When is the earliest I can start law school?

juhiparsana

I'm taking the LSAT inFenruary 2017. When is the earliest that I can start with my applications and start law school?
Will I have to take a year gap because I'm taking the test in Feb?

Creasey LSAT

@juhiparsana Not necessarily. It depends on the schools you apply to. Some schools accept applications and February LSAT scores until the end of March, some have cutoff dates that preclude this.

Cant Get Right

Yeah, technically the earliest you could start is this coming fall. Just understand that if you haven't started yet, you are WAY behind and would benefit greatly from that gap year.

combsni

Some schools have summer start programs

Alex

@"Cant Get Right" said:
Yeah, technically the earliest you could start is this coming fall. Just understand that if you haven't started yet, you are WAY behind and would benefit greatly from that gap year

+1 for this. Don't rush to start law school. However, If you've already completed all of your apps, and the school(s) you want to apply to accept February scores, and everything else is in order, I suppose you can start this fall like others have said.

I'm ALWAYS a fan of taking a gap year or two, or three ... I've been out of college nearly 2 years, and one thing I've learned is that law firms and the working world in general LOVES and values work experience more than ever gets discussed. It's not just a soft for purposes of admissions; it is also a big boost for employment. There are a lot of K-JDs who have good internships, but little to no work experience. They graduate law school and the most substantial place they've worked is a retail store in the mall. Lastly, until you've worked with lawyers and seen what they actually do, it's very hard to seriously know if that is what you want to be. If possible, I actually think everyone should work in the field of law before law school. After I did, I ended up completely changing what I thought I wanted to do a lawyer and now I'm more interested in finance then the law itself.

Whatever you decide, good luck!

Creasey LSAT

@"Alex Divine" said:
They graduate law school and the most substantial place they've worked is a retail store in the mall.

Or, even better, they had a summer internship for a politician in DC this one time during college.

Alex

@"Creasey LSAT" said:
Or, even better, they had a summer internship for a politician in DC this one time during college.

Haha, I'm guilty of having an internship at my state's legislature. They seem very common. Internships during UG are great, but they tend to lose their importance once you're admitted to law school. Of course there are exceptions, but people with substantial work experience have a much easier time becoming employed during/after law school. I'm not sure if this is true for public interest law, but I know it is true now-a-days for coveted jobs at firms in the private sector.

DEC_LSAT

@"Alex Divine" said:
people with substantial work experience have a much easier time becoming employed during/after law school. I'm not sure if this is true for public interest law, but I know it is true now-a-days for coveted jobs at firms in the private sector.

would you consider volunteer experiences as impressive as job experiences? i'm just curious because i've been out of school for over a year now but i'm volunteering at a non profit in my city that deals with children and families in the justice system. I am helping with a document that aims to help children and therapists. it's a "guide" to end the cycle of violence and it's about resilience. i hope my lack of a "real" job outside of retail doesn't look bad in the future.

Alex

@"DEC_LSAT" said:
would you consider volunteer experiences as impressive as job experiences? i'm just curious because i've been out of school for over a year now but i'm volunteering at a non profit in my city that deals with children and families in the justice system. I am helping with a document that aims to help children and therapists. it's a "guide" to end the cycle of violence and it's about resilience. i hope my lack of a "real" job outside of retail doesn't look bad in the future.

Well it really is going to be contingent on your ultimate career goals. As far as law school applications are concerned, that is a decent soft. If you're interested in working at a firm, I don't think it will do much to help. If that's the case, I wouldn't worry too much because you'll most likely be involved doing internships/clinics and some type of legal work while in law school. Plenty of K-JDs with just volunteer positions end up getting great jobs out of school.

While it really helps to have some substantial work experience, you won't be sunk without it. Law school grades are ultimately going to be the determining factor as to what employment opportunities are open to you, at least at most schools.

