r/LawSchoolOver30

My boyfriend and I are both 28 and have been talking seriously about moving in together. We love each other, and in a lot of ways it feels like the natural next step.

I work remotely and currently living in Los Angeles. We have a dog together. The place we would get would likely cost 2000-2400. We currently live an hour apart from each other.

The issue is money.

He’s in law school, so he’s stretched thin financially and focused on getting through school. I understand that, and I’m proud of him, but it also makes me feel stuck because “waiting until later” feels vague and open-ended. Meanwhile, I’m at a point where I want to start building a real life with someone, not just keep dating in limbo. He’s going to a private university and paying full tuition.

I’m torn between being supportive of where he is in life and being honest that I also have needs and a timeline for what I want. I don’t want to pressure him, but I also don’t want to keep shrinking what I want because the timing isn’t good for him. Initially, we planned on moving in at the beginning of summer last year, then it got postponed to winter of last year, then it got postponed from beginning of summer this yr to July this year, so he has done this at least three times already.

Has anyone been in a relationship where one person was in a demanding professional program (law school / med school / etc.) and financially limited? Did you move in anyway and figure it out, wait until they were more stable, or realize you were on different timelines?

I love him, but I’m struggling with whether patience is the right move or if I’m ignoring a real incompatibility. He is going to work at law firm M-F 9-5 making $30 an hour. He also casually teaches swimming for rich clients at like $140 an hour. Summer is coming up, so he will have plenty of requests. His issue is that the money he makes now will be for spending when he’s not working during the school year.

I have also considered paying 80% of the rent, but I feel like that would really bite me in the butt if we don’t end up together in the future. Also, I could be spending the money on savings instead, or to travel instead of to pay my boyfriend’s rent.

Would appreciate honest advice.

I've been a paramedic since 2014 with extensive FTO and leadership experience. I'm currently completing my UG. I have a 4.0 right now, and plan to keep that, but my first college experience wasn't so great. I'm likely to finish with a final GPA of 3.19.

I took my first cold diagnostic with absolutely no exposure to LR and scored a 154. I've been studying for about 3 weeks and am floating around 160 right now. My goal is to get to 168+ (ideally 170+). I won't graduate with my UG until Spring 2028, so plan right now is to take the LSAT in late summer of 2027 (or sooner if I start PTing super well consistently).

I'm looking for some advice on how to spend my study energy, good resources, etc. Currently I'm using LawHub and I purchased The Loophole book.

Also, the schools I'm interested in are:
University of Denver (PT program)
CU Boulder
ASU (online)
KU
UCLA

I have a strong interest in employment, civil rights, and prosecution.

How does my nontraditional splitter status look for these schools and scholarships? Any advice as I begin this journey? Any experience with these schools (especially the DU PT or ASU online)?

I've been incredibly fascinated by the law as I've gotten older. And, given that I've been underemployed for a year now (still trying to find a job in my current line of work) I've started thinking about what a journey to law school at my age might look like.

I am 46 years young (yikes, that sounds old-er than I feel).

I know I can find the average or median age but really hoping folks here can provide some of their thoughts on the pros/cons and what age they matriculated.

mostly here to vent, lol. And I don't know how those of you with kids do it! I work 9-5, often including Saturdays. I get home from work, walk my dogs, and have dinner, and boom, it's 8:00 pm.

I do a ton of drills in little increments when I have time, but I feel like I'm not building the resilience I need to sit down and take the entire test over the course of several hours.

Maybe I'll have some time on Sunday this week.... Laundry will just have to wait!

Imagine flunking out of CC, coming back a decade later and fixing your GPA, then transferring and graduating summa at a university - only to get your LSAC GPA back as a 3.36 😒

Seriously, how is anybody supposed to experience a proper redemption arc when they're automatically discounted for having been garbage at school when they were 17/18?

IK IK, "Just do really well on the LSAT!" "Schools are way more holistic these days (untrue btw)" "Explain it really well in the addenda!"

