Are There Disadvantages Associated With Transferring to A Different Law School? – Part 3 of 4.

           There are several factors that one should consider when deciding whether or not to transfer if your desire to transfer is based on an attempt to upgrade schools.  A higher rank does not always mean better and here are few things to consider.

You Will Lose Many of the Important Connections You Made in Your First Year

As noted in my last blog post, there is a substantial risk that you will lose some or all of the important connections that you will make in your first year.  This includes both students and professors.  Moreover, strong bonds have already been formed at the school you will go to and it may be hard to establish similar connections.

You May be Considered an Outsider at Your New School

As a transfer student, you will always be considered one step below the people that started at that school from the beginning.  This is particularly the case if you come from a lower ranked school. 

For example, one day after class, a Professor at Harvard took some students for drinks.  When he found out I was a transfer student and that I came from Brooklyn Law School (ranked in the 60s), he asked me if the other transfer students looked down on me because I came from a second tier school.  (Most of the transfer students came from other first tier schools ranked between 15 and 30).  If he thought that other transfer students would look down on me, you can imagine what he thought (or what some other students at Harvard thought/think) about transfers.  This is not a reason not to transfer but it is something to consider.  I became accustomed to the facial expressions of other students and professors when I told them I transferred.  In fact, after my second year, I intentionally did not mention I was a transfer student unless explicitly asked.

Your Grades May Fall & You May Not Be Eligible For Latin Honor Awards

People who get into top schools know how to take exams very well.  As such, you will find that the ability to get great grades when you transfer is more difficult. This of course depends on which school you are coming from as there is stiff competition in many top tier schools.  Generally speaking, if you transfer your grades will decrease and you will not be at the top of the class.  This is especially the case if you are transferring from a second tier school.  Do not get me wrong, it is quite possible to do very well at the new school and some end up in the top 10% or top 30%.  That being said, most transfer students were in the top 1-5% of their class in the school they transferred from and some were ranked number one.  As such, I am not talking about a significant drop in grades but a moderate drop.  For some, this is a big deal and you should consider whether it is important to you to be at the top of the pack or within the top 20%.  Do not be fooled into thinking that because you were a superstar at your old school, you will be one at the school you transfer to.

You should also investigate whether or not you will be eligible for Latin Awards when you graduate and exactly how any class ranking will apply to you.  Latin Awards are the Summa (top 1%), Magna (top 10%), Cumme Laude (next 30%).  Some schools do not permit transfer students to be eligible for Latin and other awards because they did not spend all three years at the Law School.  Moreover, very few schools, if any, will permit the high grades that you obtained at your first Law School to count in any calculation.  Depending on the law school, the Latin awards or class ranking will be very important and it may not be obvious to employers that you were ineligible.  Instead, all that they will see is that you were not in the top 40% and did not receive any awards. While ranking is not as important at a top school like Harvard or Yale, if you are transferring to a school that is say number 20 or 30, falling within the top rank levels of your class will be very important.

You May Move to Being A Small Fish in a Big Pond if You Transfer

Depending on the size of your school, as a top student you really stand out.  For example, after my first semester when I scored over a 4.0 GPA, the Dean of Student Affairs at Brooklyn Law School called me into her office to discuss my progress.  She was very pleasant and told me that she would do everything in her power to assist me.  Also, as a top student, I was offered a scholarship in my second year and it was very clear to me that the eyes of the administration were focused on me.

            When I transferred to Harvard, I was one of a class of 550 (plus another 100 LLM students) and I was clearly an outsider.  I had moved from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in an ocean.  This was not just based on grades but also on the size of Brooklyn Law School and their ability to focus individual attention on top students.  Moreover, many students at Harvard were very well connected (sons of Judges and Senators) so standing out was even more difficult.

While none of the above mentioned items should stop you from transferring, you should consider them to assess whether a transfer is right for you.  The final post in this series will deal with what you have to do to transfer.

Health Care Law Blog: Have a Wonderful Holiday Season!