Bevs ScooterMinion

@"Alex Divine" said:
law firms and the working world in general LOVES and values work experience more than ever gets discussed

YES! YES! YES! There are many reasons for this from a firm's point of view (profit margins). My best advice: if you are at the beginning of your application process (taking the Feb LSAT), and even though the law school(s) you want to apply to claim they accept Feb scores), AND if you don't have prior office experience under your belt, then take the year gap and gain experience doing anything related to office work, especially in a law firm, if you can.

I'd like to impart a quick, true story. Granted, it's probably the worst, pettiest case possible, but it did happen. I still have nightmares.

As we all probably know, law school grads are employed as "perfect" paralegals to draft and copy all things written for their assigned attorneys, contingent upon passing the bar exam. Then they move to speaking to/having their own clients and cases, while still doing lots of the "unpretty stuff."

This one fella I sometimes worked with, bless his heart, graduated in the top 5% of his class from a Top 10 law school, but he was so green at "life in an office," he didn't know how to run a monster of a copy machine. As every law student should know, copy machines are some of the lifeblood in law offices.

For whatever reason, this fella and all of the copy machines in the 20+ attorney law office didn't mix. On several other small, but important issues, he managed to piss off the office manager at least once a week. It just so happened that the office manager started out with the original partner when he first opened his practice.

After a short time, guess who won? The office manager. The smart grad was "reassigned."

Is it petty? You betcha. Are all offices like that? I sure hope not, but I've worked in many that are petty to some degree, and EVERY office is different. (Some department people are REEEEEEEEALLY temperamental, and not so patient when they have to continually fix submitted forms to which their department revolves around.)

And in a highly competitive labor market, we're doing ourselves a huge favor to gain as much relevant work experience as humanly possible, at any stage of our lives.

Nobody has time, nor the interest, to train the newbie on anything, ESPECIALLY equipment, or department peccadilloes, etc.---and for some reason, law school grads seem to held to this weird standard even more so than other employees.

The applicant whom has been in an office setting looks far more appetizing over those applicants that have not been in an office setting before. Any work experience (paid or not---I've even seen volunteer work experience work miracles for some) is worth its weight in platinum if the partners and attorneys value their staff more than their luggage.

My two cents:
Rushing the application process, over waiting a year to gain valuable work experience that one doesn't have already, may not be the best idea. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, I'm just saying for anyone that might be in that boat----and confirming Alex's advice.

Arguably, valuable work experience is more important than a great LSAT score in a perfect application package.

Bevs ScooterMinion

@"DEC_LSAT" said:
i'm volunteering at a non profit in my city that deals with children and families in the justice system. I am helping with a document that aims to help children and therapists. it's a "guide" to end the cycle of violence and it's about resilience.

I would consider this very valuable work experience for your personal statement, in particular. Even better if this document becomes a company policy or better still, legislature.

Alex

@ScooterMinion

Omg! Haha! I absolutely love that story. I work in a corporate setting and printing/coping/faxing is indeed the lifeblood of many important tasks. So this is 100% true, haha. The people I work under would have pushed me--or anyone else for that case--out a long time ago if we couldn't figure out simple tasks like that. The crazy thing is no one has patience or time to teach you to do a lot of the clerical/menial tasks that are expected of you.

@ScooterMinion said:
Arguably, valuable work experience is more important than a great LSAT score in a perfect application package.

I mean, LSAT score is going to trump everything, there's no questions about that. Especially because rankings are based largely on LSAT/GPA. Law school itself is still a numbers game; however, when it comes to landing a job, good work experience is absolutely going to give you a leg up on competition. Essentially, it lets the people in charge know that you are competent. And as your story exemplifies, not everyone can even figure out a copy machine.

Creasey LSAT

@ScooterMinion said:
Arguably, valuable work experience is more important than a great LSAT score in a perfect application package.

I just don't see how you could make that argument work.

Bevs ScooterMinion

@"Creasey LSAT" said:
I just don't see how you could make that argument work.

We'll find out when I submit my application package(s) with those elements.

Creasey LSAT

@ScooterMinion said:
We'll find out when I submit my application package(s) with those elements

Lol, nice!