Week Four, Part 2 - The LSAT

I wish I’d had a master plan like Heath's. No, my decision to take the Law School Admissions Test was a simple response to “Whaddaya do with yourself once you move to South Bend?”

Bright idea. Leave behind the tax bracket for teachers and become a lawyer. Three years of perusing Supreme Court decisions and I’m a dynamo with monogrammed cuff links.

Notre Dame is famous for its law school, Terri tells me. And it's right up the street. National reputation. Great football. Meet big-time attorneys at alumni functions.

Right before my last Christmas in Minnesota, I sign up to take the LSAT. The $75 is a little present to myself. For Law Services to actually report my score to one of America's 180 or so law schools, it's another 75 bucks.

I need help studying. In early January, I prevail on my brother John to take the LSAT too. He’s not serious about law school, but thinks he can beat me on the test.

We each buy a Barron's study book for 15 dollars. Every night at the kitchen table we abuse our minds in timed practice exercises. We can get the right answers – it just takes too long.

The test has five parts: analytic, reading comprehension, writing, and two of logic. Analytic is the toughest. It's story problems created by psychos. "Thirty-five diplomats are sitting around a trapezoidal table. The 20 women speak Mandarin while two-thirds of the 15 men talk Gaelic. If there's a full moon, who sits across from Diplomat D?"

Three Pillsbury seniors – Mark Sherid, Dan Van Loh, Nathan Sproul – are also taking the exam, so we join forces. Every Friday the five of us get together and take an entire three-hour LSAT.

By late January, John and I agree on the need for expert counsel. We each shell out 299 smackers for Prepmaster, an intensive review held in a Minneapolis hotel. There with 30 other attorneys-to-be, we spend an entire weekend analyzing LSAT problems.

Our instructor is a Hamline Law School grad moonlighting from her job with the St. Paul Port Authority. She shows us the elusive art of solving analytic questions with diagrams. Unfortunately, I score worse on Sunday's practice test than the initial one on Friday. Not what the ad promised.

In early February, I order six practice exams ($42), even though I've concluded the LSAT is like an IQ test – you can't exceed your quotient. Will I have money for food this winter?

LSAT-day is February 12. We drive to Mankato State University. Big breakfast at Hardees – another five greenbacks toward The Cause. John and I make a gentleman’s agreement: whoever scores the highest gets treated to a steak dinner.

The test takes all morning. I chose to work through the multiple-choice questions at a careful pace. My perfectionism gets the best of me. Instead of simply marking the answer I think is correct, I read all the other answers and make sure each of them is incorrect. In every section I run out of time.

Sweaty palms, hand cramps, headaches, facial tics. I have all the stress symptoms ever recorded.

Law Services sends our results in late March. My raw score is 75 out of 101. That lands me in the 84th percentile. Not bad, not great. I'm happiest to have nipped ol' John. Hello, Golden Corral.

During spring break Terri and I meet with Anne Hamilton, director of the Admissions Office at Notre Dame Law School. She says the median percentile of those accepted is 83. It's a sign, I think.

I begin collecting letters of recommendation and start writing a personal statement. Hmmm. Need something noble and altruistic. Application fee: $45.

Owatonna lawyer Steve Smith tells me the most common reasons for attending law school are political aspirations, prestige, salary.

Not me. I apply because I spent so much time and money getting ready.

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