How does a hard-working 20-something go to law school?

October 3, 2005 2:40 PM

I just took the LSAT on Saturday, and now I've got a couple questions. I did flip through some of the Ask MeFi archives, and while there was enlightenment, my top two questions didn't come up. 1)I graduated in '01- what kind of recommendations do they want to see? 2)How the hell am I going to pay for my living expenses while I'm there?

What looks best in terms of recommendations? Old bosses? Older professors? Friends done well? The biggest names I can get my hands on?

If it helps, I'm in my mid-20s and I've been working in the whole new media/online business-type-area since I graduated. I have a handle on my expenses, and I'm steadily paying things down, but I'm two paychecks from homelessness, like most of this country's 20-somethings. If I go to law school, how am I going to make rent and buy food? Is it all loans? Do people fit in part-time work easily? Do I just pay for it by working over the summer as an associate?

(Here are answers that I'm not considering: night school and part-time law school.)

posted by paul_smatatoes to Education (16 answers total)

are you planning on applying for fall '06? if so, you'd better get a MOVE ON!

if you're over 25 your parents income doesn't cost against you and you can apply for fin aid. check out the FASFA homepage.

as for recommendations, mix of profs and bosses.

hope this helps!
posted by k8t at 2:47 PM on October 3, 2005

recommendations: the most senior person that you can approach within the companies that you worked for. If this person has alumni ties with the institution that you wish to apply to, even better!

downsizing for school - not as tough as you may think. reduce all the extras (magazine subscriptions, cable TV, restaurant meals, broadband internet - go to library instead) and move in with a room mate or three.

School will be over before you know it - then you can resume a lifestyle that costs a little more.
posted by seawallrunner at 2:51 PM on October 3, 2005

I wrote the LSAT on Saturday as well. I am in my mid-30s and in much the same financial situation -- two paycheques from homelessness unless I EBay everything I own (which I'm going to have to do anyway should I have no option but to attend school in another province).

If you're Canadian, you can apply for provincial and federal student loans, and you can even try to top it all off with a line of credit from a bank. Royal Bank of Canada offers up to $55K at Prime +1%, minus whatever you get for student loans, as a benchmark, but depending on your credit you can talk them down as low as prime plus +0.25% and borrow up to $60K.

Student loans in my province have extremely small maxima for single non-parents: $507 Cdn per month for rent, $200 and change for food, $200 and change for utilities and miscellaneous, $64 for transportation, for a total of about $990 per month, Canadian.

My rent and utilities combined come to about $610 per month (shared) and my bus pass costs $95 per month, which would leave me with $280 or so for food, clothing, entertainment, and every form of emergency, such as my computer breaking down. It's insane to think that anyone could live on that as a law student, given that it's so hard for a law student to work a part-time job.

And that's where the line of credit comes in. Having lived very close to the bone for the last few months after moving to Vancouver, I cannot imagine how I could live on that kind of money. I am netting $750 biweekly doing temp work and have to cover $54 per month for my BC Medical premiums, $200 per month on my Visa and $200 on a personal loan, none of which I can risk defaulting on if I want to get student loans. And I am finding it very difficult to survive.

You will not be able to pay for it all with summer work. There's no way.
posted by solid-one-love at 3:23 PM on October 3, 2005

I was 27 when I started law school (I am now in my third year) and went from making about $45k a year (but saving absolutely nothing) to living on the $14k annually in "living expenses" student loan money that my particular school has determined is sufficient. Basically, each school decides on an amount of money that you can borrow (not from them, from lending institutions like Access Group which is really popular among law students) for living expenses based on the cost of living where the school is located.

However, there is no way that I could have managed the last few years without my parents' financial support for the big bills and the unexpected stuff like my car dying and my cat getting sick (huge vet bills). Make sure you have the support of your family. If you have to rely on credit cards, don't get out of control with them - part of the determination of whether you will be admitted to the bar is often your credit history.

BTW, it's "FAFSA", not "FASFA" - you'll have trouble googling it the other way.

As far as recommendations, no clue. I don't remember that part of applying at all, sorry... I could swear that this exact question has been covered before in AskMefi though.
posted by amro at 3:25 PM on October 3, 2005

When I was in law school, I worked on the weekends. I had a laid-back retail job where I could study while I was there. I still lived hand to mouth, but that extra money helped a bit. I know a 1L right now who works part-time and, again, he has a laid-back job where he can study while he's there.
posted by whatideserve at 3:32 PM on October 3, 2005

loans during the school year. then if you're a hotshot, you can get a job with a big firm the summer after your first year and make upwards of 15K. if not, you probably won't make much money that summer, although you may gain valuable experience. it would be good if you could afford not to be paid at all that first summer, because it would allow you to do something cool like work for a nonprofit or govt agency.

if you get into a top school, you are virtually guaranteed to get a job with a big firm your second summer and get paid upwards of 15-20K after taxes depending on how many weeks you work. If you pick a firm in the town you're going to school in, then you may be able to work part time for them during your third year and make around $50/hr.

so, basically, if you do well at a top school you may be able to earn enough working to cover a big chunk of your cost of living.
posted by footnote at 3:36 PM on October 3, 2005

Also, it is definitely not worth it to take a job during your 1L yr if it's going to cut into your studying time. That's what loans are for -- you're investing in your education.
posted by footnote at 3:37 PM on October 3, 2005

My boyfriend is in law school right now; his loans include $12,000 a year for expenses, which is pretty doable if you're not in a big city and you have someone to share rent with. You'll be too busy studying to spend money above and beyond necessities if the students at his school are any kind of representative sample.

