The ABA has announced the 2010 Levit Essay Contest for Law Students and Young Lawyers.

ABA members are invited to submit essays based on the contest hypothetical, which deals with "pleading and proof burdens, in a legal malpractice case, on the issue of collectibility of damages in the underlying case."

First prize is a cash award of $5,000 and an all expense paid trip to the Spring 2010 National Legal Malpractice Conference in Washington, D.C. on April 14-16.

Deadline for submissions is February 19, 2010. For full details, check out the ABA contest page.

H/t Duke Law Career Center.

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has compiled responses to the question:

The smartest thing I did while preparing for my 1L first-semester exams was ______.

The responses come from Law Review editors and members at UVA, Vanderbilt, Brooklyn, Columbia, Iowa, and Berkeley Law. There are some interesting insights in there, so I do recommend checking it out.

And if you're just looking for some commiseration, check out these Tweets from Stressed Out Law Students.

Under a new federal program, law graduates who work in public interest positions after law school will pay a maximum of 10% of monthly salary toward loans; Georgetown Law now pledges to cover that 10%. The federal program also provides total loan forgiveness if lawyers stay in public interest for 10 years.

So, according to The Business Insider Law Review, "public interest job + ten years = 'free' law school at Georgetown."

Would such a program influence your decision to attend a particular law school?

Legal Blog Watch recently reported results of a LexisNexis survey that found 21% of law students say they regret going to law school. Other findings include the following:

Sixty-five percent of law students (and 90 percent of lawyers) say law school does not teach them the practical business skills they need to practice law in today's economy. More than a third say they do not feel adequately prepared by law school to succeed in the marketplace.

For more on the findings, check out the PDF executive summary published at Legal Blog Watch.

H/t ABA Journal.

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