/sigh

As my kid would say, my GPA is chopped and I'm probably cooked. 67 or whatever.

Hi everyone - I’m looking for recommendations for a top-tier law school admissions consultant, particularly someone who is strong with nontraditional applicants and storytelling/narrative positioning.

A bit about my background:

• 31 years old
• BA from Cornell University - double major in Art History and Film (3.6 GPA)
• MA from Columbia University in Art History (3.9 GPA)
• My MA thesis focused on third-world artists creating an alternative biennale to the Venice Biennale in Iraq. It involved extensive original research and ended up being 100+ pages.
• Worked in the art world for several years after grad school
• Pivoted into startups in 2023 for better financial opportunities
• Now pursuing law school because I think the profession is a much better fit for my analytical/research/writing strengths, while also offering greater long-term financial stability

Right now I’m fully focused on the LSAT. I’m taking it in August and will likely retake in September if needed. My goal is to submit applications as early as possible when portals open to maximize admissions outcomes.

I’m looking for a consultant who can help with:

• overall application strategy
• school selection
• framing a coherent narrative around my career pivot
• personal statement + optional essays
• positioning my humanities/research background as an asset

Would especially appreciate recommendations from people who:

• had strong outcomes at T14 schools or schools in the south with strong job placement
• were older/nontraditional applicants
• came from humanities or unconventional backgrounds
• felt their consultant genuinely elevated their application rather than just editing essays

Also interested in hearing who to avoid and why.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all.

I currently work in a big law firm in Arizona as a zoning and land use paralegal of 8+ years. My husband works at a university that recently started an online part time JD program (yes, it's legit and accredited) that will take about 3.5-4 years. This means if I apply and get in, my tuition would be practically free aside from fees and books.

I already have a bachelor's and master's from the same school in social work and minor in public policy. I am generally decent at academics also. However, I have hesitation. I am already 35 and a mom to a 2 year old and I am the breadwinner currently. Assuming I do all the work and somehow get admitted, I think I would need to reduce from full time to part time work. Financially, that would be a strain. Doable, but we would need to change a lot of our lifestyle to make it work. Based on other people's experiences in law school, is it even possible to work more than part-time while enrolled? It seems like the online program is condensed also, which might be intense.

I am also worried about the workload and being present as a young mom to my child. I also worry about the impact on my partner who would essentially need to pick up my slack and also lock into his job for the next four years. I'd be curious to know other parents who went though law school.

However, if I do end up going, passing bar etc. I would basically be assured a job at my current firm due to my strong relationship with my attorney and our division (I helped start and build our department). I've trained probably close to 50 associates over the lifetime of my career at this firm and I would like to continue within the practice. they pay their associates well and the opportunities I would have might be worth the stress. Lots of assumptions here, but obviously need to look at long run.

I'm not sure. I know ultimately it'll be a personal decision but would love to hear any feedback, personal experiences, etc. from anyone else in any kind of similar boat. Thanks!

People don’t apply to a JD program with a masters degree?

The title.

Some Context; I'm restricted to San Diego and part time due to me being the primary income source for my family. It's here or USD. USD full sent the denial today.

Financing not a huge factor (thankfully). I'm mostly worried about the pedigree around Cal Western. NEED HELP DECIDING ASAP!

Im doing an online JD program that will enable me to have the necessary flexibility to tend with full time work if necessary and give me the requirements to sit for the bar. The program is very cheap (less than 6k a year per year), so no student loans necessary.

My hopes are that for an employing trust and estate practice, my CPA and varying degrees of exposure to various trust returns will be enough for a T&E practice to take a chance on me as a paralegal despite not having direct law firm experience nor studying at an ABA-accredited law school.

And much to my surprise...many of these paralegal roles pay pretty comparably to my current pay, but I wouldn't mind taking a pay cut for the opportunity

Something that may be a credit to my candidacy is that most of our client principals are lawyer patriarchs/matriarchs often with adult children in the family business. So we end up doing the trust/estate accounting AND law firm accounting including stuff like IOLTA/trust/retainer accounting and case matters accounting.

