Online Colleges: 

Law school is stressful, and that’s by design: the rigors of earning your law degree are similar to the rigors you’ll endure as a budding legal professional, where only the strong survive. And although law school can be difficult, that doesn’t mean you have to become insane on the way to graduation. There are several ways to cope, prevent stress, and stop the insanity before it starts. We’ve outlined 25 tips that can help you stay sane and happy, and even live like a normal person now and then.

1. Keep your goals achievable

It’s great to set big dreams and work toward making them a reality, but be careful not to overdo it. Think about how you’re going to get there, and set achievable goals that you know you can reach along the way. Checking off goals that are realistic for you to achieve can really build your self confidence, and give you momentum to keep going for the big stuff.

2. Give your mind a break after lectures

After going through lectures and briefing, your mind needs a break. Although it’s tempting to go straight to the books, spending a little time vegging out is important to your mental health and energy. For an hour after your lectures are over, just take some time to do something else, like playing with your pets or watching TV. Anything that can temporarily get your mind off of law school and let you be yourself for a while.

3. Practice time management

Read 22 more tips here.

ABA Journal:  Legal academics like to think their students are studying the law because they want to advance justice, right wrongs and serve the underprivileged. But most students are motivated at least partly—and often substantially—by the lure of money, according to a law dean who decided to evaluate whether law school makes economic sense.

In a paper set to be published by the William Mitchell Law Review, University of Louisville law dean Jim Chen realizes the reality and analyzes law school in terms of return on investment. In his view, law grads need to earn three times their annual tuition for adequate financial viability and six times their annual tuition for good financial viability, the National Law Journal reports.

The NLJ explains Chen’s theory. It would mean law grads at a school charging $16,000 a year in tuition would need to make $48,000 for adequate financial viability and $96,000 for good viability. Grads attending schools with annual tuition of $48,000 would need to make $144,000 for adequate viability and $288,000 for good viability. The formula assumes no other debt besides law school loans.

ABA Journal:  An ABA committee has completed work on its proposed plan to begin collecting more detailed job placement and salary information about recent graduates from ABA-accredited law schools.

The proposed changes, which have been recommended by the Questionnaire Committee of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, the ABA’s accrediting arm, will be presented to the section’s governing council at its Dec. 3 meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

If approved, the changes would begin to take effect with the graduate placement questionnaire law schools will be required to fill out regarding the as-of-Feb. 15 employment status of members of the graduating class of 2011. That questionnaire would be due back to the ABA on March 15.

ABA officials anticipate that the data, which will eventually be published in the ABA-LSAC Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools, could be available on the section’s website as early as July.

ABA Journal:  Yale law professors Akhil Reed Amar and Ian Ayres are citing the example of an Internet shoe-selling company in an essay suggesting ways to discourage would-be law students who are unlikely to succeed after graduation.

Zappos offers $3,000 to new employees at the end of a four-week training course if they want to quit the company, the professors say in a Slate opinion piece. The idea is to rid the company of employees who aren’t enthusiastic to work there. Amar and Ayres think the idea could be modified for law schools.

Their proposal: Law schools could offer rebates of half the annual tuition to any students who quit after the first year. Then the schools could disclose what percentage accepted the offer, and the salaries they earned after dropping out. (Students who go on to law school elsewhere would have to repay the money.)

ABA Journal:  An ABA committee is moving quickly on a proposed new accreditation standard that would greatly expand the amount of consumer information law schools must publicly disclose to prospective students.

The Standards Review Committee, which met last weekend in Chicago, is now putting the finishing touches on its proposed changes to the standard, which it hopes to act on at its next scheduled meeting in Washington, D.C., in January.

The proposed changes would then go to the governing council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, which could take up the committee’s recommendations as soon as March.

“We want to be in a position to move forward on this matter as quickly as possible,” committee chair Jeffrey E. Lewis said at the conclusion of last weekend’s meeting.

If adopted, the proposed changes would more explicitly state the categories of basic consumer information that a law school is required to publicly disclose on its website, including admissions data, tuition and fees, enrollment data, curricular offerings, library resources and physical facilities.