Happy Holidays to my clients, health care and lawyer colleagues, and other readers of the 

Health Care Law Blog

 I appreciate your continued support and hope that 2012 

will be as exciting and wonderful as this past year.

See you in 2012! 

In years past I have sent out our standard Flaherty Sensabaugh Bonasso PLLC holiday card to thank my clients for trusting our firm with their business and my colleagues for all they do for me throughout the year. Instead, this year I decided to go GREEN and red by sending out an e-greeting and
do a holiday blog post with our firm's holiday greeting card.
We all play an important role in maintaining the environment.Thanks!

How Much of Jump in Rankings Is Needed to Make A Transfer Worth While? – Part 2 of 4

 Can I Transfer to an Ivy League School After My First Year?

If you get great grades in your first year of law school, you could be eligible to transfer to Harvard, Yale or another top school and this is an option you should keep in mind as your first year comes to an end.  A dream of attending an Ivy League school is well within reach if you do exceptionally well in your first year.  I am living proof! The school you want to transfer to will base their decision primarily on your grades and other achievement in your first year and your LSAT score and College grades will generally not matter.

How Big Does A Jump in Rankings Have To Be To Make A Transfer Worth It?

 

Many students wonder whether or not they should transfer schools based on a small jump in rankings.  I know one student who transferred from a school ranked around 70 in New York City to a school ranked around 60 that was also in New York City.  This move made absolutely no sense to me.  I met him during the summer at Brooklyn Law School (the school he transferred to) and he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer and this was evident by more than just his school change. 

The point of this story is that you should only change schools if the jump you are going to make is going to put you in a substantially better place than you are.  I could have easily transferred to Fordham law school (which is ranked in the 30s) from Brooklyn (ranked in the 60s) but I did not even apply because I did not believe that this type of move was worth it.

The key if you decide to transfer is to make sure that the jump is significant.  As s general guide, you should jump at least 35 points in the rankings and higher if you can.  Also, the move should move you from one tier to another or from a first tier school to a top 5 school.  I know students who moved from Brooklyn law school to schools ranked 20-30 and they had a tough time during the on campus interview process and did not substantially benefit from the transfer.

Are There Disadvantages Associated With Transferring?

While rankings are important, you should not change schools for a slight improvement in ranking.  This is primarily because some of the disadvantages of transferring will outweigh any minor benefit.  For example, when you start law school, you will be assigned to a section along with around 80 other students.  Everyone in your section will have the same classes and you will get to know them quite well.  You will all be going through the exact same experience and as a result you will form quite strong bonds and networks. These bonds and networks may result in lifelong friendships, business contacts and even marriage.  Do not underestimate the importance of these connections.  If you transfer, there is a substantial risk that you will lose some or all of these connections.  Moreover, strong bonds have already been formed at the school you will go to and it may be hard to establish similar connections.  Additional negative aspects of transferring to another law school will be discussed in a future post.

Should I Transfer Law Schools After My First Year? - Part 1 of 4

            After you have completed one year of law school, you will be eligible to transfer to another law school.  If you transfer after your first year, you will get the degree from the new law school that you go to instead of your old school.  If you transfer after your second year, you will get the degree from the school that you went to for the first two years.  I attended Brooklyn Law School for my first year and then transferred to Harvard Law School.  As such, I received a law degree from Harvard Law School that did not indicate that I went to Brooklyn Law School for my first year.

There are two primary reasons for transferring.  First, people transfer because they have a personal change in their lives such as a spouse that gets relocated to a different city.  The second reason that students transfer is to “upgrade” schools.  This upgrade is done because a law school’s ranking is very important and students will often try to move from a second, third or fourth tier school to a first tier school. (or move from top tier school to an even “better” top tier school)  For your reference, here are the school rankings.  www.top-law-schools.com/rankings.  Moving from tier 2 to tier 1 was what I did when I moved from a school with a rank in the mid sixties to Harvard Law School, ranked number 2. 

