I went to Yale for undergrad and Harvard for law school. While numbers matter substantially for law school admissions, numbers alone are a poor predictor of college admissions and an incomplete predictor of law school admissions, so please take that into consideration and DO NOT GET DISCOURAGED IF YOUR STATS/SCORES ARE NOT LIKE MINE.

High School Stats: 4.739 (weighted)/4.0 (unweighted); 2340 SAT (780 Math, 760 Reading, 800 Writing)

College Stats: 3.86; 176 LSAT

You can see my law school admissions cycle results here.

I am a writer, lawyer, lecturer, content creator—and a lot of other things! My career is constantly changing and shifting, which used to scare me but now I love.

I started off my career as an associate at large law firms (“biglaw”) in Manhattan. I hadn’t enjoyed my undergrad major (Economics), which I picked because my parents freaked out when I originally said I wanted to major in English. The only classes that I did enjoy in college were law-related, and I ended up hating my summer internship in consulting, soooo I decided to go to law school.

Being a lawyer is a lot of reading and writing, which I like. I also like how intellectually engaging and novel my practice area (privacy with some IP) was, but the hours in biglaw can be unpredictable and tough.

I left biglaw in 2022 to pursue a few creative endeavors I had always wanted to pursue, including writing (and ended up getting a book deal!). In 2023, I opened my own law firm, Studio Legal, with a former biglaw colleague. Nowadays, I enjoy being able to practice law on my own terms and schedule—including sometimes, not at all.

If you are a creative or run a creative business, please visit Studio Legal’s website for additional information about the services we offer and how you can contact us.

If you need legal help with something else—like your landlord, employer, or family member—I can’t advise on those situations but can direct you to some resources for free legal advice.

I can’t answer that question for you. It is deeply personal and depends on (a) your specific career goals after law school, (b) the financial burden of attending law school, and (c) your mental health.

I enjoyed law school and practicing law, both in biglaw and now at my own firm. It involves a lot of reading and writing, which I like.

Was it always amazing and wonderful? No—nothing in life is amazing and wonderful 100% of the time. But I loved my professors and mentors, learned so much about the world, and sharpened my critical thinking and analysis. For me, it was worth the $250,000 of law school debt and 1950+ billable hours annually. For you, it might not be. Both perspectives are okay (assuming that you can handle the debt and/or stress without driving yourself financially or mentally insane).

My lawyer friends have different views on whether they regret going to law school and becoming lawyers. Check out their responses (and Part 2, Part 3 (public interest), and Part 4 (non-T14 law schools)).

College admissions is holistic and has gotten extremely competitive, so it is hard to “hack” getting into an Ivy League college. That being said, developing an interest or passion in something and then being able to communicate that interest or passion through your personal statement and interviews is helpful. Do not do extracurriculars merely because you think you “should” do them—that will likely not translate well in your personal statements.

But do not stress if you don’t go to an Ivy League college. Your undergrad institution does not matter for law school admissions. It will not set you up for life. For the law school admissions committee, a 4.0 at a small state school is better than a 3.2 at Harvard. Where you go to law school will be far more influential in your legal career than where you went to undergrad.

Check out LSData, which has detailed information about 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile GPAs and LSAT scores of admitted students for each law school.

If your GPA is lower than the median GPA of admitted students for a law school, that’s a sign that you should hit the books hard for the LSAT. High LSAT scores are rarer than high GPAs, and “splitters” (those with lower GPAs but higher LSAT scores) can get into schools for which their GPA may seem too low for. Unfortunately, “reverse splitters” (those with higher GPAs but lower LSAT scores) do not typically see the same outcome.

Not really. Major in what interests you or what will be helpful if you decide to pursue a career before or instead of law school. The only exception is if you want to go into patent prosecution (not IP more generally—your major does not matter for general IP litigation or IP transactional work), for which you need to have a STEM major.

Keep in mind that having a high GPA makes law school admissions easier, but don’t choose a major that you’ll hate just because you think you will do well in it. Four years of misery in a major isn’t worth it.

