions consultant Anna Ivey here
with us to talk about the recentincrease in law school applications.
Welcome, Anna.

Anna Ivey (01:11):
Hi Alison.

It's so good to see you again.
Likewise.
If people don't know, we have severalother podcasts we can link to.
Well, to start us off, if peoplearen't familiar with you, can you
just give our listeners a little bitof information about your background
and your work, just for some context?

Anna Ivey (01:28):
Sure.
I'm a recovering lawyer.
Like many of your listeners, I too onceapplied to law school, went to law school,
graduated from law school, practiced law.
And had my quarter life crisis,went back to my law school at the
University of Chicago and was Deanof Admissions there for a spell.

(01:49):
And then worked at Stanfordfor a bit, in development.
So, I've seen a lot of sausage get made.
Between admissions anddevelopment, you see a few things.

I would imagine, yes.

Anna Ivey (02:01):
And this was when admissions consulting was incredibly nascent.
There were very fewpeople out there doing it.
Now it's sort of a dime a dozen, butback then it was sort of a new thing
and you had to spend a lot of timeat cocktail parties and whatnot,
trying to explain what you do.
And then the end of it all, they'dsay, "Well, which school do you work
for?" And I'm thinking, "Okay, back up.

(02:22):
I don't actually represent a schoolanymore", which gives me a fair
amount of freedom, I will say.
When you're representing a school,you do speak differently to the
world, of course, because you'rerepresenting an institution.
So I can speak a bit more candidly now.
So in the meantime, I have been runningand growing an admissions consulting
business, written a few books, althoughI'm not sure anyone reads books anymore.

(02:46):
I'm actually debating whether toupdate The Ivey Guide to Law School
Admissions again, in book form, or maybecross media and do it some other way.
I don't know, I'm on the fence.
If anyone has opinionson that, come find me.
But in general, if you want to comefind me, the best way to do that is
through my website, AnnaIvey.com.

(03:07):
Just my first and last name .com.
There's a contact form there,feel free to shoot me a message.

Awesome.
Well, we've had someone reachout to us recently about possibly
writing a book, so I don't know.
Some people think they're still valid.
I mean, yeah, I think that's anopen question for us as well.
Alright, what are we seeing in termsof law school applications these days?
Because I keep seeing these headlinessaying numbers are up, numbers are up.

(03:33):
But what are we seeing?

Anna Ivey (03:34):
Yeah, they are up.
I mean, fortunately, that information isall public if you know where to find it.
And I think it is a good ideafor applicants or people thinking
about applying maybe somedayto go just dive into the data.
It's at LSAC.org - that's theorganization that makes the LSAT,
and also runs the platform throughwhich you submit your application.

(03:55):
So, the analog on the undergrad sidewould be the Common App platform.
There're some important differences,but that's basically the concept.
So yeah, get familiar with LSAC.
They have a bunch of research and datathat they make publicly available, and
you can always look it up in real time.
So, when we look at the data, compared tothis time last year, overall applications

(04:19):
are up about 20%, which is not nothing.

Right.
That's pretty substantial,and I think it's been going
on for a few years, hasn't it?

Anna Ivey (04:27):
You know, the most recent big increase before this one was
during the first Trump administration.
So, there was the first Trump bump, andI think now we're experiencing the second
Trump bump, for a variety of reasons.
But this cycle that is still ongoinghas been pretty brutal for applicants.
It's been a great year to be a law school.

(04:48):
You've really had yourpick of fabulous people.
I think they were also understaffed forthe amount of application volume they got.
That's a separate problem,and I feel for them.
It was not a great yearto be an applicant.
For example, a Subreddit for lawschool applicants is a subsection of
applicants, and I don't want to read too

much

Anna Ivey (05:08):
into that, but oh my gosh, when you read people's sort
of postmortems of how the cycle wentfor them, a lot of hearts got broken.
And that's true in general atthe more selective law schools.
But yeah, this past cyclehas been especially rough.
And one of the reasons for thatis that the increase in applicants
and applications, that increasewasn't evenly distributed

(05:30):
across the range of applicants.
The biggest increase wasamong the top scorers.
So, overall applicationvolume up about 20%.
Guess what?
For people who scored 170 to 174,that increase was more like 34%.

