I’m currently a high school English teacher, and am increasingly disatisfied with my career choice. The pay is pretty lousy, and it’s not as rewarding as I’d hoped. Anyhow, I’m thinking about going to law school, but would be presumably be working full time while in school. I have some great contacts at Georgetown University, and it’s supposed to have a great law school. So, my question is, how long is this going to take? I’d be 30 by the time I started. Is it too late? I think a full-time law student goes to school for three years, but I don’t know how much work that involves. Will I be able to get some type of job in the legal field while I was in school that would both allow me time to go to class and pay enough for me to support myself? Or, I could continue teaching while taking classes, but I doubt I could handle more than 6 credits a semester, and then some extra ones during the summer.
This is a fairly new idea of mine, and I obviously don’t know exactly what I’d be getting myself in to. Any insight from former/current law students would be deeply appreciated:)
Well known author Scott Turow wrote a book One L about his experience of first year law. Some reviews state that it makes things seem scarier than they really are but it’s a great read. Other books for prospective law students are listed as well.
Some schools (usually the better ones) don’t want you to work during your 3 years, and may make you sign something agreeing not to.
Georgetown has a great law school, very difficult to get into.
A few hints to get you started, without getting too specific-
Go recheck your transcripts from college. If they aren’t exactly stellar, see about retroactively petitioning for withdrawls from classes you did poorly in.
Take an LSAT prep course (law school admissions test) and see how you do, and if it’s your style. Princeton Review is a good course. Your LSAT score will be a large factor in determining which law schools will accept you, along with your undergraduate and graduate transcripts.
Rack your brain for youthful (or not-so-youthful) indiscretions. Have you ever been convicted of a crime? They will ask, and they will check. A serious misdemeanor or a felony may not automatically bar you from attending law school, but may prevent you from attending a top 25 school (and make getting past some states’ bar examiners a real nightmare).
Check out the rankings of law schools provided by US News & World Report, and by the University of Texas. They will tell you about median GPA and LSAT scores for their 1st year students.
Be sure before you start. Or you will waste a year driving yourself insane before you bail. It is a little like boot camp and can be very difficult, even if you are bright, eager and really want to succeed.
Well, I’m not too worry about being admitted. The contacts I have are pretty solid, and my grades are respectable, although not outstanding (3.2 GPA) So, even if I can’t make it in to Georgetown, I could go to some other law school. My main concern is how long it would take, how time-consuming is it, etc. Could I get a student loan to support myself if working and going to school just wouldn’t work?
30 is most definitely not too old. I started at twenty-nine and had plenty of classmates around the same age or older.
Law school generally takes three years full time, although some school offer a four year part time program. Here in Texas, you’re not allowed to work during the first year, and discouraged from doing so during the next two. I didn’t have a job at all (except tutoring) during law school, and quite frankly wouldn’t have wanted to. Law school is a *lot[i/] of work and stress and involves a pretty major commitment, and a job on the outside as well would have been too much (although I knew people who did work). Think of law school as a kind of mental boot camp; the changes it makes on your life and lifestyle can be that dramatic.
Don’t let that discourage you, though. Law school and lawyer-ing isn’t for everybody, but if it is for you you’ll find it the most mentally stimulating and rewarding time of your life.
You can indeed get student loans to support yourself if you can’t manage to go to school and work. That’s what most of my classmates did, in fact, although most of them had some support from parents or other family members as well. Most people seem to ride the student loan train pretty far. It’s not unheard of to graduate owing up to $100,000 in student loans.
I should add: my dad wen’t to law school and worked full time to support a family, although I don’t know all of his details on how he managed it. Plenty of people do it, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.
I jumped from technical writing and teaching English to attending law school in my late 30s.
I saved up so that I could attend full time with only a couple of part time jobs and some student loans. This made it possible to have a decent standard of living rather than deal with the stresses associated with student poverty.
Law school was not as tme consuming as one might be led to believe. It took a good eight to ten hours a day, but not much more. Most of my fellow students found the volume of the work challenging, but with the greatest of respect to them, I have to say that many had poor time management skills, such that they wasted a few hours each day, and ended up having to study in the evening and weekends.
Your English skills should be of great assistance, for they will help you digest large volumes of case reports every day. At first this may seem impossible, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll swim through the work load without difficulty.
In a typical week, my part time jobs took about 25 hours, which left lots of time for sleep and a regular social life, and my jobs were fun anyway, so overall I 'd say that law school was a bit of a treat.
