Top Law Schools

I've got a great career that I'm getting bored with. I graduated with my bachelors in Computer Science with a minor in Philosophy(3.4 GPA) in 2012 and since then I moved quickly from SE (Software Engineer) to Senior SE, to managing SE's. It's lucrative, stable, and I do well in my role. My tech is strong, management skills are progressing.

My wife is an attorney who's been practicing for 14 years. She went to top 20 at the time, and is supportive. We have no kids, will never have any kids, and she has a strong career in-house. Note that this also means that needs-based financial aid is not an option as we have a high income. On the plus side, we're not bound to any location. I favor Boston because we have friends in Cambridge (one's a researcher at Harvard and his wife went to UConn Law and works for a large firm now).

I've begun prepping for the LSAT and my first full practice test was a 158. After prepping for a week I upped it to 164 and I feel like 170-174 is achievable by the November LSAT.

I've told my wife that it's top 6 or bust with my preference being top 3. I believe my GPA being a touch low, despite CS being a hard program, is mitigated by my non-traditional status, 1st generation college graduate, and VA-rated veteran status. I also have solid experience consulting with the Department of Justice on top of my corporate career.

My reasons for wanting to become a lawyer are for similar reasons I enjoy software development. I like challenging problems and crafting solutions.

Am I nuts for giving up a great career in my mid-30's? Is my expectation to get into HYS with a 3.4, 172, and other factors unreasonable? Am I mistaken on what the work will be like?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are mistaken about almost everything. Assuming you could get a 170-172 (not a safe assumption if the highest you have scored is 164), you would have almost no chance at HYS: http://mylsn.info/l4e70y/ You have no idea what the work would be like in terms of boredom, etc. If you enjoy your current career, I would definitely stay in that.

mtxv14 wrote: My reasons for wanting to become a lawyer are for similar reasons I enjoy software development. I like challenging problems and crafting solutions.

Don't go to law school. There is no genuine creative outlet in law like there is in software development.

/former computer engineer turned lawyer

Am I nuts for giving up a great career in my mid-30's? Is my expectation to get into HYS with a 3.4, 172, and other factors unreasonable? Am I mistaken on what the work will be like?

Yes, yes, yes. Your wife's experience in law school 15+ years ago was quite different than the law school and legal market experience today. Today, there are many more lawyers and law students, much higher tuition, and much fewer jobs available. Check out law school transparency (google it) to get a good idea of costs, job outcomes, salary, etc. at each school you're considering.

Also, I'm not sure whether you were with your wife when she was in law school and shortly thereafter, but you're not going to get to shortcut the entry level work just by having a previous career. 30-somethings with prior careers start at the bottom of the totem pole with the 25 year old K-JDs. Your chances of landing an in-house job directly out of school will be near zero. (I say that as somebody who went directly in-house out of school... it's exceedingly rare and requires more luck than skill). If you don't know what biglaw life looks like, read some of the threads that describe it. I could've made substantially more money in biglaw, but took a hard pass after working in a biglaw firm for a couple years during law school. $180-190k sounds great until you realize 1) only ~15% of law grads get that salary and 2) you're going to be working 60-100 hour weeks to earn that money.

Another thing to consider is that the legal profession is well known for driving people to drinking, hard drugs, and suicide. They have special presentations during classes at law school about how to get help for alcoholism.... let that sink in. This isn't to say there are no good legal jobs, but that you may be giving up a good job in a good work culture to work a stressful job in a poor work culture. Moving from engineering to legal, even in the same industry, I have noticed a substantial drop in the quality of my work culture. Personally, I pin that on lawyers being assholes and engineers being cool, but there may also be some company culture issues affecting my impressions.

I may have been glib about your reason for going to law school, but there is a reality I'm trying to get across. Law is a paper pushing profession. Even the most glamorous legal job is 80% reading and form filling. Personally, I have to scratch my creative itch elsewhere, because drafting emails and filling in templates of highly standardized documents just doesn't cut it. I don't feel like I do creative work, I feel like I do glorified clerical work most days. This isn't to say that I hate my job, only that I didn't realize how much I'd miss the creative aspect of software engineering.

