Hey guys! Any over-30 law students with finance backgrounds who have been through OCI on here? How'd you do?

My situation: accepted into Fordham Law School (T30) in NYC, starting this fall. I am 32 with over seven years of experience in financial services (four years in operations, 3+ years in portfolio/risk management enterprise financial software sales). Series 7/63 licensed and have the CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) certification.

I am hoping that such a background will work for me during OCI, both for SA and FYA or government positions. I figure that going in with extensive knowledge of securities and trading would be a plus, especially with firms/agencies that practice securities or corporate law and/or deal with white collar crime cases. Based on your experiences, do you think this will be the case?

I'm facing this choice right now and it's very, very difficult. It's T14 v. ~40 regional school with less than half the debt. Honestly, the regional school is an amazing place, and I already have a home here, but it's still an agonizing process. Not sure what will be the deciding factor. Didn't have anywhere near this much difficulty choosing a college or grad school.

If I was in your situation, I would probably take the regional school and never look back. It's a little more complicated for me because the regional school is more expensive than I would like.

Westcoast,
A few weeks ago I was in a very similar situation. The regional school just wasn't cheap enough to select it over the higher ranked school.
I sent in a withdrawal letter to regional, they upped my schooly considerably, and after a little back-and-forth I ended up with a full ride. I am taking that offer and never looking back! (as you said!)

I'm not recommending the all-in withdrawal approach (and maybe my school is just exceptionally hard up for LSATs over their median), but I certainly recommend negotiating with the regional.

Obviously, you may have already done this. However, at this point schools are getting a more solid idea of how their class is looking, and I think offers are going up (if my experience and TLS are any indication...). Negotiate again.

Feel free to PM me if you want - but I feel like I kinda lucked out in the whole process...not sure how much my particular negotiations would help.

Still, best of luck deciding between two good options!

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried negotiating several times with the school without success. I think the fact that I get in-state tuition doesn't help. From their perspective, the price is probably quite reasonable as is. But if I could think of a good angle, I might give it another shot.

I've tried the all-in approach with a few schools that I didn't care about. But they usually respond that they don't have enough funds. I'm surprised I haven't been able to leverage my other offers successfully.

Checking in for this thread. I'm 30 now and I'm applying in the 2012-13 cycle. By the time I start school I will be going on 32 (yikes). I have a Master's in International Relations and I've been with my country's foreign service for five years (this will be six by the time I start school). I'm looking forward to law school. I think this is the right time to either do it or never speak of it again.

.

Edit, I hit the enter key too soon....

Anyway, I did put my stuff on LSN but won't help you as it isn't for your target schools...

I think that your reasons are EXACTLY why someone should go part time Loyola. No debt. Keep your income. Keep your job WHILE you look for a JD job.....

I haven't started yet and will be full time but those are my thoughts anyway.

Good luck.

I am younger than you, but old enough for this thread; I just finished my third year in a PT-program and I've done well. I worked all three years and I am currently a SA at really great firm. Random pointers I can give you.

1. PT-programs are high risk, high reward. If you can pull off great grades while working full time you'll impress potential employers.

2. Your age may be an issue for some employers, but that will be somewhat offset by the fact that you might be a great IP candidate (I honestly don't know very much about IP, but your job sounds similar to some students in my program who self-identify as IP people). I know of a couple of students in my PT program around your age who had strong grades and came from some type of software/CS backgrounds. Both landed multiple job offers from big firms. I don't want to sugarcoat things for you. I think a PT-program is right for you, especially given your age and the opportunity cost of attending. Just know that landing biglaw in your circumstances is doable, but the odds are stacked against you.

3. You need to have a supportive boss. You have to figure out a way to allocate 45 hours a week to work and nothing more. My boss and I worked out a deal that I didn't have to take any crap assignments or travel during the academic year, but during Winter and Summer Break I took on all the hard stuff and traveled. My colleagues were okay with this arrangement.

Also, know that going to law school will kill your career with your current employer. As supportive as your employer will be, everybody understands you are looking to move on and you will be treated accordingly. You may wish to consider keeping your matriculation to yourself for at least the first year of school. If you bomb school you can bail out of LS with out paying the political price at work. I didn't tell anybody about school until after my first year.

