Law School Discussion

Hi everyone, I am new, glad I found this forum, seem like a great place for answers that I have.

I would like to know if it would be easy finding part time law related work while in law school full time. I know and read that there are summer jobs but it would seem like 1L would be the toughest on the wallet.

a little about me
male
32
soon to be married and 2 children
in undergrad (took 10+ years off to work)

I first started to want to get in to law working with the FBI to prosecute someone who hacked my servers. seem like the world need more IP laws and people who understand the new technologies and able to apply the IP laws. I am accomplished in my field, but I finally just decided to go back to school to finish the ug degree so I can get into law school. I took a few prep tests for LSAT and find myself enjoying the tests very much and upon further reading I found out I would suit the field of law pretty well.

But it is going to be tough figuring out what to do to keep my family living well while attending school full time. I don't want to do PT programs because I already missed so much time with school. I also have kids, a mortgage and other things to pay for.

I looked on LSN and thing I can probably qualify for some scholarships at the middle level schools, but I would still need a decent amount to upkeep the home. My soon to be wife would stay home, take care of the kids and work part-time.

My question would be

Would 1L be able to find part time work in law related field? I would have to quit what I am doing now, and the part-time jobs I can get do not pay very well.

What are the chances of getting top schools with my situation? My current GPA is about 3.7, I plan to get it to 3.8 by graduation (most classes I am taking I should be qualified to teach, thats 1 good thing about working in the industry so long ). I hope to get 170 on LSAT, I am getting 165 or so with the prep tests but I have not done a prep course yet (took the tests cold).

I live in Philadelphia, and have some credentials with some good organizations in the area, and I want to get into Penn. I will apply to Penn and Temple, from LSN maybe I can get money from Temple if I get to my grade/LSAT target, but really want to get into Penn... If I can get in and afford it!

I am Asian but I guess thats not going to help me lol

thanks all!

thanks! What about the summer after 1L and after? My best bet as I thought would be try to qualify for money at schools then take out loans to keep everything paid. but if there are good work prospect after 1L it would obviously be that much better. Boy if I had knew i was going to law school I wouldn't have gotten into this mortgage and its a horrible time to sell too.

how do most non-traditional keep the bills paid? working spouse? then you would need childcare too.

thanks! What about the summer after 1L and after? My best bet as I thought would be try to qualify for money at schools then take out loans to keep everything paid. but if there are good work prospect after 1L it would obviously be that much better. Boy if I had knew i was going to law school I wouldn't have gotten into this mortgage and its a horrible time to sell too.

how do most non-traditional keep the bills paid? working spouse? then you would need childcare too.

I’m not sure how this works with scholarships but each school has a “cost of attendance” which is the maximum you can borrow per year (I think they deduct from that any scholly you get). Do a search on the law schools website to find out how much that is at each school. This includes everything from tuition to what they will allow you for room and board, which is most of the time really low. It certainly will not cover a mortgage unless you live in a very inexpensive place and don’t need food or utilities to survive.  Most 1Ls don’t get paying jobs the first summer, of course this depends on what school you go to, but its relatively rare outside the top schools. Most volunteer or RA the first summer to get some experience.

I have classmates who worked fulltime jobs and had kids (one a single mother of three) who did it in 3 years just like FT,

How in the heck did she pull it off in 3 years going Part-time??? Most part-time programs I've looked at said 5 years! Wow my hat goes off to this women, and I'd love to get some pointers, tips, or advice on how she did it!


To the OP. Here is my plan to live a comfortable lifestyle while not working and attending LS full-time:
I recently completed 8 weeks of trainging to become a Professional Foster Parent. Of course it's not for everyone but the state of AZ reimburses 100 per day per child. Now of course i'm not doing it just for the money to attend law school, I really do want to help teenage foster children, but 3 grand a month per child will help as well!

I don't recommend viewing foster children as the key to paying for it.  What you'll need to do is:
 1) pay off all of your debts that you can before law school
 2) You will likely need to take out the maximum amount of loans to pay for school.  Even if you get scholarships, there is a ceiling to what you can take out, so
 3) treat your living expenses for your student loans as your salary.  That's what you get -- learn to live on it.  Cut cable, trips, eating out, and $1000 per child Christmases. Different schools give you slightly different figures.  I was around $1400/month at some schools and closer to $1700/month at others.
 4) Spread that number over 12 months, instead of 10.  You will need to be able to work unpaid summer jobs if that's what it comes down to, to help this be a worthwhile investment. 
 5) You are not allowed, at most schools, to work more than X hours per week as a 1L law student.
 6) Bust ass to be able to get the paid gigs over the summer.  I earn between $30k and $40k a summer for 12-14 weeks of work.
 7) Consider selling the house.  It would give you better mobility for taking the best deal to come up, and you could have more control over whether your monthly expenses are affordable. There are plenty of financial scenarios where this would be a bad move, but you should at least look into the option.