Questions to Ask Law Schools
Questions to ask when you visit a law school or speak with its students, faculty, and career office, covering teaching and feedback, hiring in the region, clerkships, cost, the grading atmosphere, and what happens when a student struggles.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do students here complain about most?
Why ask it
Everyone has an answer, and it is usually mundane: registration, one required course, a building, a career office that only serves one kind of student. The size of the complaint tells you whether the problems here are annoyances or structural.
How does a first-year student find out how they are doing before final exams?
Why ask it
Many law courses are graded on a single exam, so a student can go four months with no signal at all. Schools with midterms, graded practice exams, or mandatory conferences are giving you a chance to correct course while it still matters.
How reachable are professors outside class?
Why ask it
Ask for a specific instance rather than a policy: the last time the student went to office hours and what happened. Faculty who are famous and travelling constantly are a real trade-off, and current students describe it accurately.
Which upper-year courses fill up first, and who gets shut out?
Why ask it
Registration systems ration the good courses by lottery, seniority, or grades. If evidence, tax, or the popular clinics regularly close before half the class registers, the catalog overstates what you would actually take.
How does on-campus interviewing work here, and how many employers come?
Why ask it
The number of employers, and whether they interview for a single regional office or nationally, sets the realistic ceiling on early hiring. A shrinking list over recent years is worth asking about directly.
What does the career office do for someone who does not want a large firm job?
Why ask it
Public interest, government, and small firm hiring runs on later timelines and personal contacts, so it needs different support. Offices built around one recruiting season often have very little for everyone else, and students say so plainly.
How much does the alumni network help outside this city?
Why ask it
Nearly every school's network is concentrated somewhere. If you intend to practice elsewhere, you want to know whether graduates there are numerous enough to return a cold email or few enough to be a novelty.
Are there judges in this region who hire clerks from here regularly?
Why ask it
Clerkship placement runs through relationships between individual faculty and individual judges, not through a school's reputation in general. Ask which professors write those letters and whether they are still on the faculty.
What does living here cost, and where do students live?
Why ask it
Living costs are borrowed at the same interest as tuition and rarely appear in comparisons between offers. A cheaper school in an expensive city can end up as the more expensive degree.
How many students work during term, and is it permitted in the first year?
Why ask it
Accreditation rules limit paid work during the first year, and schools enforce that differently. If you need income, the answer decides whether the school is possible for you at all.
If there is an evening or part-time program, how do those students fit into everything else?
Why ask it
Part-time cohorts are sometimes fully integrated and sometimes taught by different faculty, excluded from journals, and invisible to recruiters. Ask a part-time student rather than an administrator.
What happens to a student who fails a course or lands on academic probation?
Why ask it
Policies range from mandatory support and a retake to dismissal at a fixed grade average. Applicants rarely ask because they assume it will not be them, and it is exactly the rule you want to know in advance.
How does the school handle mental health and substance problems, and what does a referral involve?
Why ask it
Ask about waiting times for counselling, whether it costs anything, and whether disclosure has any bearing on bar admission questions later. Vague reassurance here is common, so press for how it works in practice.
How competitive is the atmosphere: do students share outlines and notes?
Why ask it
Outline sharing is a small, honest test of a curve's effect on behavior. Where students hoard materials or hide library books, the grading structure is doing that, and no amount of collegial language undoes it.
How are journal and moot court places awarded, and how many are there?
Why ask it
Selection by grades, by writing competition, or by open membership produces very different odds. These credentials matter for clerkships and some employers, so the number of places relative to class size is worth knowing.
How much feedback do students actually get on their writing in the first year?
Why ask it
Count the graded drafts, not the credit hours. Legal writing taught by adjuncts with large sections tends to mean short comments and little rewriting, which is the part that develops the skill.
Which practice areas is the faculty genuinely deep in, and which are covered by adjuncts?
Why ask it
Adjuncts who practice full time are often excellent teachers, but they do not supervise research, write recommendations, or stay for long. If your intended area is entirely adjunct-taught, that is a gap worth naming.
How much has tuition risen in the past five years?
Why ask it
You are committing to three years of increases, not the first-year figure. A school that raises tuition several points a year changes the total substantially, and scholarship amounts are often fixed while tuition is not.
What do students who transferred out say about why they left?
Why ask it
Transfers are the most honest source on a school's weak points because they had a first year here and then chose differently. Someone at the school will usually know one, and the reasons cluster.
If you were applying again, would you come here?
Why ask it
Ask this last, of a second or third-year student, after they have relaxed. The hesitation before the answer carries more information than the answer, and this is the question people remember being asked honestly.
Comparing law schools
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Running a campus visit
- 1Sit in on a first-year class, not a showcase seminar. Watch how many students are called on and whether anyone is unprepared.
- 2Eat where students eat and start a conversation away from the tour. The tour guide is selected and trained; the person in the queue is not.
- 3Visit the career office and ask what they would do for someone with your stated goal. Their answer, and their interest, both tell you something.
- 4Walk the route from likely student housing to the building, in the weather the place actually has.
- 5Ask three different people the same question about the curve. Consistent answers mean you have found the real one.
Who can answer what
- Second and third-year students: the curve, the atmosphere, which professors to take, what career services really does.
- Faculty: the depth of a practice area, research opportunities, and whether they still supervise students or have moved to administration.
- Career office staff: employer lists, recruiting timelines, and outcomes for students outside the largest firms.
- Financial aid: scholarship conditions, retention figures, and what happens to an award if your grades fall.
- Recent graduates in the market you want: how the degree traveled, and how long the job search took.
Signals that mean less than they appear to
- A long list of clinics and centers. Ask which ones ran last year and how many students they took.
- New buildings and technology. They are visible and they are the easiest thing for a school to fund.
- Overall employment percentages. The breakdown by job type, length, and funding source is the part that varies.
- Faculty with famous names. Check whether they teach students at your level and whether they are on campus this year.
- Rankings movement of a place or two. It reflects methodology changes more often than anything that would affect your three years.