And here's the real kicker (05:49):
The increase for people scoring between 175 and
180 - 40%, actually a little over 40%.

Wow.

Anna Ivey (05:59):
So, you

combine

Anna Ivey (06:00):
those two, sort of 170 and up that's a big jump.
And that's just year over year.

Huh.
I mean, are we just seeingmore people who did well on the
LSAT applying to law school?

Anna Ivey (06:10):
Well, that's where it really benefits from some data analytics, because
at the same time the LSAT also changed.
So, it is hard to compare applesto apples in a direct way, at least
when you're focusing on LSAT scoresas a unique variable, because the
game section famously went away.

(06:30):
I don't need to, whatever theequivalent is, to mansplain that to you.
I'm mansplaining.

I loved that section.
You loved

Anna Ivey (06:38):
section, I could take it or leave it.
Some people were very happy to see it go.
But there may have been a confluenceof variables that led to this big
jump in high scores, and that'sthe subject of some debate.
But the bottom line is, not onlywas there a decent sized jump in

(07:00):
applicant application volume overall,but especially among high scores.
So, that has repercussions throughoutthe whole food chain and ecosystem of law
schools, because if you sort of look atthe tippy top, they've got substantially
larger numbers of high scores, so they canbe even pickier than they normally are.

(07:22):
And that's pretty picky.
And then that has a rippleeffect throughout the whole
ecosystem of law schools.
So yeah, it was anespecially difficult cycle.
And of course, do we have acrystal ball for this coming cycle?
None of us actually does.
Although some people like to sound veryauthoritative about what the future holds.
I tend to be more sanguine aboutmaking those kinds of predictions,

(07:44):
but I suspect the coming cycle isnot going to be meaningfully easier
than it was this particular cycle.
So, we're sort of bracing ourselves foranother difficult cycle for applicants.
You've got to be ready.
You have to have your ducks in a row.

Yeah.
What advice do you have for studentswho are applying in these very
competitive cycles, other thanobviously do well on the LSAT?

Anna Ivey (08:07):
Obviously, do well on the LSAT.
And your undergraduate record, oreven if you're in grad school, by
the time you apply, that's mostly, ifnot entirely, water under the bridge.
So that's typically not a variablethat you can still tweak, in a
meaningful way, by the time you apply.
You really have to startearlier than you think you do.
I mean, how long have we beendoing these podcasts together?

(08:29):
Years and years, and thatis my message every year.
That has not changed.
It is evergreen.
People wait until the summer, the fallto take the LSAT for the first time.
And very few people are happywith their first LSAT scores.
It's usually not a "one and done"deal for most people, and you have
to budget that into your timeline.
But where it gets tricky is, Septemberrolls around, applications are open,

(08:52):
it's a rolling admission system, whichcauses unnecessary chaos in my opinion.
But law schools are weddedto it for some reason.
And what happens is, if you're nothappy with the score or scores that
you currently have, and you think youmight still take it a few more times...
Because LSAC keeps making it easierto take it a bunch of times over the

(09:16):
years - they've really lifted thoselimits, because it makes them money.

I say, why would they say "no"?

Anna Ivey (09:21):
It's
a cash cow.
It's not complicated.

They're like, "Cool. You want to give us more money to take
it again? We're okay with that, yeah."

Anna Ivey (09:28):
"We'll take that." Yes.
The problem is, you a strategy inthe fall for what your school list is
going to look like, and in particular,whether you're going to do a binding
application somewhere, and if so, where.
And that whole analysis, I don't wantto say the LSAT is the only thing that
matters for that, but it's very important.

(09:50):
And so, if you don't yet have a scorethat you're actually comfortable with
using to apply, you're not going to beable to do a very thoughtful analysis.
And the one thing I've seenthis past cycle is that applying
binding, it's a good way to go interms of optimizing your chances.

(10:13):
Of course, not everyone offers it.
Famously, Harvard, Yale,and Stanford do not.
And guess what?
Where everyone wants to go, whetherthey're in the running or not.
Most schools besides Harvard, Yale, andStanford do offer binding applications.
And the sense I get is that theiradmissions strategy on their end,

(10:36):
they're really taking a page fromthe undergrad admissions playbook,
which is that over the years, collegeshave really leaned heavily on binding
early decision to fill their enrolledclass as much as they can justify.
And just to be clear, early decision is agreat tool for schools, because managing
enrollment is just a huge headache, andit's part of what makes the job very hard.

