Dearest 7Sagers of my heart,
Larry here. Serious news, folks.
Please put down that bowl of Cocoa Puffs. (I'm coo coo for them too. Just give me a sec, here)
Here it is: 7Sage (JY and Alan) and I are parting ways.
Meaning, Law School Prep is leaving the 7Sage family.
Consciously decoupling, if you like. ("Leaving the nest," if you hate Gweneth.)
Let me (1) give you some details, and then (2) share some deeper thoughts and feelings about what is happening.
Part 1: The Details
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU:
Pay close attention here.
1. We will close 7Sage Law School Prep (LSP) for sales forever, at the end of the day on June 15. You will not be able to buy LSP after that ever. But the content of LSP is not disappearing completely. See numbers 2 and 3, below.
2. If you bought LSP, including through June 15, you will have access to LSP for up to 9 months after June 15, until March 15, 2016. After March 15, LSP will be shut down and closed forever, and you will not be able to access it at all.
3. HOWEVER, starting on or about June 16, I will open a new course -- called tentatively Law School Master (another potential name is Kick The Crap Out Of Law School. Write me with your preference at larry@7sage.com, but I will be calling it Law School Master for this email), hosted on a brand new site of my own (larrylawlaw.com) that is still a skeleton, but will be ready for real reading soon. It will start at the same price as LSP, just $99 for 12 months' access.
4. To be clear on the content similarities and differences between LSP and Law School Master: Law School Master will start off with almost all of the content that LSP used to have (I will take out some things I do not like anymore). That is, Law School Master will have nearly all of the same videos and exams and exam answers that LSP had. However, Law School Master will not retain your old data from LSP, like the exam answers you submitted or your course progress. You need to save that before LSP stops operating on March 15, 2016.
5. Law School Master will include new content and new features that I think you will like. Specifically, many of you have asked for tutoring, and I will roll out a new way to do this integrated with Law School Master that I think you will like.
6. **Important**: Every 7Sager who bought the premium (that is, not free) version of LSP will have access to Law School Master for 1 year starting June 15. I need to still work out the details of this. But the point is: if you just bought LSP, you will have parallel access to LSP access for up to 9 months more (in case you have started working in it already) and you will have Law School Master access for up to 1 year.
6. I will no longer update LSP content (not that I have been, recently). I will, as I said, keep adding content to Law School Master, so if you want the new stuff, you will need to look there.
7. I will respond (sorry for recent delays again) to LSP emails but will try to push you towards Law School Master's email system after June 15.
8. This is not everything I have to say. There will be follow-up details I need to send you. Don't hesitate to send questions about this transition, but don't necessarily expect individual answers -- I will do FAQs in a subsequent email.
Part 2: Thoughts and Emotions.
You don't need to read this if all you wanted are details. And what follows is even longer than the list of details, so please indulge me.
Three things to say here -- I want to answer two quick questions (that I think you are curious about), and then get to a somewhat deeper discussion.
1. Maybe you're wondering, why are we splitting up?
In general, we have some differences of opinion, and that we now want different things. I wish for my part I had done some things differently (I wish in short that I had done more), but one way or the other, this split is happening, and we are riding off into different sunsets, as friends.
2. Larry, how do you feel about this?
Frankly, a little sad and disappointed (not to be working with Alan and JY on a regular basis anymore, not to have gotten LSP to where I wanted it to be by now); a lot excited and scared to be on my own, hopeful that the new Law School Master will be everything I wanted.
Also, as a segue way to my third point, I feel tremendous gratitude towards JY and Alan for all that they taught me.
3. More important thoughts: on gratitude, immigration, and giving back.
So, starting with gratitude: really, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Alan and JY (note, to avoid the appearance of favoritism, I keep rotating their names. A trick I learned with my kids).
Thank you guys for teaching a cranky, sleepless, cynical (but not hopeless), usually profane (I try not to curse around my kids), way too talkative, and now middle-aged lawyer about how to teach, how to learn, and how to be better than I am.
Boys, my heart is full (sorry, couldn't help it, and yes I know the show is better).
All of you know how amazing Alan and JY are.
I am biased, but they have nothing less than the best LSAT course, online or anywhere.
Can I also ask you, dear 7Sager, to take a moment hold some gratitude in your hearts JY and Alan, if their work with 7Sage (with LSAT, PreProBono or LSP has made your life at all better)?
* * *
To me 7Sage is a bit more about the American Dream (sorry, Alan, Canadian Dream), not just LSAT or learning or technology, and how we can make that Dream better.
Many of us -- JY, Alan and I included -- are the children of immigrants.
Many of you are, too, having gotten to know many of you. (Many of you are not immigrants's kids, but your grandparents or great-grandparents or at some point nearly all your relatives were immigrants, so bear with me.)
Education is a big deal if you are the child of immigrants. It's a way out of the limited circumstances of your immediate life.
My family was never exactly poor, but frankly education was the only way I was going to get the hell out of Reno, Nevada (great question: what Koreans in their right minds settle in Reno, Nevada? No one, that's who. My parents were obviously not in their right minds.)
I wasn't going to be able to get out of Reno as an athlete or poker player or model (although my feet are pretty, I would say). There was just school.
Funny, isn't it, how excelling on something mundane like an exam or standardized test can be almost magical in how it can transform your life?
I'm not saying that we live in a complete meritocracy -- we don't -- but under the right circumstances, killing it in school can make all the difference.