Let me know if you have any more questions about my transition from software development to legal, I'm happy to talk about my experience, some of the mistakes I made, and the motivations behind my transition.

mmac wrote:I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are mistaken about almost everything. Assuming you could get a 170-172 (not a safe assumption if the highest you have scored is 164), you would have almost no chance at HYS: http://mylsn.info/l4e70y/ You have no idea what the work would be like in terms of boredom, etc. If you enjoy your current career, I would definitely stay in that.

Interesting. I wonder what the impact of weighing GPA so heavily is.
Judging from my graduation program and honors levels I know that my large state school saw no one in any program from the engineering school get a GPA over 3.75. Meanwhile 1/4 of the education majors had a GPA at least that high.

Thanks for the link.

totes has great advice.

Just to address a little nugget totes' post didn't get to:

mtxv14 wrote:I've told my wife that it's top 6 or bust with my preference being top 3.

Why is this? What do you want to achieve out of law school? There's really no solid reason for drawing a line at T6.

mtxv14 wrote:

mmac wrote:I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are mistaken about almost everything. Assuming you could get a 170-172 (not a safe assumption if the highest you have scored is 164), you would have almost no chance at HYS: http://mylsn.info/l4e70y/ You have no idea what the work would be like in terms of boredom, etc. If you enjoy your current career, I would definitely stay in that.

Interesting. I wonder what the impact of weighing GPA so heavily is.
Judging from my graduation program and honors levels I know that my large state school saw no one in any program from the engineering school get a GPA over 3.75. Meanwhile 1/4 of the education majors had a GPA at least that high.

Thanks for the link.

You get somewhat of a bump for being in a harder major, and somewhat of a bump for having a career (and some distance between college and today), but it doesn't amount to much. You may outperform your numbers by a tenth or two of a GPA point at most, but they mostly ignore the difficulty of your degree and what you've done with your life outside of undergrad and the LSAT.

TotestheGoat is correct. I'm glad someone in your field weighed in. If you're just a bit bored at work, why not get a hobby or two, or even work toward financial independence like so many engineers? Law school will run you at least half a million in lost wages, tuition, and living expenses. That money could go toward a lot of travel and hobbies to alleviate boredom.

You are correct that those with easier majors are given preference in the GPA calculations. Being more challenged may eventually work out to a better LSAT score I suppose. Keep in mind the law schools are ranked partly in accordance with the GPAs and LSATs of their accepted students, so they don't get a break either for those with hard majors. If it's a close case, they will look at your major, but it will not be a close case at HYS with a 3.4. That said, there are many good schools you could get into, but I would not recommend any of them considering that you have a job that is both stable and lucrative. It is very hard to find both (stability and high pay) in the legal field.

mtxv14 wrote:Is my expectation to get into HYS with a 3.4, 172, and other factors unreasonable?

If you're White or Asian, yes. If you're an URM, maybe not.

mmac wrote:TotestheGoat is correct. I'm glad someone in your field weighed in. If you're just a bit bored at work, why not get a hobby or two, or even work toward financial independence like so many engineers? Law school will run you at least half a million in lost wages, tuition, and living expenses. That money could go toward a lot of travel and hobbies to alleviate boredom.

Just weighing in by endorsing what you've been told. I too left IT for law school and, like Totes, went straight in-house. I'm a bit less pessimistic than Totes in that I think those opportunities are available if you focus on them from the start of law school or if you just happen to be lucky. That said, it would depend a lot on what field you want to practice in.

Nmac, however, hits the nail on the head. This is a very very expensive outlet for boredom. And, indeed, one of the nice things about being in-house is that I have time for hobbies. Legal work is certainly interesting, but any job needs a release vent. One of the issues with big-law is that there's so little time to explore other things. And big-law is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most likely outcome from a top law school.

If your current job pays well and your wife's too, figuring out how quickly you can comfortably retire might be a better QOL goal than law school.