(10:59):
It's terrible, for applicants andstudents, for a whole host of reasons,
but it is the system that we have.
And so, I think early decision has to bepart of your analysis and your thinking
around your school list and timeline.
And those deadlines, those earlydeadlines are typically in November.

(11:22):
You don't have a lot of wiggle room.

Yeah.

Anna Ivey (11:25):
That'll be here before we know it.

I know.
I can't believe we're alreadyrecording this in May, which is crazy.
I'm like, "How are we halfwaythrough the year?" And how do you
think the GRE plays into that?
I mean, that's an option for people too.

Anna Ivey (11:37):
It is an option at many schools, not all.
Your mileage may vary, as theysay, but I think the GRE is a big
nothingburger for law school admissions.
I think it can be a useful optionif you are also applying at the same
time for another graduate degree.
If you're applying for a JD MBA,wouldn't it be nice not to have

(11:59):
to take the LSAT and the GMAT?
You can just take the GRE anduse it for both applications.
I think there're some scenarioswhere it could actually make sense.
I think if you're applying to lawschool only, or the JD application
is your priority compared to whereverelse you might be applying, from what

(12:19):
I have seen, the LSAT is still verymuch privileged compared to the GRE.
My personal opinion is, yeah,the GRE is an easier test.
It

just is.
It is, definitely.
I mean, I've done both.
It's so much easier.

Anna Ivey (12:32):
It's a slightly souped up SAT, it's just not
nearly as difficult as the LSAT.
And if you score higher on the GRE oryour percentiles are higher - yeah,
that's what one would expect to see.
And so, getting a sky-high GRE score,just not going to be as impressive

(12:52):
as the equivalent on the LSAT.
I'll also point out those conversiontools, I think they're put out by
ETS from the GRE side, because ofcourse they're trying to promote
the GRE for these purposes.
They'll say, "Oh, plug in yourGRE score and we'll show you the
equivalent." It's sort of theconcordance with what your LSAT would be.
And it's ridiculous.
It is impossible to take seriously.

(13:13):
So, don't rely on those little conversionoptions, because they chronically
overstate what your LSAT score would looklike if it were the LSAT - which it's
not, they're totally different tests.
But we worked with enough peopleover the years who've taken both
the GRE and the LSAT to realizethat those concordance tables, those
conversion, that it's completely bogus.

(13:34):
They completely inflate the LSATpiece of things, based on whatever
the GRE scores are, percentiles.
And so, yeah, do not rely on those.
But if you're starting from scratch,you haven't taken a test yet, you
haven't invested in the prep, I wouldnot pursue the GRE, for at least the
more selective law schools, where you'regoing to have a lot of competition.

Sure.
Let's back up a little bit, becauseyou touched on a couple of theories
about why this might be happening- these increased applications now.
Give me some context here.
Why do you think this is happening?

Anna Ivey (14:08):
Yeah, so one factor is that historically law school application
volume tends to go up when the economyis down, or perceived to be down,
and in particular, perceived to bedown by young people, who make up
the bulk of law school applicants.
So, it tends to be countercyclical,as economists would say.
So, that alone would make metotally unsurprised to see a

(14:33):
bump in law school applications.
Then, as I alluded to before, the Trumpbump it really fires people up when they
look around and see what is happening.
It is very motivating foryoung people especially.
And it's sort of a clarifyingexperience for them to realize due
process matters, constitutional rightsmatter, immigration status matters.

(14:58):
Details.
Whether you are left to bleed out ina parking lot in front of the hospital
because you're a woman, matters.

For one example.

Anna Ivey (15:08):
The way you're treated as a trans person.
You look around and there are just somany demographics that are affected.
On my mind I'm thinking, "Gosh,there's this talk now that women
are going to lose the right to voteif they've changed their names?"

Yeah, or like access to credit and financial institutions.
You're just like, "Where are we?"

Anna Ivey (15:29):
It's just crazy town.
The Season 1 pilot of The Handmaid'sTale, if you haven't watched it.
And oh my gosh, there's a sceneI'm thinking of, I won't spoil it.
So, it's motivating to a lot ofpeople and in my opinion, rightly.
I do like to point out though, to youngpeople, that law school and a legal
degree, those are one way to advocate forchange and for the things you believe in.

