At Manhattan LSAT, teaching is what we do.  We’re passionate about helping our students reach their LSAT goals, because at the end of the day, that’s what it is all about: our students.  With that in mind, we are happy to debut a new ongoing segment of our blog: The Manhattan LSAT Student Spotlight.  Every so often we will conduct a live interview with one of our alumni in order to share their experiences with current students.  Their insights on law school, LSAT prep, and life in the field of law can serve as valuable advice for many of you.

Our first alumni interview is with Adam S., soon to be a 2L at Georgetown University.  Adam made time for a phone call with us a few weeks ago:

M LSAT: What is your educational and career background?

AS: I went to NYU and I was a philosophy major.  I graduated in 2007.  I went to public school before that in Maryland.

M LSAT: How did you come to choose a career in law?  Did you choose your Philosophy major with that in mind?

AS: I didn’t have any inclination first of all when I came to college.  I just simply didn’t know what I wanted to do for a year.  I was undeclared when I came in and I decided on philosophy after taking a philosophy class that I liked a lot.  Sort of the word among philosophy students is law school the reason why you do what you did.  I think I got the idea from that, from hearing what other philosophy majors were saying.  I did a substantial amount of research myself.  I spoke with as many people as I could about the practice of law, about law school itself.  I spoke with people who are lawyers now, people who are in law school now, people who are no longer lawyers because they didn’t like it.  Ultimately I thought it would be the right thing for me.

M LSAT: Was there any one thing or any one person that you talked to that made up your mind for you? Or was it a gradual evolution?

AS: It was very much just speaking to a lot of people and it weighing on the side of seeming like a good thing for me.  In college I did an internship where I was exposed to legal stuff, in the music industry, and I’d thought that I’d be an entertainment lawyer.  The internship involved licensing agreements for a record label, Universal Music Group.

I wasn’t doing real legal work but I got a chance to read through legal agreements; it was my first time ever having to really do that and just to see what it is.  I guess what I liked about law and what I think what ultimately attracted me to it after speaking with a lot of people, and then working, I sort of figured out that it’s an area in which one always has an opportunity to learn and be challenged and that seems to me to make for a fulfilling career.

M LSAT: How has your view of the law profession evolved as you progressed with your studies?

AS:  In between going (to law school) I worked for two years at Royal Bank of Canada, in the legal department.  So I worked with lawyers for about two and a half years before I came.  That also influenced my view of what legal practice is like.  It’s hard to say because I don’t know if I’ve ever had some clear view of what legal practice is like.  Also, it can be very, very different depending on the area of where your practice is.  I know that working at a law firm, or least I believe – I’ve never worked at a law firm before – but I have the sense that working at a law firm is very, very different than working in house, for a company like what I was doing.

There is a fair amount of common knowledge about law firm life being difficult – long hours, that kind of thing.  It’s a hard question, a good question.  There are many different types of law itself so it’s hard for me to answer generally.  There are lots of sort of preconceived notions in our society about the quality of lawyers and such.  And one of the things that I think, that’s been heartening for me, is coming to law school and seeing that law students, and particularly the law, is really a tool with which to make the biggest changes that one can in the way things work.

M LSAT: What led you to choose Manhattan LSAT for your test prep?

AS: Well, to be honest, my brother is friends with Andrew Yang [former CEO of MG Prep].  He’s actually one of the people that I spoke to about law school, because he went to law school.  He definitely gave me an honest view; he didn’t like it.  He was one of the best people to speak with because he had a lot of good insight about it.  I think he was my brother’s teacher for GMAT and my brother found out they were doing a new LSAT program and he really thought that MGMAT was great so I decided to do this.

M LSAT: How was your experience with Manhattan LSAT?

AS: I would say that they did as good a job as possible at preparing me for the LSAT.  It’s definitely a really challenging test and there are no real secrets to it.  There is nothing you can say that, just by telling someone, will instantly make them improve by a lot.  The insights, I thought, were really, really valuable.  I was very, very, very happy with Manhattan LSAT.

M LSAT: How did you study for the test on your own time, outside of class?

AS: I studied for a long time for it.  I started pretty early and, I actually took two Manhattan LSAT classes.  They have a thing where you can do it for very inexpensively the second time around (editor’s note: $300 for a retake of a Manhattan LSAT class).  So I took it once with Noah Teitelbaum and I took it with Aileen.  They were both really just amazing teachers.

The way that I studied for it is by doing the exercises in the book.  That’s definitely a necessary preliminary sort of thing.  But the most important thing I did was just take practice tests over and over again.  Normally I would do two sections at a time if I could, timed.  Or one section at a time and then just go over the answers, just the drilling down nature of that, to make sure the things that you’re doing right you can do more quickly and the things you’re still struggling with don’t hold you back.

