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.

You might also be interested in:

• Is Law School for You?
• Choosing a Law School
• Law School Profiles

I know you're either knee-deep in exams or just past the stress, but here's something to tuck away to think about over the break:

If you're interested in an officer position with the ABA Law Student Division, nominations must be in by February 1, 2010. Available positions include the following:

• Chair
• Vice Chair
• Vice Chair-SBA
• Secretary-Treasurer
• Rep to the ABA Board of Governors
• Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates
• Circuit Governor
• Student Editor - Student Lawyer Magazine
• Circuit Lt. Governor
• Entity Liaison
• National Student Director
• Project Director
• ABA Representative
• SBA Presidents

Elections will be held in March. For more information, check out the ABA website.

Check out what's happening at other schools around the country during finals period over at Above the Law, particularly the bruhaha over some cat-sitting personal ads in the school list-serv.

Yes, you read that correctly.

What's the mood like at your school?

Want to know how Yale, MIT, and Princeton graduates fair during the law school admissions process? The Daily Princetonian has some answers.

In 2008, 37% of Yale grads, 32% of Princeton grads, and 30% of MIT grads were offered admission to the Top 12 law schools.

Even more interesting are the average GPAs and LSAT scores of grads applying to law school from those schools:

• Yale: 3.58, 166
• Princeton: 3.45, 164
• MIT: 3.32, 164

H/t TaxProf Blog.

Comments? Anyone?

Washington University School of Law has announced the only top-tier JD/Tax LLM program that can be completed in three years without summer study.

The Master of Laws in Taxation degree requires eight credits beyond the Juris Doctor coursework--and conveniently still leaves summers open for internships and other employment opportunities.

If you know you'd like to get into tax practice, especially in the St. Louis area, this program looks like a great opportunity.

This post is for you 1Ls to pass along to your significant others: How to Date a First Year Law Student by Mrs. Espo at Amor.

Too funny! And sadly very true....

Benjamin Eisenberg, a 2L at Berkeley Law, has written a great commentary on the upcoming fee increases at his school called The Death of a Public Law School:

The University of California Berkeley Law School is poised to become the most expensive publicly owned law school in the world. Over the next two years, fees will increase by 32 percent. That means that California students will soon pay almost $52,000 a year in tuition, only a few thousand less than equivalent private law schools. Out-of-state students will pay the same as if they had gone to Harvard or Yale.

With these tuition changes, there will be no more Berkeley public law school. The California public law school dies today.

H/t TaxProf Blog.