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I hope to learn a bit about the experiences of those of you who are/where a bit older (say five to seven year break between college and law school) than the average law student and associate in BL. What was your experience like apropos your age at school, in OCI, and at your firm? What percentage of you sections/classes/associate years were the approximately your age? Any other insight?

Much appreciated.

Cobretti wrote:Aren't you a 0L?

Moved to the correct forum.

Rising 3L here so can't speak to firm experience, but I think its an advantage for school and OCI. I was the equivalent of ~6 years out.

At school I think its a slight advantage mostly because older students seem to have more perspective on things which makes dealing with stress more manageable. 1L can be very stressful, especially around finals (obviously), so a slight advantage in this can be pretty helpful. This isn't to say that you'll handle stress better than all of your younger classmates, but you'll handle it better than you would have if you went through 5-7 years ago. ETA: if you're 5-7 years out you'll probably be in the oldest ~10% of your class, but you won't be old enough to stand out that much so don't really worry about it in a negative way. You will probably be a couple years older than most of your friends but at this age that doesn't really matter so its whatever.

At OCI is where the real advantage plays out in my experience. Being older and experienced with "real" job interviews makes you much calmer and confident during your interviews compared to your younger classmates, and with the much smaller age gap between yourself and the associates interviewing you it makes for a less awkward conversation in general. Its not that they're going to see your resume and think they need to hire you because of your work experience, or that any advantage I'm talking about will ever be enough to overcome a GPA that is below their cutoff; but I think older students tend to convert a significantly higher % of screeners and callbacks where they are above GPA cutoffs than students who are straight through or maybe 1-2 years of work experience and with similar GPAs.

I was also six years out and feel similarly to cobretti, but I don't think my OCI results were much different than they'd been if I had gone straight through. Still, having work experience does make the interviews easier as you can put together a more meaningful narrative and use examples (real or imagined) from your time in the work force.

If you're in your late 20's the social stuff will not be an issue. You can fit in easily with just about any crowd.