As the title says. I’m 32 years old and I didn’t like where my old job was taking me, and a bunch of family issues has sort of taken me out of the work force for a few years. I’ve taken the LSAT twice now, last score was a 170. I’ll probably try to take it again in October. I want to go to University of Victoria.
I don’t really have any specific questions, but IIRC one of our regulars Northern Piper did a similar thing, so I’d welcome any advice in general on applying, etc.
Sorry mods, For some reason I posted this to GQ when I meant to post it in IMHO.
Whoosh. From GQ to IMHO.
samclem, moderator
I was a fair bit older than you when I started law school in The Great White North. I hope you enjoy law school as much as I did – it was a blast!
As far as admissions go, your grades are what they are, and your LSAT is what it is (and yes, you can learn how to get good scores). Put forward that which makes you stand out as someone with a track record of making the world a better place, and provide references from people who know you well and who are people whom the school would respect.
You know it’s a bad idea in terms of career prospects, right? Do whatever floats your boat, but supposedly the only law schools really worth the lost 3 years of earnings and the debt are top 14. Statistically the others are basically not worth it.
Why not become an plumber, electrician, or engineer instead…
Yeah, my biggest hurdle is that my undergraduate grades are not very good - I was kind of an idiot and fucked around a lot. I hope that this will matter less now that I am an old man.
Law school in Canada doesn’t cost as much as the US, as I understand. I have some savings built up, and my dad has kindly agreed to float me a loan to cover any shortfall.
Where are you currently? Are you an American? How can anyone offer you advice without such basic information?
Why UVictoria? Do you understand that with C$ dropping, rates may rise substantially? How will you practise law in the US with a Canadian licence?
In Canada there are proportionately fewer students admitted into law school as compared to the USA, so there is not as much competition for entry level jobs. That being said, it is still very challenging for a few graduates to find articling positions,and some of the articling positions don’t pay much. For example, the Law Times has reported that an articling student was offered a bus pass, and only a bus pass. I know one lawyer who was a male phone sex worker in the late evenings while he was an articling student, another who earned less per year as an articling student than her legal aid funded clients who were on social assistance, and several who relied on their spouses to carry the brunt of the financial load during articling. In short, having a law degree and being smart, hard working and personable, is not enough to guarantee an articling job that pays the rent. The smart money is on folks who use their previous career and life experience to leverage their law degree, making them more appealing to potential employers, and who get out there and meet with potential employers prior to and during law school.
Fortunately, almost all law graduates in Canada land articling jobs, so it is not something that I would be too concerned about. Once licensed, it’s just a matter of eating what you catch and building a practice. We did not have lawyers abandoning their careers during the Great Recession the way some were in the USA, and the field is not saturated, so in the long term, it a good profession. What it will not offer for most new lawyer, however, is high wages up front, so despite it being good in the long term, it is not financially good in the short term, so a person considering a career switch into law should have a look at what lawyers of different levels of seniority earn and weigh that against their present career path.
Throatwarbler Mangrove’s location indicates he is in Calgary, so I assume he’s Canadian.
Since Canada only has 16 common-law law schools, that looks like pretty good odds.
Perhaps when a poster specifically is asking about something in a country other than the US, you should not be assuming the US experience translates automatically?
I went to law school straight from my undergrad, and it’s starting to feel that it was at a time when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. For instance, when I took the LSAT we got scores on a scale of 800, not these wimpy less than 200 points that young’uns today get. 
So I’m probably not the best person for advice about the current economics of law schools and job prospects. Spoons and Muffin have gone on that treadmill much more recently.
I would, however, qualify Muffin’s comments about getting articles by saying that the availability of articles can vary considerably across the country, depending on the local economy. Law students in Ontario have been having trouble getting positions for some time now, due to the economic downturn in Ontario. However, until quite recently students in the Prairies provinces were not having that difficulty. I’ve heard from the young’uns this year that has started to change here in Saskatchewan, as the economic boom seems to be cooling off a bit.
It can also vary considerably within a particular province. There are chronic shortages of lawyers in rural areas, so if you’re interested in a rural life and a general practice, it may be easier to find articles and a position in the smaller centres rather than the big metropolitan areas. On the other hand, some law firms in smaller centres feel burnt by students who come for a year, talking about loving life in a small town, finish their articles, and get out of Dodge the next day.
Missed the edit; meant to say that 32 is by no means an old man! There was a guy in his late 40s in my class.
Yes! As a guy in his 50s, can I spray Throatwarbler with a water hose for saying he’s an old man when he’s in his 30s! 
I went to law school with a guy in his 70s. 32 isn’t old at all. I was around 27 when I went.
How long is law school in Canada, 6 weeks?
When I was going, you could get into law school with a minimum of two years’ undergrad, but in practice you needed a three year degree. I don’t know if they’ve tightened that up to require an undergrad degree.
The law degree itself takes three years, unless the school has some provision for courses in the summer to accelerate it.
Once you have a degree (today’s whippersnappers get J.D. degrees, but my two LL.B. degrees are working just fine, thank-you-very-much), you need to do a year’s worth of articles, which is an apprenticeship to a senior lawyer or a judge. You also have to pass the bar admission program run by the Law Society in your province.
So if Throatwarbler Mangrove already has an undergrad degree, he’s looking at four years start to finish before he’s a lawyer.
I learned one thing in the last 10 years - shit sure can change a lot in a couple of years! I understand that the economics of being a lawyer aren’t great right now, but in 4 years? You know, buy in the dip, be greedy when others are fearful, and all that.
I chose Victoria because, well, I like it better than Calgary, and my elderly parents are retiring there, and I’d like to be close to them. I know that it’s not the most happening place economically, but I figure with the provincial government and the elderly population, there should be a pretty brisk demand for lawyers. I’m also Chinese, and have been living in Beijing on and off for the past few years, speak the language, have some connections, etc… There’s a possibility of some Chinese immigration to the island in the near future, which would be nice for employment prospects, but not something I’m counting on.
Over 15 years ago I applied to UVic, UNB and Dalhousie law schools (since they allowed later applications than most other law schools in Canada). Dalhousie flew me out to interview for a scholarship. The students showed us around and gave us pep talks on how it’s so much hard work and endless study, but it’s all worth it. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) that kind of “pep talk” had the opposite effect on me, so I gave up on the idea of law school and I don’t regret it one bit.
UVic put me on the wait list, but they later offered me admission (which I declined).
Here is the experience of the son of a good friend of mine, I will call him L. After a degree in mining and metallurgical engineering from McGill (which mainly convinced him he didn’t want to work in a mine), he worked as a sysop in the math dept of a Toronto area university for several years and then decided to go to law school. So he must have been about 27 or 28. He graduated in the early 2000s and then searched for an articling position.* Lots of luck. He claims that less than half his graduating class got them. He moved back to Toronto. He was walking down the street and saw the office of a small mining company, walked in and said to whoever was in charge that they needed legal help. He explained his background and they hired him. They had a lawyer on retainer who supervised L, at least in principle. Eventually, the supervising lawyer reluctantly agreed to supervise L’s articling (realizing that he would eventually lose his retainer fee) and L became a fully qualified lawyer. He is now living in New Brunswick where his wife is a professor and essentially working remotely for the same mining company and other clients where he finds them.
*Articling: an apprenticeship program that every law school graduate must go through before they can hang up a shingle or join a law firm. You basically do a year’s worth of free work and then you are certified. If you don’t find an articling position, you are basically screwed.
Again, there is some variation here. I understand that in Ontario they are experimenting with articles where the student-at-law is not paid, but that’s not traditionally been the experience. In other provinces the student is paid, although not at the same rate as a first year lawyer.