Long Term Goal Advice Forum

[oncelost77]

I am committed to the military for another 4 years barring something catastrophic. Contemplating a late in life law school run. I would be a 42 year old first year. I retire in 4 years from the Air Force. So here is my question: what would you be doing over the next four years? For the sake of the discussion, say I am dead set on going to law school. Nothing will stop me, not even my 3 kids though one would be in college with me. I have started taking a look at the LSAT and I am thinking about giving that all of my attention over the next year during upcoming deployments. I took a practice test 5 years ago off the cuff and was somewhere in the low 160s.

--BS Christian Ministry small Midwest college
--3.3 GPA (low due to 3 dropped classes where I received an F. One was my fault, 2 were Sept. 11th's fault. Though still my fault. I could have done a better job of getting them off my record due to deployments. I attended about 5 schools total due to military moves. This part of my application will be ugly for me.)
--Wife, 3 kids: 18, 13, and 8 by the time I retire. Hopefully the wife will still be there.
--20 years Air Force, intelligence analyst/linguist
--Debt free minus 3 homes: 2 rentals, 1 personal
--$100K in retirement/savings
--URM


Thanks in advance for any advice. All is appreciated.

[Wiggly]

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[SnakySalmon]

Is there anyway you can get the two withdrawals expunged? My school is sometimes willing to expunge failed grades if you have a reason that would have been good enough to get a special withdrawal from them.

[notalobbyist]

Where do you live? If you have roots in a certain area and need to look over your investment homes, stay with kids, etc. you may only have a few options for law schools. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you would need to make sure they will be able to fulfill whatever lawyer goals that you have (e.g., how many grads clerk, do big law, etc.).

Also, do not go into substantial debt unless you're going to get a big payout. You have fewer working years than others, so its pretty important that you're taking home as much of your paycheck as possible.