By the way, I'm pretty sure he told me he wasn't actually allowed to work in the first year. Bar regulation? I'm not sure; maybe someone else can clarify. He did work at a small firm during the summer after 1L and he was paid a small stipend & travel expenses.
posted by bcwinters at 3:44 PM on October 3, 2005

I think the no-working-first-year rule is made by the school itself. We have the same rule at my school. It's a good rule though - you really should not work your first year of law school.
posted by amro at 3:52 PM on October 3, 2005

At the schools I looked at, everyone is considered independent from their parents, whether they're 22 or 42. You get your loans and live on them. Not a whole lot else you can do besides find the kind of job mentioned above and hope your school allows it.

Everything I've read about references says you need to have at least one from a professor. I got in to a top 25 law school without one (well squeaked in off of the waitlist, but hey, I'm here). My boss wrote me a letter, and also happens to fall into the "biggest name I can get my hands on" category, so maybe that helped.

I took the fall LSAT for the next year's admission and there was no problem getting everything to the university on the first day they would take applications. If you get everything else in line while you wait for your LSAT score you can just fire them off that same day (assuming you score where you think you will).
posted by jaysus chris at 7:16 PM on October 3, 2005

Definitely keep your recommendations to bosses and professors, unless you can finagle a meaningful letter from your senator or a judge, etc.

As for your budget, please forgive the following somewhat crass realism: if you go to a school in the top of the first tier (say the top 7-10 schools in the country) and plan on working in a private firm, you don't need to worry too too much about money. If you buckle down (as I strongly suggest you do) first year, you can get a good paying job for your 1L summer (earning $15-$30K); virtually everyone then gets a $30K job for your 2L summer. Thereafter, you can get at $125K/year job immediately after school; the first-year bonuses are $30K this year, and some even have signing bonuses. With this kind of earning potential, it makes sense to bulk up on loans. All these numbers are NY numbers. My loans in NY were about $60K/year. I started law school after taking about five years to work at a non-profit and had no savings to speak of when I began, but I expect to be paying off my $180 in the next 6 years or fewer.

If you go to a lower-ranked school, plan to do pro bono work, or work in a smaller legal market, your budgeting should be more rigorous, since it can be harder to land the well-paying jobs. To be certain, you can still get a great education and have a rewarding career after study at a less reknowned school (or doing pro bono or in Toledo, OH, rather than NYC), but you may be carrying more debt for longer.

Do yourself a favor, though, and do NOT work as a 1L, regardless of where you matriculate. The National Associatial of Legal (Career) Professionals, NALP, mandates that 1Ls not seek legal employment before December 1 of their first year, anyway. Devoting as much time to your studies as you can possibly stand is an incredible investment in your future. The legal profession can be extremely fixated on rankings (school, grades), and your life will be infinitely easier with a high GPA.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:40 PM on October 3, 2005

I'm currently a 1L.

For living expenses I took out a 10k loan - which is sufficent to get me through the 8 months of school. It was incredibly easy for me to downsize. I don't have a heck of a lot of time outside of school, so I am not spending money on a lot of the extras I did when I was working (going out to the movies, going on weekend trips, etc.). I do live on my own and I have cable and internet, though. There is no way I could have a job this semester - the workload is just too much (Plus the ABA strongly recommends that you don't work the first year).
posted by miss meg at 9:41 PM on October 3, 2005

My 2 recs were both written by professors even though I had been out of school for 3 years. I picked them because they both knew me really well during school, though they did both happen to be the heads of their departments. But I think it's MUCH more important to have someone who can really go to bat for you in a detailed way than to get a "so-and-so is a nice young man with a firm handshake" letter from your local congressperson (even if he/she IS an alum -- admissions committees aren't stupid).

Also, rewind to last week and score 5 points higher on the LSAT, that'll wrap things right up for you ;)
posted by rkent at 9:53 PM on October 3, 2005

Letters: professors if possible, employer for sure. NO politicians or judges, unless you have actually worked for them in a meaningful way - and make sure they detail that relationship. One of my professors is on the admissions review board, and he loves telling stories about people's letters-from-senators. The best are when some huge scandal breaks about your politician just after they send the letter.

Living: loans will be perfectly fine. I recommend that you get a job at a firm as soon as you can, however. The job market is very competitive right now, and any legal experience on your resume is a big help.
posted by MrZero at 6:15 AM on October 4, 2005

While you certainly can borrow your living expenses, the "don't work as a one-L thing" is a bit of a crock. I bought into it, but I think I easily could have done 18 hours a week in the student bookstore or something like that, and probably would have studied more. A part-time job structures the balance of your, gives you some mental breathing space not occupied by television, etc.

Part-time work is actually much less managable during your second year, when the workload gets harder (but doesn't seem like that because you're less stressed) and you may well have journal, clinic, moot court, and/or club officership using up time.

You should NOT assume, even at a top 10 law school, that you will get a well-paying post-1L summer job. If you get one great, but the odds are against you. You can confidently budget a well-paying post-2L summer job at a good school.
posted by MattD at 7:20 AM on October 4, 2005

Some law schools have loan forgiveness programs - you might want to factor that into your decision, if you are looking at choosing between two schools. This was a tie breaker for a friend of mine.
posted by jb at 10:02 AM on October 7, 2005