4. You need to have a supportive spouse and family. Your family will sacrifice just as much as you will without enjoying some of the benefits of being a student.

5. Some people will tell you there is a stigma attached with PT-programs. I haven't picked up on that sentiment with people in the legal community.

6. To answer your question, the biggest difficulty for me was a lack of downtime. During the academic year I was exhausted because I was either working or studying. Personally, I found discipline and commitment to a routine were the keys to success. Our semesters last roughly 20 weeks and I would just focus on the fact that I could recharge once the semester was over.

The other difficult part was gaining legal experience after my second year. The typical law student does some type of unpaid legal work after her first year in law school. For PT-students that unpaid work usually takes place in the summers after the first and second years. Obviously, you don't want to quit your job after the second year of law school so you'll need to find a legal employer that is willing to work with you and your time constraints.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for the validation.



I hadn't really thought about this particular spin, and I appreciate hearing this perspective. It makes perfect sense.



This is what keeps me awake at night. I have these nightmare scenarios rumbling around in my head when I go to sleep on Sundays and imagine that I will begin Law School the next day (yeah, I haven't started thinking about exams yet) AND there's an important new project starting the same day at my company that is "mission critical" to my team's success. At that point, the reality of a demanding job sets in, and I begin to doubt my plans. My work ethic has always been that if I can only commit to doing a half-assed job, and not giving at least 100% of myself, then I don't do it at all (honestly, this has been a blocker for me with respect to returning to school all these years). Although I don't expect that I would begin to do things half-assed at work just because I'm going to Law School, there certainly seems to be some room for conflict to arise: what if the job demands 60+ hours from me in order to meet an important deadline? This seems more likely to happen if I don't tell my boss that I'm attending Law School. There are some valid reasons for keeping it a secret, particularly if failure is an option. If I plan for failure, is failure more likely? If I plan for success .... ?

Maybe I'm just over thinking it, but what I fear most is boxing myself into an either/or decision down the road, particularly when the same decision could have been made earlier and with a better overall outcome.



I currently earn 5 weeks of vacation per year, and the most HR will let me accrue, I believe, is 14-16 weeks. I've always used 100% of my vacation every year, but after discussing it with my family, I'll only use two more weeks of vacation between now and when school starts for me in 2013 (vacations are already planned and paid for). I figure that by the time school starts, I will have approximately 6 weeks of vacation available. I can use it during the school year for study time and to prevent burn out, or I save some/all of it to be able to work on volunteer/unpaid legal work during the summer (if I use no vacation next year, then I would have about 11-12 weeks accrued by June 2014). My gut tells me that I will probably benefit more from having this time during the school year, and my employer would be highly unlikely to approve a 12-week summer vacation. I could reasonably take 2 days/week off during the summer to work somewhere else. What are your thoughts on how best to use vacation time?

Thanks for the insight. Now, back to examining questions that have clear right and wrong answers -- studying for the LSAT will surely calm my spirits.

Checking into this thread. Not 30 yet, but will be when (if) I start law school.

I screwed around during my first attempt at UG. Second go around was exponentially better, but my LSAC GPA is still hosed. HYS and likely CCN are out. I could squeak into some lower T14 schools, but I doubt there would be much in the way of scholarship money.

I have an established career in something that I love, but I've always wanted to go to law school. I just don't think that quitting my job to get myself 200k into debt is a reasonable decision. I don't want biglaw, so my decision comes down to how I can do this properly and also cost effectively. I'm thinking about going part time to my local TTT. My grades are above median there, and I believe they award decent scholarships. I'm just starting to think about this as a serious option, so we'll see. If I can do it for nearly free, then I have nothing to lose by giving it a try.

Heebie-Jeebies- Sounds like you have a plan in place. Own it, and I think you'll do very well.

I am a second career law student, like most people here. The key is to identify what area of the law you want to practice, and plan out a realistic/practical path before you start. I know what I wanted to do, and I even looked at what firms I want to target when I am in law school. I was ridiculed by TLS for wanting to target certain firms before I started law school. But alas, I am now working at the #1 firm on my list as a 1L, because I did my homework before hand and followed my plan.

