This list was compiled originally by Mariella Mecozzi, Assistant Director of Pre-Professional Services, University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I have edited and revised her list and added extra websites of interest to NEIU students.

Law School Admissions Council
http://www.lsac.org
This is the site of the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC), the organization that creates and administers the LSAT exam. This is a must-view site, because the entire law school application process is going on-line, and LSAC runs the show. The site will allow you to register for the LSAT on-line, subscribe to the LSDAS (transcript reporting service), order LSAT study materials, obtain software for completing your law school applications, and participate in its letter of recommendation service. The site also contains the ABA/LSAC Guide to U.S. Law Schools, which includes information about every accredited law school. The Guide is searchable by criteria such as geographic location and GPA and LSAT scores. In addition, the site has a practice LSAT test available for free, and lots of other useful information about anything and everything pre-law.

Internet Legal Resource Guide
http://www.ilrg.com
If you want pre-law information, this is the place! The ILRG is a categorized index of over 4,000 (yes, 4,000!) law-related websites. This site provides exhaustive information on law schools, LSAT preparation, application strategies, rankings, and pre-law materials from various colleges and universities. It also contains information about law firms, salaries, practice areas, legal research, and on and on and on. Truly one-stop shopping.

Hieros Gamos Legal Research Pre-Law Section
http://www.hg.org
This site provides a long list of links to law schools, law firms, bar associations, legal journals, and other law-related topics. It offers five language choices.

Boston College Law School Locator
http://www.bc.edu/offices/careers/gradschool/law/lawlocator/
This is a great site. It allows you to input your GPA and LSAT score and receive a list of law schools where you'll be competitive. The locator lists the 25th to 75th percentile LSAT scores (where 80% of students fall) for all of the accredited law schools in the country.

U.S. News and World Report Rankings
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/beyond/bcrank.htm
This is the on-line version of the magazine's rankings. It's a decent site to obtain information, but remember that rankings of this sort are suspect, because they use criteria that may not be important to you. You need to develop a list of criteria for what you want in a law school, and then create your own ranking. Most law school deans and pre-law advisors strongly dislike the U.S. News rankings because they are rather arbitrary and are often “taken as gospel” by students.

Many prep courses are available; new on-line courses are emerging every day, it seems. Kaplan and Princeton Review are included here because they are well-established and reputable.

Kaplan
http://www.kaplan.com/lsat

Princeton Review
http://www.princetonreview.com/law

After you have been admitted to a law school and before you arrive for classes in the fall, you may want to take a five-day set of workshops to introduce you to classroom strategies (how to review cases, prepare for class, and manage your time) and study techniques (note taking, spotting legally relevant facts), exam writing skills (outlining, timing, reading exams, writing answers), and get introduced to each of traditional first year law school classes (civil procedures, contracts, criminal law and procedure, property, torts, and constitutional law), and legal research and writing (searching, citing, persuading, and drafting).

BarBri Law School Prep Program
http://www.lawschoolprep.com

National Association for Law Placement (NALP)
http://www.nalp.org/
This is the top site used for law students seeking employment. It provides data on trends in law practice, in-demand practice areas, salary surveys, legal recruitment, etc.

American Bar Association
http://www.abanet.org
There's also a pre-law section at www.abanet.org/legaled/prep.html

National Federation of Paralegal Associations
http://www.paralegals.org/

National Association of Legal Assistants
http://www.nala.org/

U.S. Department of Education
http://www.ed.gov
This is the federal government's web site. It has links to various topics that provide general financial aid information (loans, grants, work-study, etc.) You should also consult the web sites of the law schools to which you are applying. Virtually every American law school has its own web site.

For more information about financial aid, consult "I Made It! But How Do I Pay For It?." It contains a more extensive list of law school financial aid web sites.