Going to law school???

tjmom
Mon, 27 Oct 2014 21:26:08 +0000

Your LSAT score is far more important than your undergrad GPA. Now I don’t mean to say slack off, but my son’s GF had a 3.9, Phi Beta Kappa undergrad but is a lousy standardized test taker and could not get her LSAT above 160. Did not get into a good law school- ended up at Penn State Law. Very tough time finding a job. She is still living at home and working part time for a local lawyer 18 months after graduation. My son got into three good (but not T14) law schools- top 25 school though. His GPA was not as good as hers but he had a 170 LSAT. He does not yet have a job. He only got his bar results last week but the job market is extremely bad for lawyers.

One thing that probably isn’t clear to you right now since you are just now looking at it is that when someone graduates from law school, they are not prepared to be a lawyer. You still have to take the bar exam- which is a 2 or 3 day (depending on the state- and more in a very few states) exam which almost everyone pays another 3 or 4 thousand dollars in prep courses for. The exam is given the end of July- results come out in October in most states and you can’t practice until you pass. So from graduation in May until bar results in October, you have pretty much no way of earning a living through law. Any student loan federal debt that you have will require payments beginning in November- so good luck with that.

Sorry if I sound pessimistic, but I don’t think too many people who haven’t been through it understand how difficult it is and the big bucks you hear about really aren’t there anymore. This is a pretty recent change- nephew who graduated law just ten years ago got the big bucks after graduating from a non T14 law school- but he also says that just doesn’t happen anymore. And most of the job postings for attorney jobs say 3-5 years experience. VERY few will take new attorneys.