random ranting

psteav wrote: First of all, 29 is not too old to go back to school. If you're just starting a bachelors, though, you WILL be at least 36 by the time you finish law school. I had several friends while I was in law school who were in their late 30s by the time they finished. It's not terribly unusual, and if you can do it financially, great. BUT: GIVE A LOT OF THOUGHT TO WHETHER OR NOT YOU WANT TO BE A LAWYER. Seriously. The hours suck, the schooling is mind-numbing, the pay is not as good as everyone believes, and most importantly, the market is completely saturated right now. We have enough lawyers to go around and probably will for the foreseeable future, but colleges keep pumping new lawyers out because the law schools are profit centers that make money for the college as a whole. I graduated in 2009 from a second-tier law school. A year later, my class only had about 50% employment as lawyers. That class had an average of something like $76,000 in student loan debt (mine is actually way higher than that). It's gotten a little better, but its still not good. Now, if you're actually passionate about being a lawyer and you have an accurate perception of what practicing law is like, then more power to you. Passion for your field will take you a long way. But I would reccommend that you go work in a law office first as a paralegal to get an idea of what life in the trenches is like. It's not for everyone and its rarely what people envisioned prior to going to school. Also, this might help you find an area or field of law that you like and want to specialize in. The days of the "Atticus-Finch-does-everything-country-lawyer" are slowly coming to an end. If you do go back to school, pre-law as a major is a sucker bet. Law schools will take you if you have a BA or BS in anything and a high enough LSAT score. Study something else that interests you (and then if you don't go to law school, or start and decide not to go through with it, you'll have a fallback career). Just some thoughts from someone else who was either going to be a mechanic or a lawyer, became a lawyer, and now realizes he wants to be a mechanic.

There's a lot of good info here. You should get a BA or BS in something else that you're interested in, that way you have a useful degree if you decide to not go to law school for whatever reason.

I have 3 attorney friends who are now teachers because they hated the work so much.

psteav wrote: First of all, 29 is not too old to go back to school. If you're just starting a bachelors, though, you WILL be at least 36 by the time you finish law school. I had several friends while I was in law school who were in their late 30s by the time they finished. It's not terribly unusual, and if you can do it financially, great.

This I agree with. I didn't get serious about college until about the time I retired from the army at age 38. Did try the full time bit for a year or so, got tired of the $$stress. My girls were teenager and preteen. So I did take a full-time job and moved to the job but didn't stop school. Finished the bachelors right before I turned 45. Admittedly was a little burned out from working full time, going to night school & doing coursework, taking care of a 1-acre yard and teenage daughters and got promoted to a job that travelled some so I let about 9 months of GI Bill expire and didn't go for a masters. Wouldn't have really helped much in my job anyway.

I have had a few peers from high school end up in law. One that I keep in close contact anticipates over $100k in debt once he graduates. Between graduating with his bachelor's and starting law, he at least worked for a few firms to solidify that it is something that he wants to do.

psteav wrote: First of all, 29 is not too old to go back to school. If you're just starting a bachelors, though, you WILL be at least 36 by the time you finish law school. I had several friends while I was in law school who were in their late 30s by the time they finished. It's not terribly unusual, and if you can do it financially, great. (snip) If you do go back to school, pre-law as a major is a sucker bet. Law schools will take you if you have a BA or BS in anything and a high enough LSAT score. Study something else that interests you (and then if you don't go to law school, or start and decide not to go through with it, you'll have a fallback career).

Lots of truth here - heed these words, for they are wise. My thought is that the best "pre-law" major is going to be business. Even if you end up at a big firm, you'll end up needing that business degree to understand the work that you'll be dealing with. That also helps to open up a lot of the corporate law positions that are out there.

AND there is a huge glut of lawyers out there now, ever since the whole economic meltdown.