Many students attempt to transfer to a top school and this can generally be a smart move as a top school will afford you more opportunity. This is especially the case in this competitive job market where many lawyers cannot find a job. There are some downsides however to transferring and these will be discussed in a subsequent post.  A move is especially advantageous if you upgrade to a top 5 school from a second tier school or make a significant jump in rankings (greater than 35 points).  For those of you in third or fourth tier schools, transfer is something to consider but generally speaking it is very difficult to transfer to a top 5 school. When I transferred to Harvard, of the 25 or so students that transferred there, there were only two or three other students that went to second tier schools (all others went to first tier schools) and none came from third or fourth tier schools. The next blog post will deal a bit more with how much of a jump you should make to make a transfer worth your while.

Why Should You Take My Advice

There are several reasons I hope you will take my advice.  First, it is tough to get accepted to a top law school and as a recent Harvard Law School graduate, I can provide sound advice and suggestions regarding how to improve your chances of getting admitted to or transferring to the school of your choice and how to do well in your first year of law school and beyond. 

Second, I also have direct experience with all of the topics that I will discuss in this blog.  For example, I transferred from Brooklyn Law School’s part-time program to Harvard Law School’s full-time program.  Given that I attended a first and second tier law school and was in a full and part-time program, I am able to competently discuss the experiences at both schools as well as address part-time student issues and the law school transfer process.  Also, I was selected for both Law Review and Moot Court in my first year so I can share my successful perspective.  In addition, I was also able to publish a 50 page paper in a law Journal while in law school so I can describe the process and give you pointers on how to put together and publish your own work.  Finally, I successfully completed both the New York and New Jersey Bar Examinations and will walk you through what to expect and how to be successful on those two or any other bar exams. 

Third, I can also provide sound advice on the job market.  For my first summer, I worked in a public interest job at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  For my second summer, I was offered and accepted a position with a top large Wall Street Corporate law firm.  Moreover, I very successfully completed the rigorous on campus recruitment process at Harvard.  My perspective in this regard is also unique as I am a “mature” student with a M.B.A and over 10 years of Investment Banking experience.  My age and work experience affords me the benefit to provide insightful comments on finding employment and the culture of large organizations.

Fourth, I started documenting all of my law school success tips while a student at Harvard Law School law so all of my advice was documented  almost immediately after I had the experience.  This blog will not bore you with general academic summaries or broad generalizations.  The writer is someone who is in touch with exactly what you want to know and are struggling with. 

Finally, this blog will answer your questions.  During law school, I often had many questions and few answers and I personally had questions on all of the topics that I will discuss in this blog.  While I ultimately received answers to my questions, it was often through a process of trial and error and after time consuming research.  You will receive practical time and money saving tips that will help you on a daily basis in law school, and this advice is coming from a law student’s perspective and from someone who just went through what you are now or will go through.

         I wish that I could have found a blog like this when I started the law school process as it would have been a great help.  You though, will not have to worry about not having the information that you need and will benefit from my experience.

A Bit About the Purpose of the Blog

Law school can be a fun, rewarding and educational experience.  It can also be confusing, daunting and stressful.  I often found that I had more questions than answers and I repeatedly heard myself saying, “If someone would have told me this, I could have saved myself so much time, money and stress.” As I navigated through the tough first year of law school, a law review competition, moot court try-outs, finding summer and full-time employment, learning to do well on law school examinations, deciding whether to transfer to another law school, the second and third years of law school, and the bar exam, I realized that the questions did not stop but instead increased.  I also noticed that year after year new students were asking me the same questions that I asked when I was in their shoes, and they were looking for practical advice from people that could help them avoid mistakes that would cost them time and money they did not have. 

If you have not yet decided to go to law school, this blog will explain what you can expect so that you can make an informed decision of whether or not law school is right for you.  If you have already decided to go to law school or are already there, this blog will provide you with money and time saving advice that will guide you through your remaining years and the bar examination.  The helpful tips in this blog will start from the law school application process and cover every important aspect of law school right through to preparing for and sitting for the bar examination. 