Mostly, it means more choices -- more money, yes, but more experiences, more travel, more connections, more interesting people in your life -- in short, more of a chance to make the world a little better and your parents proud.
Becoming a lawyer -- already a difficult academic task in itself -- in an immigrant family can mean status and pride if your parents come from a country where lawyers are respected, and practically can mean being able to navigate tricky stuff (taxes, lawsuits, immigration issues) that otherwise are frightening.
(Sidenote: In my case, "status and pride" meant that my dad would handout my Debevoise & Plimpton LLP business cards to the complete, and probably completely drunk, strangers in the Peppermill Poker Room where he used to hang out daily. He would -- I am not making this up -- actually puff his chest out, hand a card to someone new and say "My son is a lawyer!" Thanks, Dad. Still, never once got a call on my work line from the Washoe County jail drunk tank.)
Still, when I said that killing it in school makes all the difference "under the right circumstances," what are those "right circumstances"?
Well, basically, in my view, even if you're smart, you don't make it on your own.
You also need people rooting for you, helping you up the ladder, helping you to make good decisions.
I went to Harvard as an undergrad. (Hold on -- I'm not saying this to impress you, I'm saying this to tell you what an asshole I was.)
I once visited a finals club -- those exclusive social clubs for rich private school kids. (A finals club is briefly shown, in exaggerated fashion, in The Social Network, an execrable movie, but whatevs).
These finals club kids had connections -- their daddies or daddies' friends got them fancy internships on Wall Street. They had help -- paid tutors (like, say, JY or me) when needed. They had files at their clubs filled with old exams and essays(I saw this with my own eyes).
And at worst, their parents would support them financially if they fucked up completely.
They had every tool, every means of keeping up good grades and getting jobs.
My reaction -- when I visited the club, and every time I heard of some rich kid getting some fancy internship that I applied for and didn't get -- was defensive distain:
"That's not me. Look at me, I worked hard, Daddy didn't help me at all -- he has no network and speaks Mr. Miyagi-like English (sorry Dad). I got into Harvard all on my own without all this added help that these rich babies seem to get."
But look at what I was thinking.
Only looking back can I see the utter bullshit based on a bad attitude, born of a scarcity mindset and envy.
Of course I wasn't a rich kid. But in these moments of envy, thinking those bitter thoughts, I had utterly, horribly, ungraciously, ignored and forgotten every single person who helped me along the way.
My life was filled with mentors and people willing to help. They steered me, encouraged me.
There were teachers, but there were other, older students who had been there. Many of them (not all) were also the children of immigrants, but they had been there before.
I got into Harvard not just because of hard work. There was that. But I went to a public school where there were older students who got into good schools (rare though it was), and those older students befriended me.
They were role models and advisers. They made me see that it WAS possible to excel, even at a public school in Nowheresville, Nevada. They gave me tactical and strategic advice and real encouragement. And they gave me friendship without strings.
Even at Harvard, though filled with assholes (like myself), there still were many, many other friendly older students who were more than happy to give advice and and help me get better.
Even before and in law school, my life was crawling with mentors.
I did well in law school, I am positive, because a high school friend who had gone to Harvard Law forced me to have drinks with him. He brought his BARBRI Conviser Mini Review book to the bar, put it in my hands, and told me to pre-study the law, to never write case briefs, to start to look at real exams when I arrived at school . . . does some of this sound familiar?
I am positive without my friend's intervention that I would have, like, briefed cases (gasp!) or some other dumb thing in law school that would have resulted in bad grades.
And when I got to law school, there were other students, upperclassmen, always willing to help me or answer questions or make me think what I wanted to do was possible. To me this is the key.
So, sure, I didn't have the exact kind of network or benefits or riches that those finals club guys had.
But I did have my own, different networks and riches. Many, many people helped me. Any success I've had in my life was somewhat attributable to smarts and hard work, but a huge amount of it was luck in having people willing to help me -- the right mentors to find me, guide me, and encourage me.
It was luck. I could have received the wrong advice. While I sought out mentors, I didn't control which mentors would help me and if they had any clue what they were talking about.
Weirdly, in this narrow sense, we may have more control over the luck of others than the luck we receive.
That is, once we actually know what we're doing, we may be better placed to bestow luck on others, to mentor those younger than us.
So, if I could leave you with one thing in this email, it is this:
Attain some success (even if it's on the LSAT or in law school), and pay it forward, as soon as you can.
(Yes, for the cynically inclined, I would love you to recommend 7Sage LSAT, and 7Sage LSP, and now Law School Master to others who need them. I would never suggest otherwise, but that isn't my point right now).
Once you have some success in something and can convey know-how that is useful to someone else, become a mentor and make luck for other people.
And pick mentees who can use the help -- those who don't have a network, don't have riches, but have the desire and ability.
I feel like this is a great way to make a difference in life. You don't have to do it on a big scale or create an institution (like PreProBono). And if you can do that, do! Save the world in a big way!
But, if I could ask you to do one thing, it is to be a mentor to someone else. Answer questions, meet people for coffee, and help someone who could use the help.
Anyway, get good, help others, and see you at larrylawlaw.com soon!
Much love,
Larry
Old email: larry@7sage.com (I will always receive at this address but will answer from my new one consistently starting June 16).
New email: larrylawlaw@gmail.com
Old Bat Cave: 7Sage Law School Prep (again, buy before or on June 15 if you want access to the old interface).
New Bat Cave: Larry Law Law (sales page for Law School Master course to open sometime after June 15)