PT in DC with full time job? Or T-14 FT with $$ Forum

[wetblanketer]

I have been fortunate enough to get promoted a few time since undergrad (4 yrs WE in Risk Management at a F500 or equivalent), but also was able to pull off the LSAT (175) that I needed to offset my low gpa (3.2x at large public school) and allow me to pursue my longstanding desire to go to law school. I would like to use my jd to get a desirable biglaw job, advance/maneuver my current career path, and ideally support pipe dream business and political aspirations that will likely grow as I get older. Please help me decide on PT or FT!

My options:
1. FT Lower T14, exit into BL (hopefully!) in 3 years with approx 60-80k in debt (work PT and small family contrib)
Pros: better chance at better firms, graduate one year earlier, opportunity to be immersed in studies/education (law review, SA, other FT advantages), better lasting resume to support lofty career dreams (if i get there and want to pursue them).
Cons: no savings (debt), no house etc until later, moving (I like DC). I feel like I am taking a huge risk giving up a successful career for law, especially when I have never been a great student.
2. PT at GULC, keeping my current job throughout (as long as it is there for me), exit into BL with no debt, good consulting position, or inhouse (if I could swing it at current workplace).
Pros: Even though no scholarships for PT my salary will allow me to come our debt free with over 50k saved, more (non-legal, likely) WE, potential (later?) career in house at my company or similar companies because of subjects t matter expertise.
Cons: Very busy (won't be able to fully focus on school or work, or at least won't have a life), assuming I can't do law review (really would like the chance to), can't SA unless I quit my job, worse placement of GULC. One year behind in
3. PT at GW, same plan as GULC but with lower cost (scholarship).
Pros: Same as GULC, except i can save 130k while in school
Cons: Same as GULC but worse (worse job prospects - can I even expect BL as a PT student even if I somehow pull of the class rank, unless I manage to get a SA and quit?)

My situation:
Work - I will average ~100k+ over the next 4 years at my current work, with good career prospects for advancement (even with no grad school). My work will also pay 5k/yr towards grad school, though I may have to "negotiate" to get them to agree a jd qualifies as relevant to my current role. My employer also has a large in house legal department, but I have no idea if I could work my way into a position there using a jd post-law school. My industry is in flux and there is an approx 10% chance I will lose this job (through no fault of my own) and have to take one at 80% salary without the education benefits at some point in the next 4 years (though I could also be a paralegal and actually get a chance to SA then).

[twenty]

..

[Traynor Brah]

Why exactly do you want to be an attorney? You need to be really sure it's something you're going to like, because the cost/benefit/risk analysis with your current career and poor GPA is simply not going to result in law school being close to a good idea by any objective metric. We're talking about giving up a six figure job to pay a couple hundred grand and not work for three and a half years for a coin flip's shot at a different, slightly higher-paying six figure job that will only last three or four years before you take a paycut to a salary that will be below what your salary would have been had you stayed in your first career another six years.

[twenty]

No matter how you cut it, it's a bad idea financially speaking. It's just a difference between "not a great plan" and "omg terrible plan."

[mornincounselor]

The only reason your law school options are bad is because your alternative to going to law school is so good.

[dclawyerhere]

I am a DC biglawyer. You really only need to answer one question: Do you want to be an attorney because you want to practice law, or do you want to be an attorney because you (mistakenly) believe a career in the law will increase your earning potential?

Allow me to provide anecdotal evidence of how terrible the job market is for lawyers in DC. Very few people are able to attain biglaw jobs here. There are many reasons for this but the big two are (a) the market is extremely saturated with high caliber legal talent, and (b) law firms operate on a much smaller scale here than they do in other major markets. For many of my LS friends who wanted to stay in the DC region, their only options upon graduation were GS-9/11 government jobs (highly competitive, believe it or not), and the exit options from many of these government jobs are non-existent. Many people like to believe that a stint with a regulator will result in a cushy gig in the private sector. In my experience, however, very few people are actually able to pull this off. The reality is that you have 3rd and 4th year firm associates banging down the doors of government agencies looking for family-friendly exit options, which in turn makes it more difficult for those who started their careers in public service to advance to the higher ranks at government agencies.

