Any lawyers available for a career Q?

[mom de terre]

If you're out there, Hello!

I've recently become enamored with the idea of going to law school. I've been a teacher for ten years, and I think I would like to move into some facet of school law and policy. I'm planning to take the LSATs in February; I recently took my first practice test and scored a 161. If I start law school in the fall of '12, I will be 38 years old.

Why might or might not this be a good idea?

Thanks!

[LittleBattleAxe]

Hey there! I am not a lawyer. My dh is. I put this to him, and this is what he had to say.

If your dream has always been to be a litigator, then do it. Know that you go to law school, and train in law school, to become a litigator. If you have always wanted to do it, then make that investment in yourself and do it.

If your dream is to have some effect on school policy and how schools are run, he believes you would be going about it the wrong way. School law and policy may be classes that are offered (but they may not be!), but they are not an area of specialization. He said if your DREAM is to make schools better by crafting better policies, then you would be much better off getting your administrator's certification, maybe even a D Ed, and trying to use your influence that way.

He mostly saw a lot of cons -- you could graduate with 100K in debt depending on where you go to school. You will be 41 when you graduate, and you will be competing against hungry, ambitious 25 year olds. You will be competing against graduates of top notch schools, because there are many more "baby lawyers" now than there are jobs for them. Law school is hard, hard work. Marriages can be strained. Time for children is hard to come by, as the study load is so hard. And there is no guarantee you could find the sort of job you think you want.

[BookGoddess]

I went to law school in my 20s. I had no kids. No DH. I was free to spend a lot of time concentrating on my course work and I needed to do that. The school I went to strongly recommended their students not work at a part-time job during the year. I can see why. For me, the first year of law school was the toughest. I had been a very good student in college, but law school was a whole different ball game. Everyone was so smart. The teachers had such high expectations. There was actually a time in my first semester when I considered dropping out because I was overwhelmed by all the reading, the teaching methodology and course work, but my then boyfriend (now DH) convinced me to think twice. I stuck it out. I graduated and passed the bar.

I think you have to look at the cost, time commitment, and impact on your current lifestyle. At 38, you're not "too old" to go to law school. I had classmates that were far older than you. They were some of the best and most interesting students because they had real world experience compared to people like me who came to law school straight out of college.

It sounds like you're not planning to work for a private firm. It sounds like you're thinking of working in the education system or maybe for nonprofit. If that's the case then you're not competing with too many young hot-shot 20-somethings just out of law school. After graduation, most of my friends headed straight for large private firms because that where the big bucks were back in the day.

Could you do what you want to do (policy and running of schools) without a law degree? Could you do that with a Masters in Public Administration or Masters in Public Affairs? There are some schools that offer a JD/MPA.

I think a law degree is very useful even if you choose not to practice law directly. I know several people who were hired for government positions - management and policy - because of their law degrees. They don't represent clients or litigate, but their legal training landed them those jobs.

Ok, I rambled on a bit here.

I hope there's something useful to your query.

[mom de terre]

Originally Posted by LittleBattleAxe

Hey there! I am not a lawyer. My dh is. I put this to him, and this is what he had to say.


He mostly saw a lot of cons -- you could graduate with 100K in debt depending on where you go to school. You will be 41 when you graduate, and you will be competing against hungry, ambitious 25 year olds. You will be competing against graduates of top notch schools, because there are many more "baby lawyers" now than there are jobs for them. Law school is hard, hard work. Marriages can be strained. Time for children is hard to come by, as the study load is so hard. And there is no guarantee you could find the sort of job you think you want.

Thanks, LBA. These are most of the cons that have already been weighing on my mind. I particularly worry that employers will perceive me as less driven because I'm older.

I would spork myself in the eye before I got a Phd.Ed. :

[mom de terre]

Originally Posted by BookGoddess

I think you have to look at the cost, time commitment, and impact on your current lifestyle. At 38, you're not "too old" to go to law school. I had classmates that were far older than you. They were some of the best and most interesting students because they had real world experience compared to people like me who came to law school straight out of college.

It sounds like you're not planning to work for a private firm. It sounds like you're thinking of working in the education system or maybe for nonprofit. If that's the case then you're not competing with too many young hot-shot 20-somethings just out of law school. After graduation, most of my friends headed straight for large private firms because that where the big bucks were back in the day.