As far as full-time or part-time goes, just work out a budget and see what works best for you.
Whatever you do, be sure that you know what you are getting into. If law turns your crank, then go for it, but if you don’t know much about the daily life of lawyers and simply are unsatisfied with your present career, then hold off switching until you investigate law more closely.
How old will you be if you don’t start law school?
This is one of the questions I asked my daughter when she was first considering law school. Age usually has nothing to do with whether or not we should do something.
I know a shrink who worked his way through med school by waiting on tables. You can do it if you make up your mind to do it.
Please don’t stay in teaching if it isn’t satisfying. That is unfair to all concerned. And it will drive you nuts.
Finally, it is good for us to do things that frighten us but don’t endanger us.
I haven’t answered the questions that you asked. But I hope that I spoke to some of the feelings that seem to lie beneath the surface.
Just a note of irony: I smiled when I first saw your handle. I love that poem! But there is a line that goes something like “I grow old – I grow old. Shall I wear my trousers rolled? Shall I eat a peach?” Do you really want to think that way yourself?
First off, if you do end up at Georgetown make sure you look into “Section 3” – the alternate curriculum. It is MUCH more philosophy and history based than the traditional sections. It will give you an understanding in upper level courses that is deeper than you would normally get. When you get closer to choosing, let me (or Gadarene) know and we’ll give you more details.
Something else you may wish to consider is that Georgetown has a part-time night program. I have several friends that have moved through the program while working during the day. It is hard work and takes longer (obviously) but it is the only way for some people, and the rewards are fantastic.
As for age, I started when I was 32. So what? There are a lot of folks just out of undergrad, but most have had either a few years experience or another degree before starting. There are very few people in my classes that one can tell are ‘young.’ Other than that, regardless of age the maturity level makes it difficult to tell how old someone is. We are all peers.
There is lots of insight out there for help in making the decision. My quick two cents: Law school is not being a lawyer. I wouldn’t base your decision on going or not as to whether you think you will like school. Though I haven’t been out in the “real” world of a firm yet (I’m a 2L), many different people from many different perspectives have made it clear that practicing and academics are two different worlds. If it is an idea that you are toying with, don’t let the scholastic part stop you if you’ll be practicing for twenty plus years after that. On the same token, don’t go to school because of that experience if you don’t think you want to use it once you get out. Just my two cents.
Former law student checking in. I’m not American, so my experience will obviously differ to an extent.
Most of my students in my graduating class (of 2002 :)) did not not work full- or even part-time in our final two years of law school. Almost everyone worked full-time in our vacation periods, but students who held a job during semester were quite rare.
Personally, I wouldn’t have dared attempt it. Not just the classes, but the hours in the library or in front of a computer will consume a lot of your time.
As for your age, second what others have already said. A great many of my fellow students were 30 or more. Plenty were married, some had kids and most had a past career (the best student in my class was previously a GP!) They sat alongside all us kids in class and got through the ordeal of law school just fine.
Before making this committment, you might want to check some of the surveys that are regularly done - by the ABA for example - concerning job satisfaction of recent admittees to the bar. Also check out how many law school grads choose to work as lawyers for how long.
Something made you choose English as your major, but now you do not find it as rewarding as you had hoped. What exactly is it that makes you think law school or lawyering will be more rewarding?
Realize of course that completing law school is no guarantee that someone will hire you to do the type of lawyering you think you want to do. Moreover, it is possible that even your “dream” legal job may have its own shortcomings.
If you want to go to law school, go ahead. Lots of folk do. But it would really suck to end up 3-5 years down the line no better than you are now, with a bunch of law school loans to pay off.
My suggestion is to try to find out something - anything - that thrills you, and then pursue training/education/employment in that field.
Haven’t time to post thoroughly on this point, but a couple of quick notes:
I don’t know if Georgetown offers a night school for their J.D. program; I believe they don’t. (There’s a night school for their L.L.M. programs in taxation and such, but that doesn’t help you.) I know that Catholic University does - my uncle went to their law school at night, as did a woman I know who worked on the Hill. Four years of no life, but then you get your degree with much less debt.
Since you’re older, I’d say it’s much more important to know that you want the law degree and have a bit of a career plan - especially if you’ll be loading on debt to get the degree in the first place. I didn’t have much of a plan when I went to law school, but I was 22 when I started and figured I’d make a career change once I’d been in a few years (as I have done). If, as is typical, you graduate with 100K+ in loans, you’re likely to spend the next several years as an indentured servant to a large firm. That may be OK in your 20s, but becomes less tolerable as you get older and wants to have things like, say, a family.