In terms of specific topics, this blog will answer questions regarding; the law school admission test, the law school application process, how to select a law school that is right for you, how to do well on exams in your first year of law school, what should you consider when looking for summer employment in your first year, whether or not to transfer to a different law schools after your first year, how to make it on to law review, how to make in on to a moot court team, how to effectively select courses and navigate through your second and third year of law school, the full-time employment and recruitment process in your second year, what does it mean to work in a large law firm, what to expect in your second year summer job in a law firm or public interest organization, how to obtain fellowships & scholarships, the part-time law studies experience, how to publish articles in journals, preparing for the bar exam and much more. 

          The advice answers questions that you will have as you go through the law school process and provides you with answers before it is too late.  Some tips may save you $40 while other may save you thousands.  Other tips will eliminate hours of needless research. What you will get here is practical, targeted and specific tips on how to effectively navigate though the various parts of law school and the bar exam. 

        If there is a specific topic you would like advice or information on, post a comment and I would be happy to post some advice that will be useful to you.  This blog is for you so do not be shy.

Thanksgiving 2011: Occupy The Dinner Table and Engage With Grace

The Engage with Grace Project is an effort to raise awareness of the importance of end of life care planning and discussing your wishes with your family and friends.

Dr. Bryan Vartabedian captures the simplicity of the project in his post, "It began with a simple idea: Create a tool to get people talking. Their tool is a slide with five questions designed to initiate dialog about our end-of-life preferences."  Take time during the Thanksgiving weekend to "occupy the dinner table" with your family and friends. Discuss the 5 questions below and share your thoughts and feelings.
 
This is my 4th year participating in the Engage With Grace Project. What prompted me to start participating? It was having the opportunity to watch Alexander Drane tell Za's story at the 2008 Health 2.0 Conference. Her story personally connected as I shared in my 2008 blog post.

West Virginia is often negatively portrayed nationally at the bottom or top in national health rankings. However, it is great to see West Virginia leading the way on end of life care planning. 49% of West Virginians have filled out at least one advance directive -- the highest among all states reporting these statistics. However, this statistic shows how few of us actually take the time and effort to document our wishes. More than 1/2 of the population have left these difficult decisions to be made by their family and health care providers. This statistic shows the importance of the Engage With Grace message.

For West Virginia readers who want to learn more about end of life care check out the resources provided by the West Virginia Center for End of Life Care. There is valuable information for health care professionals to "Why and how to have end-of-life discussions with your patients", "Accessing Decision Making Capacity", and POST (Physicians Order for Scope of Treatment) Forms.  The website also provides FAQs, educational videos, and forms, including the standard West Virginia Advanced Directive Forms.

West Virginia is also creating the e-Directive Registry in conjunction with the West Virginia Health Information Network (WVHIN), West Virginia's health information exchange (HIE). The e-registry will store advance directive forms, Physicians Orders for Scope of Treatment forms, and do not resuscitate cards. The registry will allow treating health care providers to access the stored information 24/7 from around the state through the WVHIN. Most importantly, the registry will be accessible by you and I as health care consumers to verify the accuracy of our wishes. 

Following is the 2011 blog post by the Engage With Grace Team -- Occupy With Grace. Help spread the word this Thanksgiving weekend by telling your end of life care story and posting the message below. You can get the HTML to post here.
 
Occupy With Grace
 
Once again, this Thanksgiving we are grateful to all the people who keep this mission alive day after day: to ensure that each and every one of us understands, communicates, and has honored their end of life wishes.
Seems almost more fitting than usual this year, the year of making change happen. 2011 gave us the Arab Spring, people on the ground using social media to organize a real political revolution. And now, love it or hate it - it's the Occupy Wall Street movement that's got people talking.
Smart people (like our good friend Susannah Fox) have made the point that unlike those political and economic movements, our mission isn't an issue we need to raise our fists about - it's an issue we have the luxury of being able to hold hands about.