M LSAT: You said that practice tests were an effective strategy for you.  Was there anything that you found that didn’t work or wasn’t helpful?

AS: I’d say that the most productive strategies are the ones that….I would say that it should be done timed, when you do practice problems.  I think that was a really important thing, or at least it was a really important thing for me, because I think timing was the biggest issue for me.  When I started, particularly, I was not finishing everything.  It was very, very difficult for me to finish any section.  So just trying to create the timing pressure that the real test imposes, that was really effective.  I think in the beginning I didn’t really focus on that that as much. I mean, it’s just a matter of being realistic about what your strengths are where the challenges are and anything that isn’t focused on either improving your strengths or having the challenges not hold you back so much is probably not going to be as productive.

M LSAT: What was the best part of studying for the LSAT?  What was the worst?

AS: I actually did like the LSAT class.  I genuinely did like it.  I mean, I found it enjoyable to go to class I think just because if someone is interested in law then they probably should enjoy things like this.  I mean, I believe obviously it’s possible to not because you could be interested in law for all different reasons but just the idea of reasoning through something and talking about that and talking about how to approach an issue.  That’s on the positive side.

The tough part is, when you’re trying to be at your best, it can be discouraging when you’re not doing as well as you want to.  Obviously when you take the practice tests, you have good days and you have bad days and it can be scary.

M LSAT: Speaking of the practice test, how were you prepping before the course and what did you ultimately end up getting on the exam?

AS: I’m trying to remember what my first score was…before I took the class I think I took one or two exams myself.  I think I scored in the high 150’s, like 158 or something like that.  I truly am not confident that that’s correct.  But before class I didn’t do much productive studying.  I think I looked through some books but one of the best things about, or certainly an important thing for me, was just having structure to the study schedule that the class provides.  And just sort of knowing, it sort of gives you a step by step how to go through the issues.  The different questions, the different approaches to each question and it’s just like a very thorough system, which is something that I needed.  So that was important for me.  Ultimately, I got a 168.

M LSAT: What was your LSAT test day experience like?

AS: It was a crazy day.  Aside from running late, and having the subway just not be running that day, and having to take a cab there and like running in at the last minute…. It truly is like a blur.  It’s very hard to describe because there is so much adrenaline when you’re taking the test, I think, because you’ve been preparing for it for a long time and you know that it’s important.

They call “time to start” and, for me I think, it was very mechanical.  That’s the point of taking the practice tests and that’s the point of taking the class.  One of the greatest things about what I learned from class, was really just sort of the ‘play-to-your strengths’ thing I’ve mentioned already a couple of times.  It’s just so critical, I think, to doing well.  With an unlimited amount of time many people could do very well on it.  But the whole point is that you have a limited amount of time to answer these questions.  The ones that you can answer with the most ease should be done as quickly as possible and they should be done almost without thinking, just because you’re so used to seeing a question of that same structure, it’s just mechanical.  You know it immediately, you bubble the answer, and then you move on.  You don’t really want to sit there and meditate on anything, you don’t have time.

M LSAT: Earlier on you talked about how you spoke about speaking to many people about becoming a lawyer and their experiences in becoming a lawyer.  What would you say now to someone who came to you considering going to law school?  What would you tell them?

AS: I think I would be more positive about it than many of the people that I spoke with.  Although, I’ve only been through one year of law school so I don’t have real insight about what it is to really be a lawyer that sort of the people I spoke with had.

I would say that I’m definitely biased about this but it seems to me that law school seems to me to be the greatest of intellectual experiences.  That’s probably an overstatement but the point of it is just to sort of hone your critical thinking and reasoning skills and to make you clear and precise about the way you think about things and the way you express yourself and helping you to be persuasive.  I think that it’s a really excellent thing to do intellectually.  I doubt that it’s something that people should do unless they realistically think they want to be a lawyer.  I mean, some people say it’s something you can do if you don’t want to be a lawyer but then some people say it’s something you can do if you don’t want to be a lawyer.  I think that is not necessarily true.

M LSAT: What are your long term professional goals?

AS: That’s a good question, that’s a question that I have beginning to think about more recently.  Generally, I would like to work in the private and the public sector, hopefully for the federal government at some point.  Although, I don’t know exactly in what area I’d like to walk in.

M LSAT: Is there an idea scenario for you or do you have a dream job?

AS: I think it would be really sort of fascinating to work for an agency like the Federal Trade Commission.  That’s something I was interested in before law school.  You know, just being able to work on big, interesting issues would be great although, like I said, I need to do a lot more exploring to figure out what area I’d like to be in.

If you are a current or former Manhattan LSAT student that has an interesting LSAT experience to share, we’d love to hear from you!  Shoot us an email to: StudentServices@manhattanlsat.com.