Hi!

I'm in my mid-30s and work as a cybersecurity manager. I've been in IT for the last 15 years and have been working in governance, risk management and compliance for the past 3-4 years in a regulated industry.

I have discovered that I actually really enjoy working on the legal side with our lawyers and compliance team. My experience includes M&A due diligence and working with vendor contracts, so I've spent a fair amount of time self-studying Corporate Law & Contracts already. I'm also familiar with privacy and data breach laws as well.

There are a couple of Master's programs that focus on legal studies which seem relevant to my career. However, I've gotten the feeling that they're potentially frowned upon by lawyers. I can't say with 100% confidence that I want to practice law, but some days it feels like a desirable exit strategy for me, as roles within the tech industry are increasingly volatile, especially for cyber executives who tend to change companies every 1-2 years. I have a computer science degree, so I'm also aware that patent agent/attorney is a possibility too - but I don't see myself as a litigator.

That said, I keep coming back to this. I'm a single parent, so I would have to tackle this one bite at a time, and I'm not in a position to move around. I'm curious to get other people's thoughts about the pros and cons of law school given my situation. Maybe there are other things I'm not even considering?

I’m currently 29, on track to finish my PhD in computational biology by age 30-31. It’s hard to pin down an exact time due to some uncertainty in the dissertation process, but I have passed my qualifying exams.

I’m considering going to law school either in place of my post doctoral training or on a part time basis during my post doc. Has anyone here done that or am I being overly ambitious? I realize that those are two pretty distinct paths, which leads me to question that line of thinking.

I’m pretty debt adverse. What does the scholarship and funding landscape look like for someone in my position? Would it be worth taking the next 12-18 months doing lsat prep in my free time to see if I can get a large portion of law school covered?

I appreciate any insights.

EDIT:

The reason I am considering law is the uncertainty in funding in science in the US. If I were to stay in academia, my laboratory and career would live and die based on my availability to acquire government grants. The past year has seen a large reduction in funding to research, leading me to consider alternative careers where I can use my PhD skillset. I believe patent law could be one of those areas, and may give me sufficient STEM type work in my day to day to maintain my interest in that aspect.

URM woman in tech, been in the UX industry for 10 years.

I’m curious, have you or do you know anyone who has made a career switch away from tech and pursued a law degree or a career in law? Since I was a kid, I’ve always felt a draw towards the legal field but couldn’t afford to pursue law school after undergrad due to financial difficulties and being the first in my family to go to college. I needed to prioritize making stable money, which I was able to as a UX designer. Now that I’m 10 years into my UX career, I’ve felt such a nagging feeling that UX isn’t the place for my career anymore. I feel like I’ve outgrown it so much to the point where not enough time away from work or the industry gets rid of that feeling. I’m not necessarily burnt out from working (yet?) but I just look around at where the UX field is going and I truly just want no part in it. It’s not necessarily just because of AI but I do think the way AI is getting shoved into any and everything design related is just surfacing up the underlying ick I’ve always felt about the state of design. It just feels like design is not set up to contribute anything meaningful to society and alteast working in law means there can be some meaningful changes made to the current state of the world.

I’m currently in the process of studying for the LSAT and I would love to connect with likeminded folks who feel the same way or folks who have taken this path before. I haven’t really mentioned it to my designer friends but hoping I’m not the only person who has made this shift before (and if I am, I’m happy to share my journey in making this shift!)

EDIT: I also want to add that I’ve worked across the gamut of tech companies with varying levels of design maturity (FAANG, start ups, old school tech companies like IBM, etc).

Is more overall financial aid offered for the full-time program compared to the part-time program at a given school, or does it average out to be about the same?

Does the part-time program always have a lower median LSAT and lower average undergraduate GPA compared to the full-time program at the same law school?

I’m in the process of researching programs.