Like you I was advised to take a gap year, a judge even advised me to take a few gap YEARS! I wanted to get into law school as soon as possible but in hindsight I am glad I followed his advice. I worked at a few law firms and I now work at a T14 law school and I can tell you I am glad I did before entering law school. Working in the legal field before law school in the worst case scenario will give you an idea of whether you really want to go into law or not and if so, what areas of law you don't want to work in. Best case scenario you find an area you like and the experience confirms your desire to enter into the profession and you have some good experience that can boost your application credentials. You will probably be told by a lot of people that they had no idea what they wanted to do when they entered law school. I honestly don't recommend you do that, law school is one of those things where if you want to do well, you have to hit the ground running. The difficulty is not just the "work" itself that law school entails but I'd say the greatest area of difficulty is in the "figuring out, learning and acquiring the skills" of the "how to" of the law school work. You also want to have some idea of what you want to do so you can get a idea of where you want to apply for job during your summer after 1L. In short, take a gap year, or two, or even three. At least get some idea of what you "may" want to do and a more concrete idea of what you definitely do not want to do. If you can, I highly recommend you work at a law school, preferably assisting faculty. That way you can get some idea of what the law school experience is like, how law professors think and you may be able to even audit courses you're interested in that way you can accumulate the content without wasting precious course selection space (and tuition dollars) for when you're a student.

I would advise contacting the law schools directly since they each have individual policies regarding applications with pending LSAT scores or applicants registered to take another exam. For example Yale wants you to apply only when you have all of your materials ready. Whereas UF Law will do an initial review of your application, if they are unable to admit you they will wait until the final LSAT score to make a decision. Other schools you may have to notify them to hold your application until after the final LSAT is received. I recommend creating a law school spread sheet with their admissions info (LSAT & GPA ranges and medians, application deadlines, tuition, and some note on whether to apply with or without final LSAT score), it will help you prioritize when to send your apps.