(15:55):
It's not the only way to have animpact and do things that matter.
So I think sometimes there's a bit oftunnel vision and there's this assumption,
"Well, I'm going to be litigatingthings in the Supreme Court and I'm
going to change precedents and pushback on authoritarianism." You might.
Who am I to say you won't, right?
But probably you're going to be doing duediligence, stock review in a windowless

(16:19):
conference room somewhere for somemerger that you couldn't care less about.

That is true.
Although I do think there isvalue, particularly these days,
into having people educatedin our constitutional system.

Anna Ivey (16:31):
It's funny how that works.
And you know what?
I am a big believer that you shouldn'thave to go to law school to understand
a basic civics education and to have abenefit from a basic civics education.
I mean, this is just a gross failure ofour education system, that there are so
many ostensibly educated people who don'tseem to grasp the very basics of our

system.
Yeah, I remember the first day or twoof Con Law, I had Lou Henkin, who's
an absolute legend, and he handed outa pocket Constitution to everyone.
And literally read it because he says,"You know, no one's ever going to
sit down and read this whole thing.
It's very important.
I'm going to read it to you.
And you should keep your pocketConstitution with you at all times because

(17:16):
you never know when you might need it."And we were all sort of like, "Huh,
this man, what?" But he had a point.

Anna Ivey (17:22):
They know a thing or two.

I still have that pocket Constitution someplace.
It's like, you just never know.

Anna Ivey (17:29):
And that is a gift about going to law school, is it
turns out these things do matter.
And as I say, you shouldn't have to investin a JD to learn about these things.
But hey, we live in the Internet era.
These things are all accessible one way or

another.
Right.
You can pull up a pocketConstitution on your phone and have
it with you at all times in case

Anna Ivey (17:52):
you...
You can subscribe to some veryeducative, interesting Substacks.
There're lots of things we can do.
Anyway, point being, law school is oneway to make a difference in the world.
It's not the only way.
And so I would say if for whateverreason the LSAT doesn't come together,
life gets in the way, what have you,please don't labor under this sometimes

(18:16):
attractive fiction that law school isthe only way to make change in the world.
I don't think that's true.

Yeah, I think there's just kind of an interesting tension
when I was doing some research forthis episode of people who are saying
it's the Trump bump and people want tounderstand these things and whatever.
And then other people saying, "Well,no, it's just because the economy is
bad for recent graduates and this is oneof the clear ways that you can actually
get a job in a few years, paying youa lot of money." So, I think there's
kind of an interesting tension here.

Anna Ivey (18:43):
Well, yes, and they're of course not mutually exclusive.
And it is absolutely still the case - noneof this part is new - that law school is
still the path of least resistance fora lot of people who have no business,
honestly, applying to law school.
But it is the path of least resistance,compared to other graduate degrees

(19:04):
that have very particular requirements.
Right?
So, medical school - gosh, if you didn'tdo a pre-med track in undergrad, you
have to go spend some time doing apost-back right before you really become
eligible to apply for medical school.

(19:24):
Business school - most competitiveMBA programs are going to require some
substantial work experience beforethey'll take you seriously at all.
I will say however, that lawschools increasingly are following
the MBA model in that regard.
And don't think this is brand new either,I just think it's become more amplified

(19:48):
as things got more competitive recently.
I do think there are attacksif you are coming straight out
of undergrad as an applicant.
Very often, and from where I sit,that seems to be driven by parents
who want to push their adultchildren straight into grad school.

(20:09):
And the way to push back against that isthat, "Actually, I'm not as competitive an
applicant coming straight out of college."And if you stop and think about it for
a hot nanosecond, it makes total sense.

Oh, totally.

Anna Ivey (20:22):
Whatever you have to offer by the start of senior year
in college, there's still a wholequarter of your college experience
that hasn't even happened yet, ifyou're going to go straight through,
because that's when you would besubmitting your applications, right?
It's fall of senior year.
Anything you've accomplished up untilthen, it doesn't magically go away

(20:42):
if you go off and do something aftercollege, before going to law school.
So, you're only adding to your profileif you're not going straight through.
And certainly the most competitiveand hardest to get into law
schools... I hate to use terms like"top schools", that's very fraught.
But certainly the hardest ones to getinto, however you want to call those,

(21:07):
it's a tough way to... I mean, it's toughanyway, but you're making it even harder
if you're applying fall of senior year.
You're just not at your best asan applicant if you're doing that.