I think do your due diligence. If it is feasible that you can get to where you want to be by doing the part-time option, you can. Several people I know are second career lawyers. They went to local TTTT part-time because they had a workable plan and the only thing missing were ANY JD. I wasn't so sure about that, so I hedged my bet by going to a T14 instead of my local T2 for free or part-time for free. It may or may not be necessary to take out the extra debt, but I am happy with the result. I think at this stage in my career at least, I didn't want to go down a one way street. I figured if my plan, while entirely practical and realistic, could still go wrong. So I wanted to be able to just follow the traditional path of a law student to biglaw, so I took the safer route of a T14. It's really nice to have options, so I would be careful limiting your options to save money. Think about it, the more earning power you have now, the more you should be willing to buy some future options with money.

Thanks for the advice r6!

I'm sitting on a 3.6 LSAC GPA and I've been PTing in the 160s without a class (not conclusive by any means, but I haven't sat for the test yet so it's all I've got). I'd quit my job in a second for Harvard or Yale, but I don't see that happening.

Had I gotten my shiznit together earlier, I could have done the traditional path of T14, Biglaw, Profit. I also would have had a much nicer economy to welcome me into the profession! Now, it just doesn't appeal to me. I want to start a family and all that jazz, so the idea of having to work crazy hours to pay off massive debt kind of scares me.

It's not so much that I want to leave the company that I work for or even to work in a firm, just to open up some additional career paths here. It's a major logistics company that has many union employees and a large legal department. I've done some light networking and research. I realize in-house positions are tough to get, but if I can't get it, I'll at least still have a job that I'm happy with. Also, my company will pay at least a portion of my law school expenses.

I've worked full time all through undergrad, so I think I am up to the workload. I really hope I'm not wrong about that.

Planning to sit the OCT LSAT and see what happens. Definitely a plan in need of further consideration and development though!

I'll provide the counter example. I hedged by going PT to a lower T1 instead of heading to a higher ranked school in state. My hedge was that keeping my job gave me a bail out option if things didn't work out. Three years later, I'm a SA at my #1 choice firm. I looked at avoiding school debt as opening up more options post-graduation, although my goal was, and continues to be, big law. IMHO, school debt tends to narrow employment options coming out of the gate. No debt + biglaw is a good position to be in; and I'm very pleased with the way things have played out thus far.

I don't mean to suggest any one option is best. Every choice has its advantages and limitations. I'm merely suggesting that there are multiple paths to the ultimate goal.

If your company would pay for some of the cost and give you a job/promotion/opportunities when you are done, then you have much lower risk. Going part-time to a TTT isn't so bad in that case, but again, you are limiting your options to pretty much your company only.

As for work load, it isn't what they make it out to be. I also worked in UG while taking on an overload of credits, and law school while working part-time is about the same. The only thing about working and going to law school is that you miss out on a lot of networking opportunities. Law is about relationships in and out of where you work. If you don't take time to build relationships with your classmates you are missing out.

Best of luck! I would suggest you take a really good class if you can spare the time/money. It's a learnable test and you can improve on your already solid foundation. I feel that if I took a class instead of self-study I might have been able to get into HYS. But I am very happy with where I sit right now so take that with a grain of salt

I totally agree. The fact that we are all getting to law through a different path is proof enough. In my case, it was between Penn and Temple for local schools. I think median at Penn still have better options than top 10-15% at Temple. So I took the "safer" route (to me) and paid about $75k for it. Right now, I feel like I have a realistic chance at every firm in the country that has a need in my practice area. I am not sure if I can say that about Temple (for example, I don't know if I can get an offer from top firms in Cali even if I am 10% at Temple). Maybe I will not need any of the options I have, but it's a nice luxury to have.

Of course personal situation controls. Just make sure you decide what's important to you and make sure you take a good path to get there.

I think this is fair and I completely agree with the part about national options.

ETA: My local school had no problem getting me into the most selective firms in our home market, but I know it carries little weight outside of my home market. As I said earlier, every choice has its advantages and limitations.

