I received the news about my second cut in pay just as I was starting on civil procedure.
Even if you don't plan to do anything more than explore legal concepts right now, it can't hurt to lay some sort of foundation. Mid Atlantic does not require students to hand in case briefs. But, there is nothing like a written memorial to show the world what you can do. Each Gilberts volume cites hundreds of court opinions. So, just briefing twenty five out of each book is really just a drop in the bucket. But, you won't be reading opinions that are in the typical law school case book. Many of those cases are shortened considerably (I spent a year in a brick and mortar law school and ran out of money after the first year. During that time, there were very few federally funded student loans for law school.). The opinions you will be reading will come from versuslaw.com or from Google Scholar. Many full length opinions can be 20 or more pages long. As a result, you can easily study and brief opinions 10 hours a day; six days a week. Even if Mid Atlantic doesn't require case briefs, just having them in a loose leaf binder, ready to send to the California Office of Admissions at any time will benefit anyone who has these files compiled.
Also, get published. We are lucky that we don't have to send articles to magazine publishers hoping and praying for anything but those inevitable rejection letters. Just posting on discussion forums like this, means that we are published. Anyone can get a free webpage from bepress.com and post their unpublished [in a hard copy magazine] articles there. I am hoping that when I start interviewing for a paralegal position, an attorney will at least take notice of my webpage and decide to invite me for an interview. The articles on my webpage are relatively elementary as far as legal analysis goes. But, I do intend to post at least five more articles [hence, demonstrate more experience] before I start "pounding the pavement."
http://www.works.bepress.com/angela_passaro.
I believe that anyone out there can be an attorney or certified paralegal with credentials earned online. We just have to be ten times better than the brick and mortar ABA graduate who was ranked 300 out of a graduating class of 300. The name of their school will get them in the door. An online JD graduate's resume "without something more" will just go in the trash or be deleted.
Age is not an issue in law or medicine. A recent 60 year old JD graduate will just look like a senior partner to a client.