Right.
And I think it carries through too,when you're looking at jobs and things.
It's like, "Okay, you're how old?
You're 22.
Do I really feel like you'rethe person I want to put in
front of a client right now?
Maybe grow up a little bit." I thinkthere's a lot of benefit in people
not applying immediately, personally.
Well, and

Anna Ivey (21:35):
once you've been to law school, as both of us have, you
realize too that this stuff actuallymatters in the classroom too.
And because of the Socratic Method andthe somewhat unusual way that law schools
operate in the United States, it's nothow really the rest of the world does it.
And by the way, the case methodin top MBA programs, they borrowed

(21:56):
that from the law school model.
You are very reliant on your classmatesto have a really interesting learning
experience during law school.
It is not just a sort of lecturemodel, where you sit back passively
and just receive wisdom from theperson at the front of the classroom,
although they're very important.
So, your classmates are veryimportant in terms of contributing

(22:20):
to your education while you're there.
And it turns out having somelife experience, having some work
experience, having some real-worldexperience, it's invaluable.

Right.
No, I think also so many peoplestruggle with any type of executive
functioning skills at this pointcoming out of college, that that really
becomes an issue for a lot of people.

Anna Ivey (22:38):
Well, let's touch on a perhaps delicate subject, but I think
it's an important one, which is,we are still experiencing cohorts
of people who were under lockdownand did Zoom school for some very
formative parts of their education.
So, that might have been highschool, it might have been college.
Either way, there was a loss that camewith that, and it's nobody's fault.

(23:08):
That's the dumb luck ofbeing born in a certain year.
And the calendar was what it was.
We had a once in a lifetimepandemic that led to that.

Hopefully.

Anna Ivey (23:18):
But on the topic of executive function, which does cross over into some
of those life skills, it's perhaps notuncorrelated to the fact that especially
the schools that get their top pick of thebunch, they care a lot that you have been
out in the world and there's some evidencethat you can function as an adult, and

(23:43):
that you're not still burdened with somereal deficits that people experienced
their skills; something as basic as - wesee this sometimes with applicants,
"Did you pick up the phone and call themand ask?" Oh no, didn't occur to them.
Or they find it scary.
I don't mock it.
We all find different things scary.
That's one of the things I have learnedin life what is scary to people can

(24:06):
be a very different can of worms.
And we have to respect that.
But yeah, you have to be comfortablejust picking up a phone and calling the
admissions office and getting some pieceof information that you are looking for.

And doing that in a professional manner.

Anna Ivey (24:22):
In a professional way.

That's not entitled.
These things seem easy, but they're not.

Anna Ivey (24:28):
And either being comfortable or being able to fake being comfortable.
If you're on Zoom with an admissionsofficer, and maybe it's one-on-one,
maybe it's part of a group infosession or what have you - you
don't just get to lurk and turn offyour audio and turn off your video.
This is not the forum for that.
That might've worked when you werein high school, or even in college,

(24:51):
during lockdown and Zoom school.
That's not going to workout in the real world.

Yeah.

Anna Ivey (24:56):
So, these are just certain adulting life skills
that are very important.
We can group those together as "executivefunction", we can call them lots of
different things, but those are reallyimportant skills when you're applying
to law school, when you're in lawschool, when you're out of law school.
They do matter.

Right, because the reality is, you are going
into a professional career.
Well, before we wrap up, I have acouple more things I came across, and
one of them - I don't know if this hasbeen on your radar, I saw this kind of
randomly - but apparently student loanavailability may be changing soon, and
also more limited options for income-basedrepayment, maybe some borrowing caps.

(25:35):
Is this something you've beenpaying attention to at all?
I just randomly saw this.

Anna Ivey (25:38):
Well, I have to pay attention to it, but I will say, I
think at this point it's all justbills and I don't think anything
has been passed yet to my knowledge.
If those things do pass, I
think we are going to see some
changes.
Not least the one that really caughtmy eyes, I think they were talking
about limiting loans for graduateprofessional school to, I think

(26:00):
it was something like $110,000.