That said, if you really want to practice law because you dream of Atticus Finch, and don't mind resigning yourself to a split-level home in Vienna, VA (yes, this is the reality for the vast majority of DC-area attorneys), then by all means. Just know that law school is an enormous opportunity cost for you and many others who are already making a decent paycheck and working stable, white-collar careers. Do not let the two-biglaw partner households in McLean and Potomac fool you - very few lawyers are making it this far up the ranks these days, and those who do are typically miserable.

Good luck.

[Clemenceau]

You seem pretty jazzed up about your current gig. I'd probably stick with that.

If you were 4.0/175 then maybe that would change the calculus a bit. 3.2 is tough.

[TLSModBot]

DC PT student at GULC here. Overall the posters above are right that these options likely aren't great compared to the debt and risk/reward of biglaw.

One thing to consider: try pushing GULC for a scholarship on PT. They officially don't do it but have had incredible under-enrollment for several years now. They're getting desperate and they might cut a deal, especially if you have competing offers.

Also feel free to PM if you have questions about working and doing GULC PT

[wetblanketer]

Thank for all of the detailed responses! It really helps to have other perspectives on this. It seems like:
-the dc biglaw market is likely worse than I would plan for it to be,
-especially because of my other career options, it does not seem like a good idea to go to law school unless I definitely know that I would rather be doing law for the same/less pay
-To DClawyer's point, I really need to figure out what portion of my desire to be a lawyer is due to actually wanting to practice law/law being THE path to achieve my goals/dreams, versus liking having the option, getting bored/discontented at my current role (I have switched positions twice since college) or thinking that I have that realllly rare shot at making more in law. I really like legal research and analysis (as I have been exposed to it so far in my career) but the rest of the work (writing, long hours, politics with clients/coworkers) is no more/less desireable to me than my current career.

In response to some questions and points raised:
Net loss/gain over law school ($$ added or subtracted to my current non-existent bank balance, including living expenses) would be as follows for the 3 options:
FT: -80k (but out one year early, presumably into biglaw from a decent T14)
PT GULC: 30-50k
PT GWU: 130-150k

Because you guys have been so kind, I have a few follow up questions:
1) will not doing a SA (in DC) really hurt my chances at a biglaw job out of school (even with 7 years of solid WE?). If it is not feasible to get biglaw without SA, then I will have to rethink PT because there is no guarantee it would help my current career.
2) Am I being unreasonable in thinking that the reputation of the law school I go to and achievements there (such as graduating with honors or doing law review) will stick with me throughout my career? One reason I want a graduate degree is to support my candidacy for later career positions that are hard to get - from that perspective, would going to, say, NU and doing law review vs going to GULC PT (same grades at both) affect my goals?

[wetblanketer]

DC PT student at GULC here. Overall the posters above are right that these options likely aren't great compared to the debt and risk/reward of biglaw.

One thing to consider: try pushing GULC for a scholarship on PT. They officially don't do it but have had incredible under-enrollment for several years now. They're getting desperate and they might cut a deal, especially if you have competing offers.

Also feel free to PM if you have questions about working and doing GULC PT

Sorry, didn't see your post before I started my novel. Thanks for the offer of advice - I'll probably ask you a few questions later once I have gotten back to work for a while!

[TLSModBot]

Not doing an SA is biglaw suicide. Like, there is a 99.5% chance you won't get a biglaw job outside of through an SA, especially not if you're coming from GULC/NU.

Honestly if I could do it all over I'd do a full time program on scholly over working and PT. It is just awful and the extra year is annoying AF.

[Traynor Brah]

In response to some questions and points raised:
Net loss/gain over law school ($$ added or subtracted to my current non-existent bank balance, including living expenses) would be as follows for the 3 options:
FT: -80k (but out one year early, presumably into biglaw from a decent T14)
PT GULC: 30-50k
PT GWU: 130-150k

This is not the right way to look at it. Paying sticker or anything close to it is straight unjustifiable. Doesn't matter that you have money in your bank account. And the full time net/loss gain is not considering the > $350,000 in lost income. PT is generally not a great idea for most situations, for several reasons (and if it's going to fuck up your chances at an SA, then it's a horrible idea). And going to GWU in any event is pretty much unjustifiable when you have the kind of career you currently have.