Now, if it's simply the prestige of being a lawyer that you're after, then you can only really get that by going to law school. But pick your poison carefully - do you want friends asking you to help fix their computer or friends asking for help with a DUI?

albanach wrote:

mmac wrote:T But pick your poison carefully - do you want friends asking you to help fix their computer or friends asking for help with a DUI?

As I'm sure you're well aware, the IT questions don't go away just because you went to law school

totesTheGoat wrote:

mtxv14 wrote: My reasons for wanting to become a lawyer are for similar reasons I enjoy software development. I like challenging problems and crafting solutions.

Don't go to law school. There is no genuine creative outlet in law like there is in software development.

/former computer engineer turned lawyer

Am I nuts for giving up a great career in my mid-30's? Is my expectation to get into HYS with a 3.4, 172, and other factors unreasonable? Am I mistaken on what the work will be like?

Yes, yes, yes. Your wife's experience in law school 15+ years ago was quite different than the law school and legal market experience today. Today, there are many more lawyers and law students, much higher tuition, and much fewer jobs available. Check out law school transparency (google it) to get a good idea of costs, job outcomes, salary, etc. at each school you're considering.

Also, I'm not sure whether you were with your wife when she was in law school and shortly thereafter, but you're not going to get to shortcut the entry level work just by having a previous career. 30-somethings with prior careers start at the bottom of the totem pole with the 25 year old K-JDs. Your chances of landing an in-house job directly out of school will be near zero. (I say that as somebody who went directly in-house out of school... it's exceedingly rare and requires more luck than skill). If you don't know what biglaw life looks like, read some of the threads that describe it. I could've made substantially more money in biglaw, but took a hard pass after working in a biglaw firm for a couple years during law school. $180-190k sounds great until you realize 1) only ~15% of law grads get that salary and 2) you're going to be working 60-100 hour weeks to earn that money.

Another thing to consider is that the legal profession is well known for driving people to drinking, hard drugs, and suicide. They have special presentations during classes at law school about how to get help for alcoholism.... let that sink in. This isn't to say there are no good legal jobs, but that you may be giving up a good job in a good work culture to work a stressful job in a poor work culture. Moving from engineering to legal, even in the same industry, I have noticed a substantial drop in the quality of my work culture. Personally, I pin that on lawyers being assholes and engineers being cool, but there may also be some company culture issues affecting my impressions.

I may have been glib about your reason for going to law school, but there is a reality I'm trying to get across. Law is a paper pushing profession. Even the most glamorous legal job is 80% reading and form filling. Personally, I have to scratch my creative itch elsewhere, because drafting emails and filling in templates of highly standardized documents just doesn't cut it. I don't feel like I do creative work, I feel like I do glorified clerical work most days. This isn't to say that I hate my job, only that I didn't realize how much I'd miss the creative aspect of software engineering.

Let me know if you have any more questions about my transition from software development to legal, I'm happy to talk about my experience, some of the mistakes I made, and the motivations behind my transition.

It's been awhile since I posted but I wanted to say thanks for taking the time to answer. It's hard because i talk to my friends in Big Law, and they're encouraging. They do, however, echo a few of your points, for example the grind. One common sentiment is that if I can't get it paid for, I shouldn't go, which I openly agree with. Luckily, as a disability-rated veteran, non-traditional student, and a first-generation student I have some options.

I'm still on the fence. I have "relaxed" my HYS rule given the reality of my GPA and am focusing on top 15. My latest LSAT prep was a 170, so I'm going in the right direction of my goal of 172.

I guess we'll see. I'm going to continue to march on to the November LSAT to see how I do, and decide my future.

Since you're not bound to any location, why not apply to GULC PT and keep your lucrative day job?

goldenbear2020 wrote:Since you're not bound to any location, why not apply to GULC PT and keep your lucrative day job?

Sounds like a good idea at first glance, but it's a horrible idea. Never go to PT law school while working a FT career-path job. You will regret it. Having a family and a managerial role makes it a doubly bad idea.

/the voice of experience