150,000 I think, which is nothing.

Anna Ivey (26:06):
Well, that will get you one year at Columbia Law School.

Exactly.

Anna Ivey (26:10):
Tuition and fees and expenses.
I mean, that would not get you a fullthree years of law school at plenty
of law schools in the United States.

Yeah.
I just think it's somethingpeople might need to be aware
of, or be paying attention to.

Anna Ivey (26:24):
That's going to be a whole separate conversation that we're going
to have to have, if that comes to pass.

Fair point.

Anna Ivey (26:30):
With loan repayment and loan forgiveness programs, I have always told
people, and this goes back to the veryfirst edition of my law school book,

I've been saying this for so long (26:37):
Do not rely, even in the best of times,
whoever's in charge, I don't care - neverrely on loan forgiveness in the future.

Yeah, I agree.

Anna Ivey (26:51):
For your financing plan, because what Congress giveth, Congress
can taketh away, let alone theexecutive branch doing God knows what.

And the same with the school.
The school could say one thing andthen suddenly it turns out that there's
a lot of fine print you didn't read.

Anna Ivey (27:05):
What matters is, the bottom outline, out-of-pocket expense that
they offer you at the front end.
And it's a still broken system.
You have to apply and get in beforeyou find out what the price tag would
be and what you would actually pay.
I mean, that's just the brokennessof the American higher ed

(27:27):
funding system that we have.
But you want to know that price tagupfront, before you enroll somewhere.
And do not rely on loan forgivenessprograms, whether those are offered by the
individual school or the government, to bean important part of your funding plans.

Yeah.
I was also surprised to learn thecurrent interest rates on graduate
loans right now are almost 10%,which I was a little surprised by.
So I think, yeah, this whole thingabout the financing, I think people
just need to be very aware and reallycalculate out, "What is this going to
look like for the next 20 to 30 yearsof my life if I have to pay these off?"

Anna Ivey (28:09):
Yeah.
And that's so abstractwhen you're an applicant.
I mean, it's funny money, but I dothink it has led to some perhaps poor
decision-making, where you could borrowthe whole thing currently, right?
Or even when I was in law school.
You could borrow the whole thingfor graduate professional school.
And I think that gets people into sometrouble in terms of their longer-term

(28:31):
planning, because it's just not real yet.
What does 10% interest even mean?
And what does that mean for the kindsof jobs that I have to be eligible
for, whether I enjoy them or not?
Am I going to be eligible for those BigLawjobs that pay me those kinds of salaries
that allow me to carry that kind of debt?

(28:52):
Most people coming out of an ABA-approvedlaw schools in the United States
do not make that kind of money.

No, this was one of my very first posts on The Girl's
Guide to Law School, was about thebimodal salary distribution, and
I still get comments on that post.

Anna Ivey (29:05):
But that curve has been bimodal for as long as I can remember.

And it might have shifted this way, but it hasn't changed.

Anna Ivey (29:12):
From year to year, but it's just always bimodal.
So yeah, the whole financing andfunding topic is an important one.
And yes, what's actually going to happenwith loan forgiveness, I don't know.
Shrug emoji.
We'll see.

We'll see.
But yeah, it's definitely somethingI think people want to keep an eye
on, because it seems like therecould be changes coming that are
not going to be favorable for you.

Anna Ivey (29:33):
Absolutely.
We'll have to do a follow-on episode.

We will, exactly.
Well, before we wrap up,one more final question.
So, I saw this thing about Hope Walz, whoapparently has turned down an admission
to a certain program that she's notnaming because of their kind of political
stance or their... Do you think thereare going to be any repercussions?
I mean, we both went to Columbia,for schools that have capitulated or

(29:58):
standing up to the administration.
How is this going to play out?
Are are people just goingto say, "You know what...?"

Anna Ivey (30:02):
And just to your listeners and your viewers - I
went to Columbia undergrad, youwent to Columbia Law School, if I'm

remembering correctly.
Yes.

Anna Ivey (30:10):
As a Columbia alum, I am deeply ashamed of the Columbia administration.

Like, so embarrassing.

