grad school dropout -- how much will it hurt?

[potato-potato]

four years ago i decided to leave a 4-year straight to phd program in linguistics.  i was two years in but i just knew that it wasn't for me and went to work in japan (where i still am).  i have 3.5 UGPA and my gpa in grad school was 3.8.  i'm taking the LSAT in oct. and have been consistently scoring 170+ on practice tests.  i have some softs but does the fact that i dropped out of grad school kill any chance i have at a T14, even the lower half?

[tome]

I can't see how that could possibly hurt you at all. You had a good GPA and left of your own accord to do something interesting. Especially if you can get a reference or two from professors there saying how awesome you are (or even how sad they were to see you go) you'll be golden. With your scores, some T14 will be sending you some love.

Better than my position, I have a 3.3 GPA in the grad program I quit. That was actually not bad for my program (about 1 or 2 in 10 make it through), but I doubt admissions officials will see it that way. I am hoping my professors professing my greatness will be enough.

[potato-potato]

Thanks for the encouragement.  It was probably the toughest decision I've had to make in my life so far, thinking in terms of what future employers, admissions officers, etc. might make of it.  Four years have passed since then and I haven't gone homeless or anything and  hopefully my profs still remember me and will be keen to recommend me.

BTW what kind of program were you in?  1-2 out of ten sounds pretty rough ><

[flyaway]

I left a grad program after the first year, seven years before I applied to law school (same as you... just wasn't at all for me).  As far as I can tell, it wasn't an issue.  It might have been more of an issue if so much time hadn't passed and I hadn't had a work history of staying at jobs for reasonable lengths of time.  Since yours was four years ago, I would guess that would be long enough... you're not just hopping from program to program to find something that fits.

[OnTheRoad]

Not an issue at all. Getting into it demonstrates your intelligence, schools won't care about anything else.