I went to Harvard Law School full-time while working half-time as a patent agent in a law firm (they put me through school, but staying half-time was part of the deal). I was 31 when I started.
I think that law school is not as bad for “mature” people as it is if you go right out of college. I didn’t find that it was that difficult to balance working and school; in fact, it’s a lot harder to make my billable hours now that I’m out and working full time. However, I did not have to spend time looking for a job (since I already had one) - this is a very serious time commitment for most law students, starting in the second semester.
However, it’s true that you should spend some time trying to figure out if this is what you want. You might look into trying to get a job as a paralegal - that’s a lot less time investment, and will give you a real close-up look at what you would be getting into.
When I was getting my PhD, we had a sign up that said “Grad school is the snooze button on the alarm clock of life.” I think that’s even more true for law school, except that the snooze button costs a lot more money than an engineering PhD does. Be sure you’re going for the right reasons.
Hey look! A thread for which I am the most qualified Doper! Why? Beacause about a year and a half ago I graduated from the night program at Georgetown!
Georgetown’s night program is probably a little easier to get into than the full-time program, although the actual classes are more challenging. As someone who spent more than a few classes with day students, I can say without reservation that the night students are more often prepared and take the enterprise more seriously than the average day student. (Please note the use of the work average!) When I started the average age in the night program was 27, but very many folks were considerably older (several in their 40’s, more than a few in their 50’s).
The standard night program takes four years, wich requires you to take at least one summer class. More than a few folks graduated early or transfered into the day program after first year, although I’ve heard that transfers into the day program are more limited than they were a couple years ago. I can tell you that during my last semester all I could think of was finally being done.
As far as course offerings at night (which isn’t important during first year, when courses are assigned), I found them quite good, although there will be day-only classes you’d like to take. You’re allowed and, for most upper-level classes, you have the same registration priority as a day student with the same distance to graduation, so it’s really just a matter of whether you can have a flexible work schedule as to whether you can take them.
As for work, there are several firms in the D.C. area that hire law students as clerks, especially if your grades are good; I worked at Arnold & Porter for my last two years of school. These firms are typically quite accomodating as to your schedule.
As for the actual school experience, I loved it (it was certainly more fun than practicing law is). It took some time getting used to the volume of material and the scant amount of time you have to prepare it, but after you get a semester under your belt you’ll be fine. Some folks (myself absolutely included) actually benefitted from the rigid schedule of work + school as it allowed for less procrastination than the life of a full-time student.
Let me know if you have any more specific questions.
Oh, BTW, I absolutely disagree with ENugent’s advice to get a job as a paralegal. Paralegals are given the crappiest work in the firm because they simply do not have the knowledgebase to do complex legal work, even though most of them have the intelligence. Someone who works as a paralegal would get, IMO, a very inaccurate view of the actual work a lawyer is expected to do.
Cliffy, that depends on what you were going in for. If you got a job as a paralegal expecting that you’d be doing the same thing that you would do after you graduated and became a lawyer, then yes, you’d get an inaccurate view. But a paralegal is in a pretty good position to observe what the lawyers actually do, even though he wouldn’t be doing the same work himself. You could also get a good view being a legal secretary, for about the same reasons. Neither job is one I’d care to do for the rest of my life myself, but if you’re going into it as an opportunity to observe, you could get a pretty good idea of the day-to-day practice of law.
I don’t think paralegals are generally in a position to observe a lot of what the lawyers do, except for what the lawyers hand them. It may depend on the firm or, in particular, its size; the paralegals at my relatively small firm do have a better idea of the practice than those at the very large firm I worked at in school, when most paralegals had very little contact with attorneys other than to get assignments.
Only thing that would keep paralegals from getting a good idea of what lawyers actually do, is if the lawyers in their office/firm happened to be assholes. Wait a minute …
And Cliffy - I’ve yet to meet a law school grad who had the “knowledgebase” to perform complex legal work. Course its been a while since I was a year and a half out of school.
Indeed, I’d say that if you’re planning on entering transactional practice (general corporate, M & A, reorganizations, real estate, etc.), doing paralegal work gives a very good idea of what you’ll be doing for the first couple of years of practice, especially at a larger firm. Can’t speak for litigators.
