Best Law Schools for older student Forum

[CinnamonRose]

Hi: the last of my kids will finally be out of college in May and now its my turn to go back to school at the age of 51. I am divorced, my parents are deceased and I have the flexibility to go anywhere geographically.
Since I have been out of school for so long, I have no "advisor" to throw ideas to me.
Which schools work best for older and non-traditional students? and why do you say that? cultural or academic?

I will be taking the LSAT in Dec but decades ago had a perfect ACT and 10 years ago a perfect GRE and (again decades ago) a GPA of 3.85 at Northwestern.
thanks for any input.

[2014]

How did you like Northwestern? They are going to be the standard TLS answer for most non-traditional friendly since they care about work experience much more than other schools and their median age is a couple or more years higher than most good schools.

[bk1]

NU will probably have the 'oldest' environment but you should really just go to the best school you can or with the best scholarship you get.

[vsl89]

I think 51 will put you in the minority no matter where you and by a large margin (not that this is a bad thing!). I think one thing to consider is what you want to do, i.e. I can't imagine you're interested in BigLaw & making tons of money at this point, so your best bet may be to see where the largest scholarships tend to fall from. This could give you the flexibility to make the most of your JD, without worrying huge loans, etc. If you pull off 170+, the lower T-14 could throw some $$ at you for sure.

[fatduck]

Depending on your circumstances, a part-time program might be a good fit for you. My mother went part-time at your age and there were a lot of older students. Otherwise, as mentioned, you're going to be an outlier at pretty much any school. Which is fine, of course, depending on what you're looking for.

[bedefan]

I also know some middle-aged types who have done law part-time, but if you can get better scholarships at a full-time school that (obviously) might be a better idea. I imagine you'll figure it out.

I have a young family I"ll be dragging to LS with me; one of the things we're looking for is law schools that are part of a diverse, grown-up-friendly institution. So a huge place like Berkeley or Michigan is pretty appealing to us, since there are loads of grad students, professors, staff, etc. hanging around in addition to the 18-22 y.o. UG's and the 23-25 y.o. law students. But any top law school is going to have interesting people of various ages around it, I'd imagine.

Other than that, hey--good luck on this new stage of life. Sounds exciting.

(Personally I'd go straight to California if I were as free to do as I wished as you... This may be 29 winters talking tho...)