Escaping Law, with Megan Smiley (Ep. 371)
Thinking LSAT
Nathan Fox and Ben Olson
4.8 • 868 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2022
⏱️ 76 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nathan and Ben are joined by special guest Megan Smiley, who coaches lawyers seeking to leave legal practice. They discuss why so many lawyers want to escape their careers—and why that’s especially challenging for anyone burdened with student loans. Megan encourages listeners to examine their values and strengths before committing to law school. Also on the pod, Nathan and Ben hear from recent students who crushed the LSAT, discuss law schools’ incentives for granting application fee waivers, and question whether there’s such a thing as a “bad test taker.”
5:30 - Megan Smiley - Megan Smiley left legal practice to start her own heart-centered business. She now coaches other lawyers who want to do the same. Learn more about Megan’s work at megansmiley.com and The Lawyer’s Escape Pod.
41:49 - Pearls vs. Turds - Listener Jon proposes that “there’s no such thing as a bad test taker.” Nathan and Ben think it’s a nice sentiment, but they’re not sure that it’s actually true.
45:32 - Read What’s in Front of You - Former Demon student Van just crushed the LSAT. In his exit survey, he outlines advice that is central to the Demon philosophy.
51:27 - Application Fee Waivers - Listener “CAS Hunter” requested application fee waivers from 27 law schools. Ben and Nathan review CAS Hunter’s results and discuss law schools’ incentives for granting fee waivers.
57:48 - Victor’s Success Story - Longtime listener Victor shares his LSAT and law school success story. Victor currently attends Texas Law and will soon begin work at a law firm in Dallas. He thanks Nathan and Ben for changing the trajectory of his life.
1:04:53 - Streak Leaderboard - Nathan and Ben check the LSAT Demon streak leaderboard.
1:06:25 - A 25-Point Increase - An anonymous listener credits Ben and Nathan for helping him score 177 on the September LSAT.
1:08:26 - Reusing Old Tests - Demon student Q worries that reusing sections might skew their practice test scores. Nathan and Ben reassure Q that they’ll be fine as long as they continue to learn from their mistakes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 371 of the thinking Elsat podcast I'm Ben Olson |
| 0:12.0 | that's Nathan Fox. |
| 0:13.0 | Together with the co-founders of Elsat Demon.com and the Elsad Demon Daily Podcast. |
| 0:18.4 | If you want to get on an upcoming episode of this show, email help at thinking else at.com. We record on |
| 0:25.1 | Tuesdays and this is going to air on Monday, October 10th. So we're going to |
| 0:28.5 | record tomorrow. You want to get on the show? Email us today, and we will hopefully read your email if it is clear and short. |
| 0:38.8 | What's this dates? You have some dates on here. |
| 0:41.9 | Yeah, upcoming dates that are important. |
| 0:45.4 | Today is October 4th, so the next thing that you have to worry about |
| 0:50.3 | is the sign up deadline for the 2023 January L-SAT. |
| 0:57.0 | December 1st is when you have to look at that. |
| 1:00.0 | The other next thing that's going to happen is the October |
| 1:03.0 | El-Sat scores are going to come out on November 2nd. |
| 1:06.0 | But as far as action is action items, |
| 1:10.0 | really all you got to do is decide sometime between now and December 1st whether you're going to register for the January L-SAT. |
| 1:18.0 | You can find all these dates and more at L-SAT. |
| 1:21.0 | link forward slash dates. |
| 1:23.7 | My buddy and I have an extended joke about Fleet Week |
| 1:26.8 | in San Francisco. |
| 1:28.2 | You know what Fleet Week is? |
| 1:30.3 | Fleet Week is where they bring some big ships into San Francisco Bay and they also have like the Blue Angels and all that shit. |
| 1:36.8 | It's like a big you know just like military extravagant. It's essentially a commercial for the armed forces paid for by US taxpayers, right? |
... |
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