Anna Ivey (30:16):
Deeply ashamed.
I'm not a "bumper sticker onthe car" kind of person to begin
with, but if I were, I would be
scraping that sucker off my car, man.

Yeah, it's so embarrassing.

Anna Ivey (30:28):
It's shameful.
And what's sad to me is, they seem tobe good neither at crisis management,
which they especially needed duringthose congressional hearings.
They're not good at the crisis managementin the short term, but they're also
not good at the actual leadership part.
And those are two different things.
It's zero for zero for both of those.
Anyway, repercussions, I don't know.

(30:49):
But the people who are in thesituation to turn these things
down have a lot of options.

Yeah, exactly.

Anna Ivey (30:56):
And the firms who are behaving badly - and you can go to
Above the Law, they have the spineindex for BigLaw, which I love - you
can see who has a spine, who doesn't.
Even the ones that don't have a spine,they're still going to get droves of
highly qualified people applying forthose BigLaw jobs, because how are

(31:17):
you going to pay back all your loans?
Or even if you don't have loans, ifyou have an expectation of a certain
standard of living and cash flow,what's your option at that age?

Yeah, no, I think it's a - I don't want to say "funny" - maybe
ironic situation when people go tolaw school thinking, "Oh, I'm going
to save the world." And then theyget into these pathways to the BigLaw
firms and suddenly they're like, "Ohwell, I mean, they're not that bad."

Anna Ivey (31:42):
That's as old as the hills.
That is as old as the hills.
And it's fine.
What you write in your personal statement,no one's going to hold you to it.
It is not binding in any way.
Real life slaps you upside the head
pretty hard.

No, yeah, I think people should really understand the
profession they're signing up to.
I feel like anyone who's surprised bya lot of these law firms capitulating
is like, did you not realize thishas been a business and only a
business for a very long time?

Anna Ivey (32:09):
There's a book I recommend, and I know the author, but
they chose to be anonymous; theyused a nom de plume writing it.
It's called BigLaw Confidential.
It's a doorstop.
It is the
best book I've ever read on the
topic of BigLaw.
So, if you really want to educate yourselves, future lawyers,
future applicants, go check out that book.

No, I think that's great advice.
And we have
podcasts,
where we're actually diving in with people who've worked
at these places saying, "You knowwhat? This is what it's actually like
here." So, I don't know that anyonewho's worked in a large law firm is
particularly surprised by any of this.
Maybe horrified, but not
surprised.
No,

Anna Ivey (32:45):
no.

Anyway.
Well, Anna, before we wrap up on thisupbeat note, any final thoughts you'd like
to share?
I would say, as hard as things

Anna Ivey (32:55):
have been for applicants this past cycle, if this is really what
you want to do, don't let that deter
you.
You might have to adjust
what your list
is like, and you might have to have
some serious conversations with yourself.
Ultimately, that's
the only decision-maker here who matters.
You
are the CEO of your life, not anybody else.
If this still makes sense to you andthe math works, don't let that stop you.

(33:21):
There are plenty of goodlaw schools out there, but
you have to be a really knowledgableand thoughtful researcher and consumer.
Yeah.
No, I agree.

I think there's
value in a legal
education.
The world needs good lawyers, but wedon't need any more miserable people.

Anna Ivey (33:40):
It's an expensive proposition, at least if you do it here in the
U.S. And let's be clear, the legalsystems - and this is true the world
over - these are legalized cartels.
You can't go get a JD in the United Statesand go practice in Germany, or vice versa.
It is not a very transportabledegree in that sense,
compared to some other graduate degrees.
Or even across states.
Even across states, God knows, yeah.

(34:02):
There's a reason I hang on to my inactive status with the
California Bar.
I don't want to have to take that again.

No, particularly
not now.
But that's a whole other
podcast.
Alright, Anna,
thank you for joining us.
Remind us again how peoplecan find out about you.

Anna Ivey (34:17):
AnnaIvey.com That's spelled A-N-N-A-I-V-E-Y.com.

Awesome.
Well, this has been super fun, as always.
Thank you for joining us.
If you enjoyed this episode of theLaw School Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you have any questions or comments,please don't hesitate to reach out to Lee

(34:44):
or Alison at lee@lawschooltoolbox.com or
alison@lawschooltoolbox.com.
Or you can
always contact us via our website contact
form at LawSchoolToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!

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