Five Steps to Applying to Law School

Five Steps to Applying to Law School How do you get into law school? One step at a time. Even if you havent taken the LSAT yet, get a full understanding of the entire process with this step-by-step guide for applying to law school. 1. Take the LSAT The first step in applying to law school is taking the  LSAT. Your LSAT is basically tied with your GPA for the most important number for law schools. The test is designed to measure skills that are considered essential for success in law school. Scores range from 120 to 180, with 120 being the lowest possible score and 180 the highest possible score.† The average LSAT score is about 150. You can see the LSAT percentiles of the top 25 law schools in the nation for reference. Be sure to prepare as much as possible for the test  as its best that you only take it once. You can take it again if you are unhappy with your first score, but be sure to ask yourself  these five questions  before you retake the LSAT. For more advice on LSAT prep, click  here. 2. Register With the LSDAS If you didnt do so when signing up for the LSAT, register with the LSDAS  as it will make applying to law schools much easier. This is the main system that law schools use to collect all the application requirements from their students. Therefore, creating an account is essential to the application process. 3. Decide Where to Apply to Law School Applying to law school can get expensive, so its important to narrow down your list. You can also  visit schools  to get a feel for what it would be like to be a student there. Read through our extensive law school profiles and have in mind that if your score is above the 75th percentile at a given school, they are likely to offer you some money to attend their school. Therefore, keep your GPA and LSAT scores in mind while you are looking for schools. It’s a good idea to match your scores to your law school.   4. Write Your  Personal Statement LSAT scores and grades are the most important parts of law school applications, but  personal statements run a close third. Your goal in the  personal statement is  to show the  admissions committee  why you would be a valuable addition to their law school, and its never too early to get started on writing it. Don’t expect to produce a perfect statement on your first try. It is a good thing to constantly revise, go through several drafts, and consult with teachers and advisors. 5. Get Recommendations Law school recommendations  are the final piece to your application puzzle, and with some planning ahead of time, you can be sure to get glowing letters of recommendations from your referees. Ideally, you want to ask a teacher that you have a great relationship with or someone who can really speak to your character and potential. 6. Don’t Forget Financial Aid Unfortunately, even after finishing everything mentioned above, you’re not quite done. But you can’t forget this important step in the application process - it could save you a good amount of money.Each law school on your list may have a different application for applying to financial aid, so you need to research the process of each school separately. Schools may offer grants or loan programs in addition to merit scholarships. But don’t just limit your search for financial aid to your law school: there are many outside scholarships you can apply for to help decrease the cost of law school. Any kind of aid helps to lower your potential debt.

Feudalism - Worldwide Political and Social System

Feudalism - Worldwide Political and Social System Feudalism is defined by different scholars in different ways, but in general, the term refers to a sharply hierarchical relationship between different levels of landowning classes. Key Takeaways: Feudalism Feudalism is a form of political organization with three distinct social classes: king, nobles, and peasants.In a feudal society, status is based on land ownership.In Europe, the practice of feudalism ended after the Black Plague decimated the population. A feudal society has three distinct social classes: a king, a noble class (which could include nobles, priests, and princes) and a peasant class. Historically, the king owned all the available land, and he portioned out that land to his nobles for their use. The nobles, in turn, rented out their land to peasants. The peasants paid the nobles in produce and military service; the nobles, in turn, paid the king. Everyone was, at least nominally, in thrall to the king, and the peasants labor paid for everything. A Worldwide Phenomenon The social and legal system called feudalism arose in Europe during the Middle Ages, but it has been identified in many other societies and times including the imperial governments of Rome and Japan. American founding father Thomas Jefferson was convinced that the new United States was practicing a form of feudalism in the 18th century. He argued that indentured servants and slavery were both forms of yeoman farming, in that access to land was provided by the aristocracy and paid for by the tenant in a variety of ways. Throughout history and today, feudalism arises in places where there is an absence of organized government and the presence of violence. Under those circumstances, a contractual relationship is formed between ruler and ruled: the ruler provides access to the required land, and the rest of the people provide support to the ruler. The entire system allows the creation of a military force that protects everyone from violence within and without. In England, feudalism was formalized into a legal system, written into the laws of the country, and codifying a tripartite relationship between political allegiance, military service, and property ownership. Roots English feudalism is thought to have arisen in the 11th century CE under William the Conquerer, when he had the common law altered after the Norman Conquest in 1066. William took possession of all of England and then parcelled it out among his leading supporters as tenancies (fiefs) to be held in return for services to the king. Those supporters granted access to their land to their own tenants who paid for that access by a percentage of the crops they produced and by their own military service. The king and nobles provided aid, relief, wardship and marriage and inheritance rights for the peasant classes. That situation could arise because Normanized common law had already established a secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy, an aristocracy that relied heavily on the royal prerogative to function. A Harsh Reality The upshot of the takeover of the land by the Norman aristocracy was that peasant families who had for generations owned small farmsteads became renters, indentured servants who owed the landlords their allegiance, their military service and part of their crops. Arguably, the balance of power did allow for long-term technological progress in agricultural development  and kept some order in an otherwise chaotic period. Just before the rise of the black plague in the 14th century, feudalism was firmly established and working across Europe. This was a near-universality of family-farm tenure by conditionally hereditary leases under noble, ecclesiastical or princely lordships who collected cash and in-kind payments from their subject villages. The king essentially delegated the collection of his needs- military, political and economic- to the nobles. By that time, the kings justice- or rather, his ability to administer that justice- was largely theoretical. The lords dispensed the law with little or no kingly oversight, and as a class supported each others hegemony. Peasants lived and died under the control of the noble classes. The Deadly End Plague Victims Blessed by a Priest (14th Century Illuminated Manuscript). http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/. Quibik An ideal-typical medieval village was comprised of farms of about 25–50 acres (10–20 hectares) of arable land managed as open-field mixed farming and pasturage. But, in reality, the European landscape was a patchwork of small, medium, and large peasant holdings, which changed hands with the fortunes of the families. That situation became untenable with the arrival of the Black Death. The late-medieval plague created catastrophic population collapse among rulers and ruled alike. An estimated number of between 30–50 percent of all Europeans died between 1347 and 1351. Eventually, the surviving peasants in most of Europe achieved new access to larger land parcels  and gained enough power to shed the legal shackles of medieval servility. Sources Clinkman, Daniel E. The Jeffersonian Moment: Feudalism and Reform in Virginia, 1754–1786. University of Edinburg, 2013. Print.Hagen, William W. European Yeomanries: A Non-Immiseration Model of Agrarian Social History, 1350–1800. Agricultural History Review 59.2 (2011): 259–65. Print.Hicks, Michael A. Bastard Feudalism. Taylor and Francis, 1995. Print.Pagnotti, John, and William B. Russell. Exploring Medieval European Society with Chess: An Engaging Activity for the World History Classroom. The History Teacher 46.1 (2012): 29–43. Print.Preston, Cheryl B., and Eli McCann. Llewellyn Slept Here: A Short History of Sticky Contracts and Feudalism. Oregon Law Review 91 (2013): 129–75. Print.Salmenkari, Taru. Using Feudalism for Political Studia Orientalia 112 (2012): 127–46. Print.Criticsm and for Promoting Systemic Change in China.