Because you guys have been so kind, I have a few follow up questions:
1) will not doing a SA (in DC) really hurt my chances at a biglaw job out of school (even with 7 years of solid WE?). If it is not feasible to get biglaw without SA, then I will have to rethink PT because there is no guarantee it would help my current career.
2) Am I being unreasonable in thinking that the reputation of the law school I go to and achievements there (such as graduating with honors or doing law review) will stick with me throughout my career? One reason I want a graduate degree is to support my candidacy for later career positions that are hard to get - from that perspective, would going to, say, NU and doing law review vs going to GULC PT (same grades at both) affect my goals?

1) It would be devastating to your chances. And by devastating, I mean that it's very likely you would never work in biglaw, especially not in DC. That means scratching and clawing as a 3L for a job that pays 60K (see bimodal salary distribution).
2) Of course those kind of things will stick with you throughout your legal career. What "later positions" are we talking about? I get the impression they are not related to being a lawyer.

And you just don't go to school and "do law review." You have to assume you'll be a median student and have a median outcome. Everyone's going to be pretty much as smart as you at whatever school you choose, and there isn't even a horribly strong correlation between general intelligence/ability and law school grades, so far as I have observed. You have no legitimate reason to believe as a 0L that you're going to be in the top 5-10% of your class and have the juice/ability to perform well in the writing competition after second-semester finals; do not put very difficult law school achievements into the "pro" column for making the decision to attend law school, as the odds are against you achieving them. I'm not trying to be a dick, but you just don't seem to realize how much you're risking by going down this path.

[totesTheGoat]

As a PT law student, let me explain what your path looks like if you're in a part time program with a career-type full-time job.

You'll spend your 1E year fighting to find a balance between school and work. It's somewhat doable, but you'll start to understand that 4 years of this is going to be impossible, especially if you want to have a competitive law resume. (Start banking PTO now!)

Then, during spring of 1E, you'll start to panic. You have a good job, but you don't have a path to a legal job without taking "the leap." For most students, "the leap" involves making $12/hour at a local law firm pushing paper. (The good news is that there are higher paying opportunities out there for those with relevant WE)

Assuming that your grades are good, you'll start thinking about SA opportunities for your 2E summer (1E summer is typically barren because you haven't finished all the 1L classes). However, you have a boat anchor around your neck called a job. You know that they won't let you disappear for 12 weeks over the summer, but you know that you're falling behind if you don't at least try to do an SA.

Finally, sometime in your 2E or 3E year, you'll hit a decision point. Do I keep my job, which I've been half-assing for the last year and a half, or do I take "the leap" and try to find an SA that I can parlay into a full-time job during my 3E year?

PT makes sense if your work is on board, which usually means that you having a JD is obviously beneficial to you in your current position. It's really stressful if your employer is not on board. I quit my job after my 1E year because I was lucky enough to find a good paying legal job. Not everybody has been as lucky.

[TLSModBot]

If you have a real job that requires more than just the ole 9-to-5 then PT is definitely challenging. I know plenty of people that had a very tough time because of that. However, if you have flexible work arrangements (either in hours or work-from-home opportunity), then it gets much easier.

My experience and those of my peers differed enough from totesthegoat that I'll offer an alternative timeline for PT if you're biglaw bound:

1E: work your ass off, figure out the balance between work and school. 1E GPA lets you know roughly where you stand for OCI but you still have a year to bring the GPA up. This is actually kind of nice.
2E: Classes are a little easier. End of Summer you participate in OCI with the other 1L's
3E: Classes don't matter anymore provided you got an SA lined up and don't flunk out. Work can take more priority and let you feel out whether or not you can take off 8-10 weeks for an SA. Either quit your job and be out of work for 1.5 years til the biglaw paychecks come in, or work out a leave of absence. I did the former but a lot of people worked out the latter no prob.
4E: Classes really, really don't matter anymore.

[First Offense]

DC is probably the toughest major market to break into grade wise. My summer class at my firm was basically just HY and UVA Law review kids. A couple of other random schools thrown in, but mainly that.

[Robespierre]

Stick with your job, where it sounds like you're doing great. Become head of Risk Management. Earn a fat salary plus incentives. Travel the world visiting company operations, staying at the best hotel in town. Supervise a bunch of people. Go to conferences at posh resorts on emerging issues, then stay the weekend and play golf. Take kickbacks from vendors selling safety/security services.

Am I kidding? Only partly. Law is a way to earn a decent living. Why leap into it when you already have a good career?