I was out of undergrad for 12 years before starting law school full time. I was making well over twice what you mentioned as a software sales executive -- also not a brag, just to tell you you're not crazy for considering a new path. I did not have children, so that makes our situations slightly different. In any case, I also considered a lower ranked part time program, but ultimately decided to tough it out and attend full time at a local T1 that places well in my market. I am 100% positive that giving up income for 3 years and going to a better school was the right decision. Then again, based on my 1L outcomes, Big Law is a realistic option for me -- if it weren't I probably wouldn't feel the same. Of course you can't know going in whether you'll be at the top. I am fortunate that our local T1 offers in state tuition and performance based scholarships, which they award based on 1L outcomes. I'm going to an exceptional LS for the price of a very nice vacation each year. Whatever you decide, you need to be at the top of your class, so prepare your family up front that you're going to be swamped (as in studying on the weekends) during 1L. 1L grades are all that matter and you should do whatever it takes to be at the top of your class -- if you go to a lower ranked part time program, this is even more important.

Hey gang. I was contributing to this thread years ago, but I took some time off from TLS. I graduated from a top 20 LS, and I now work in big law (very strong litigation firm that I will not reveal here). Just wanted to drop in and say hi to the old timers. I started law school at 32. It was a tough road, but I'm glad I did it! I'll keep my eye on this thread and help out as much as I can.

Edit for grammar.

Congrats on the accomplishments!

Thanks for stopping in and sharing.

I'm in a very similar boat.
Did you make any good connections at law firms you worked at? Can you leverage those connections?

Hey all. Need some advice from post-grad or 3L 30+ers. OCI is just around the corner and I have been working on my resume, getting advice from our CSO, etc. But I just cannot see how to get my resume down to one page, and I am guessing maybe some of you are struggling with this too? I am sort of resentful that there seems to be this hard and fast rule that it should never exceed one page, based mostly I believe on the culture of law students being so young and not having anything (usually) worth going on to a second page for. However, I have a decade of work experience in diverse jobs, where I achieved outcomes or had responsibilities that I think can really speak to my value for a firm. If I made any of my job descriptions any shorter, it would start to look like I really didn't do much at all! So, it was 1.5 pages long before I sent it in for review and the counselor basically said she thought I could get it down to 1 page, which is really important to do. She suggested I edit one particular item and make my margins bigger. After that I am now down to....1 1/3 pages.

Anyone reading this who is at a firm, is it really that bad to have a 2 page resume? When it is not filled with fluff (as it wouldn't be for someone with a decade of work experience), how can it be a bad thing to have a well-edited resume that is longer than one page? It feels so arbitrary. If I really, really have to get it to one page, I think my only option is to completely delete one or more of my previous jobs, but I feel like that is...not falsifying, but lying by omission, basically. At the very least, I think it could give someone the impression I am trying to make myself seem younger than I am, i.e. by insinuating that I started working in say 2005 instead of 2000. It just seems unethical to me.

Anyway, would like to hear from those in the know and/or those that have struggled with the same thing. TIA!

Ah! I was working on my resume and ran into the same issue. Not sure. In my case, the trouble with bringing it down to 1 page comes from 6 years of work experience as well as multiple relevant peer reviewed publications, lectures and media quotes/appearances. Advice welcome.

I'm going 10 point and doing 1 page only. I look forward to graduating and being able to do a CV with 2 pages, though.

I am in the same boat but might actually buy some hair dye and get a job at McDonald's while in LS to make myself seem younger.

I hate to say it, as it is there job and all, but the last time I listened to a career counselor it cost me the job. I have pretty much done my own thing since and have been quite happy with the outcome. Hey, if you REALLY can't stand my two page resume maybe I wouldn't be a good fit anyway.

I don't think the 1-page thing is hard and fast anymore, especially in this day and age of digital submission. Mine is 3 pages, and I've only ever gotten compliments on it at interviews.

Of course, as a 0L, I'm only talking non-law, so maybe there is a huge difference there.

I'd get it down to two, and call it good, with all the best stuff on page 1.