I’m going to sound like a broken record, but it doesn’t really matter. Speech & debate or some sort of public speaking (e.g., theater) can be helpful in law, but reading and writing are also helpful skills to develop. Even being an athlete develops skills (e.g., diligence, commitment) that are helpful to a legal career. Do what you like to do—your future self will thank you.

I didn’t use Khan Academy myself but have heard that it is a fantastic resource—and best of all, free! Out of what I tried, I really liked the Manhattan Prep books (even more than the Powerscore LSAT Bibles). If I were to study for it now, my ideal set of prep materials would be to start with Khan Academy, and if more is needed, the Manhattan Prep books along with the Powerscore LSAT Logic Games Bible.

When doing practice questions and tests, always make sure that you are using real tests (and not, for example, Kaplan-drafted practice questions or practice tests). You can buy copies of past real exams online or ask your college’s law school advisor for resources or shared copies.

If you’re hitting a wall with practice scores, try the “blind review” method. It helped me when I couldn’t seem to break 170.

You can find my study plan here. I studied for 3.5 months basically full-time except for college classes, but 3 months was my sweet spot. Depending on how much you are looking to improve your score by, whether you are studying part-time or full-time, and your past experience with standardized test studying (e.g., SAT, ACT), you should prepare to set aside anywhere from 2-10 months.

* Some of the above links are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you buy products from these specific links.

Probably—even multiple years. I did not take one and while it was pretty cool to graduate and have that biglaw first-year salary at 25, I would have gotten more out of law school (and life) had I tried pursuing other jobs I was interested in (e.g., journalist, wedding planner) before law school.

You do not need to know what practice area(s) you are interested in before applying or attending law school, but I’ve found that having an idea of ~5 practice areas you are interested in beforehand is incredibly helpful to getting the most out of your law school experience. Those who have an idea of practice areas can tailor their student organizations, journals, and summer internships towards their practice area(s) of interest, which helps demonstrate experience for getting full-time jobs and beyond.

Legal practice areas fall into three major categories: litigation; regulatory/compliance, and transactional (i.e., corporate). Subject matters, such as fashion law, tech law, employment/labor law, privacy law, and environmental law, can be practiced within any of these three major buckets—for example, a tech lawyer could do copyright litigation (litigation), IP product counseling (regulatory/compliance), or IP licenses (transactional). While there is some overlap between the three major buckets, switching between the three major buckets can happen but is not terribly common—in other words, an IP litigator would be a “tech lawyer,” as would a technology transactions lawyer, but an IP litigator may find it difficult to become a technology transactions lawyer.

Each law firm and organization will structure their practice areas differently. For an overview of practice areas, check out the YLS Law Firm Practice Area Summary (April 2017) and Firsthand’s Practice Areas.

I have lots of videos on my TikTok and my YouTube channel about all stages of a legal career. There are playlists at the top of my TikTok page with videos to walk you through every step of the process—as well as to show you what you might be getting yourself into, so you can make a more informed decision about whether a legal career (and attendant law school debt) is right for you.

The playlists include, from right to left: lsat; prelaw (considerations for those in high school/college or not yet in law school); applying; matriculating (i.e., deciding which law school to attend); attending (e.g., exams, textbooks, OCI); interviewing; financing (e.g., law school loans, loan repayment); working (e.g., hours, vacations); and lifechanging (e.g., productivity tips, anxiety management).

I can’t speak much to the fiction publishing process (which is a little different from nonfiction) but have stumbled upon the following resources over the years:

• Jane Friedman’s blog (a fantastic and in-depth industry overview for both fiction and nonfiction)

• Sophie Wan’s Substack (she includes actual numbers of queries she submitted, publishers she submitted to, and how much interest she received)

• Stephanie Wrobel’s blog (good firsthand account of her publishing journey from her MFA)

• Stephanie Meyer’s blog (describing how Twilight got published)

I was surprised by so many aspects of my own publishing journey that I made a podcast episode about everything I learned from my book deal.

The two most common ways to garner interest in your nonfiction book are: (1) write an article that goes viral or (2) gain an online following of some sort. You could also just already be famous or a nepo baby, in which case, I have nothing to offer you!