It's a mission that's driven by all the personal stories we've heard of people who've seen their loved ones suffer unnecessarily at the end of their lives.

It's driven by that ripping-off-the-band-aid feeling of relief you get when you've finally broached the subject of end of life wishes with your family, free from the burden of just not knowing what they'd want for themselves, and knowing you could advocate for these wishes if your loved one weren't able to speak up for themselves.

And it's driven by knowing that this is a conversation that needs to happen early, and often. One of the greatest gifts you can give the ones you love is making sure you're all on the same page. In the words of the amazing Atul Gawande, you only die once! Die the way you want. Make sure your loved ones get that same gift. And there is a way to engage in this topic with grace!

Here are the five questions, read them, consider them, answer them (you can securely save your answers at the Engage with Grace site), share your answers with your loved ones. It doesn't matter what your answers are, it just matters that you know them for yourself, and for your loved ones. And they for you.



We all know the power of a group that decides to assemble. In fact, we recently spent an amazing couple days with the members of the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, or C-TAC, working together to channel so much of the extraordinary work that organizations are already doing to improve the quality of care for our country's sickest and most vulnerable.

Noted journalist Eleanor Clift gave an amazing talk, finding a way to weave humor and joy into her telling of the story she shared in this Health Affairs article. She elegantly sums up (as only she can) the reason that we have this blog rally every year:

For too many physicians, that conversation is hard to have, and families, too, are reluctant to initiate a discussion about what Mom or Dad might want until they're in a crisis, which isn't the best time to make these kinds of decisions. Ideally, that conversation should begin at the kitchen table with family members, rather than in a doctor's office.

It's a conversation you need to have wherever and whenever you can, and the more people you can rope into it, the better! Make this conversation a part of your Thanksgiving weekend, there will be a right moment, you just might not realize how right it was until you begin the conversation.
This is a time to be inspired, informed - to tackle our challenges in real, substantive, and scalable ways. Participating in this blog rally is just one small, yet huge, way that we can each keep that fire burning in our bellies, long after the turkey dinner is gone.
Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season. Let's Engage with Grace together.

To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org.This post was developed by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team.

HIPAA/HITECH Audits: OCR Program to Audit 150 Covered Entities

Today the Office for Civil Right (OCR) announced details of a pilot program to perform up to 150 audits of covered entities to assess privacy and security compliance under HIPAA. OCR will be conducting the audits between November 2011 and December 2012.

The days of waiting for HIPAA privacy and security enforcement activities are over. The announcement of these planned audits will get the attention of health care providers who have failed to focus on HIPAA privacy and security compliance efforts. The announcement will remind all health care providers to maintain an active, current HIPAA privacy and security compliance program.

OCR provides more detail on the audit program on the OCR HIPAA Audit Program page, including this description of the program objectives:

The audit program serves as a new part of OCR’s health information privacy and security compliance program. OCR will use the audit program to assess HIPAA compliance efforts by a range of covered entities, Audits present a new opportunity to examine mechanisms for compliance, identify best practices and discover risks and vulnerabilities that may not have come to light through OCR’s ongoing complaint investigations and compliance reviews. OCR will broadly share best practices gleaned through the audit process and guidance targeted to observed compliance challenges via this web site and other outreach portals.

The OCR HIPAA Audit Program page also provides detail on when the audits will begin, who will be audited, how the audit process will work, and what will happen after the audit. The information indicates that they will select a broad range of covered entities for the first round of audits and that business associates will be included in future audits.

OCR provides the graphic below to help describe how the audits will be performed. Covered entities will be selected, notified, and asked to provide documentation of privacy and security compliance efforts within 10 business days. An onsite visit will occur and interviews will be performed. A draft report will be provided to the covered entity and there will be a procedure for the covered entity to discuss the areas of concern raised in the audit and describe any corrective action they may implement.



 The HIPAA audits are a requirement under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Section 13411). HHS awarded to KPMG a $9 million dollar contract earlier this year to assist OCR with the audits.