Could you do what you want to do (policy and running of schools) without a law degree? Could you do that with a Masters in Public Administration or Masters in Public Affairs? There are some schools that offer a JD/MPA.

I think a law degree is very useful even if you choose not to practice law directly. I know several people who were hired for government positions - management and policy - because of their law degrees. They don't represent clients or litigate, but their legal training landed them those jobs.

Ok, I rambled on a bit here.

I hope there's something useful to your query.

Very useful, and a bit reassuring. It's nice to know that you went to law school with older students and that tey were considered to be assets. I've read that in law school entry information, but I wasn't sure how much I believed it.

A JD/MPA program sounds interesting. I'm actually not interested in running schools. My perfect job would be to work on contract negotiations and dispute resolution for the state teachers union, then possibly work in the Dept. of Ed.

[LittleBattleAxe]

Want to add here that we knew some older students when dh was in law school as well, and they were, I think, a very positive influence on the youngsters because they had more life perspective. And the ones we know have done quite well for themselves -- though not always as practicing lawyers.

It was a very all-consuming experience for dh. And very expensive! When I was in my 20s I vaguely considered law school, but after seeing dh go through it, I realized there is no way I want to commit myself to that much reading. Which is ironic since I'm an English teacher!

The bottom line, though, is that if it's what you really want to do, you should invest in yourself. Three years will go by regardless of what you are doing, and if your heart is set on practicing law, then those three years will be fast.

[LittleBattleAxe]

Oh! I also wanted to say that depending on the sort of law you do, it can be a good schedule for a mom. I know several moms who are lawyers; they often work out of their homes (no overhead) and have flexible schedules (maybe they are at the courthouse once a week).

[BookGoddess]

Originally Posted by mom de terre

A JD/MPA program sounds interesting. I'm actually not interested in running schools. My perfect job would be to work on contract negotiations and dispute resolution for the state teachers union, then possibly work in the Dept. of Ed.

A law degree will be useful if that's what you're planning to do.

I do something similar now, but in a different field. I got this job specifically because of my legal training.

If this is your dream then go for it.

[KenzieBee]

Hi - new to the boards and soon to be working lawyer mom here. I saw your post and wanted to reply because I practice school law (or education law, if you will) nearby in CT. I am doing some of what you mentioned - working on teachers' contracts and labor disputes - although that aspect of the job is relatively new to me. I started out doing solely the "student side" of things as opposed to the labor & employment side: special education is a huge part of that, as well as student discipline. I should note that I am a school board attorney rather than a union attorney. I work at a private firm, and we are retained as counsel by several local boards of ed.

This is a challenging but fun, and little-known, area of the law. The school law community here is small. If you would consider working for the school systems, you can put your passion to use helping boards and administrators learn to comply with the law and avoid costly litigation - whether during negotiations with the teachers' union, or when handling parent complaints over special or general ed matters, if that's something you eventually become interested in. The employment side deals with issues such as renewals or non-renewals of non-tenured teachers, discipline of tenured teachers (as you know it's difficult to do so!), and hiring/firing of non-certified staff (think custodians), to name a few.

Union attorneys as well as "parents' attorneys" (our counterpart in dealing with the student matters) also seem to love the practice. It is a lot of work but I find it very rewarding. There are days that I want to pull my hair out, of course. We'll see how things go when I return from leave and start my 12-week-old in daycare this fall!

Best of luck to you. And ditto what others said about the long haul and hard work of law school - you will hear a lot on that so I won't rehash it here!

[Belleweather]

Just to make you aware, the legal market is really, really, REALLY bad right now. The top firms cut their recruiting programs during the recession and haven't really brought them back up to 'normal' speed or size yet -- and might never.

What that means is that a lot of the new attorneys who would usually have gone into big firm law having taken their sterling credentials (high GPAs, big-name internships, journal memberships, etc.) and are now taking jobs in other parts of the legal world, so there is a LOT of competition even for the sorts of jobs that don't technically require a JD, (up to and including paralegal work, since if you've got $120K in student loans coming due, there are plenty of licensed attorneys willing to work as paralegals...) and there is likely to be a lot of competition for a long time in the future.

Combine that with a bunch of new law schools coming on line, and this is really NOT a good time, economically speaking, to be a newbie lawyer! Not that I'd say not to do it, if it's something you've been dreaming of for a long time, but I'd think really really hard about whether there are other ways to do what you want to do first, and be prepared for a bumpy ride!