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How old are you going to be when you start law school?
I will be 27, I feel a little behind. I didn't expect to work for 3-4 years after college. I hope it is not an invasive question. Happy to hear about stories about why you are going to law school at this time. 
[Admin note: edited title for clarity]
Comments
That is a pretty average age for law and graduate school in general. Even for undergrad it’s not crazy at all- everyone’s circumstances are different.
I’d say it’s actually better to have work and real world experience so that one can fully appreciate the mangnitude of what law school and practice entails.
Assuming I start fall 2020, I will also be 27.
Assuming I start in the fall of 2020, I will be 24. I wouldn't feel behind, it's good to have working experience, it can help establish savings and a greater financial footing compared to people straight out of undergrad who may not. You got working experience so you know with a greater certainty that law school was the right path. I think its good to take some time off between undergrad and higher education to gain experience and further ask yourself if you truly desire to go back to school.
I'll be 22, although I did graduate college early and will have a couple years of work experience. Honestly, I'm jealous of the better work experience and ability to save more before law school. I don't think anyone will think that you're older or even notice honestly. Any age in the 20s seems pretty average/young for law school
I will be 25. I worked for 2 years straight out of college in a very demanding industry and then took this year (my 3rd year out of college) off to study for the LSAT and recover a little before throwing myself back into the trenches. Sometimes, I wish I had gone straight to law school after college, and sometimes, I wish I had studied for the LSAT during college and had applied during my second year out of college (so that I'd be 24 when I started as opposed to 25). When I feel like that, I remind myself that my friends who went straight from college to intense t-14 programs wish that they had worked for a few years or had taken some time off. Likewise, at my previous job, my boss who got an MBA after two years of working told me he wished he had taken a year off in between working and graduate school to travel. I have yet to talk to anyone who feels entirely happy in their career track, and sometimes I think that the happiest people are the ones whose career tracks are not entirely linear. Maybe it is a human instinct to second guess yourself or to feel like other people are ahead of you or to wish you had done things a little bit differently, but it definitely isn't productive.
I'll be 21. I knew that if I graduated and worked for a few years, I would never want to go back to school.
I'm 35, likely to start this fall. The reasons for the big career change are myriad. Partially because I want to start on a completely different track and transition to the public sector. Without any previous work experience in that field, education in one way or another seems the best route. Partially because I've sort of maxed out what I can do (title and salary-wise) in my current field and I think 35 is too young to peak lol.
I never really anticipated going back to school. I was super burned out by the end of undergrad and thought that I could maybe see myself going back to school eventually, but not unless I had a set idea of what I wanted to do. I know a lot of people who got master's because they weren't sure what they wanted to do, and have kind of meandered around doing random jobs since. The debt and time cost of graduate level work has never seemed worth it to me without a set goal. Lawyer jobs seem to fit my skill set and interests really well, and provide a (more or less) clear path of employment after school that's at a higher level than the work I'm doing now, as well as lots of room for promotion, higher salaries, more responsibility, etc. So, it checks all the boxes of what I want in further education.
It took me a few years to get past some mental roadblocks I had and decide that maybe, just maybe, law school is an achievable thing for me. (I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around that haha.) Re-starting my career at 35 isn't something I ever planned on and in many ways isn't ideal, but better now than never I guess? Haha. Plus, I'm a lot more mature and focused than I would have been if I did this at 25. I think my work experience also will come in handy for job hunting while in law school, as well as in the ability to hit the ground running at a new employer. I think at the end of the day, the extra experience will be more of an asset than a liability.
I'll be 27 this year and plan to apply this year, meaning I'll likely be starting when I'm 28. You're really not far behind, even if it feels that way.
I will be 33 years of age.
More than likely starting in the fall of 2020, and I will be 29.
I'll be turning 29 in my 1L starting this fall! Like @"Leah M B" , I decided to switch careers for something that fits my skill set and interests. I hope my past experience will be an asset when it comes to OCIs and looking for work. If anything, it helped me become a more focused and mature individual. I don't think I would have gone to law school with the same mindset at 22 and straight out of undergrad. I definitely wouldn't have been able to be as persistent with the LSAT lol.
I will be 25 when I start, so 27 when I graduate. I (like others above) never thought I would go to law school, not because I couldn't, rather I just had no interest. This changed after working for my current job, Disability Determinations for the Social Security Administration. I see law as a way to work on the issues I see with American Society, in particular, local communities as I feel it is the most pure and effective way of making change in American Representative Democracy. It is hard to complain about the deficiencies and do nothing about it!
I'm 29 now, turning 30 in June. I'll be taking the LSAT in June as well. Starting this fall doesn't seem realistic, so I imagine I'll start in 2020. I'll be 31. It might be to my benefit to wait, though. I got my BA in philosophy at 20 and intended to go straight on to grad school and have my doctorate by 25. Didn't work out. Around 24, I went back for a second bachelor's, and then I got sick and failed an entire semester. And missed the deadline for retroactive withdrawal. So I've got some explaining to do, lol.
But showing is better than telling, when it comes to this sort of thing, and I could use this year to take some courses at a local university. I'll still have to include an explanation of the failing semester, but I'll also have evidence that, hey, I'm a serious and capable student.
I want to rush forward on this, because at 29, my life is nothing like I thought it would be. I mean, I'm living in Jacksonville, Florida. Didn't see that coming. I'm living with my partner and happier than I've ever been, though. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything, though, and I want to feel like that again. Luckily, my partner supports my decision to go to law school. I don't know what I'd do without him.
Anyway tl;dr - I'll probably be 31, and that's something I find upsetting, but it's okay, because speed isn't what's important now. It's all relative.
36.
I'll be 24 if everything goes according to plan, but I certainly worry if thats too young and I should end up trying to get some more significant work experience first. I think you are more than fine! (:
38, but once I am done, the law together with my previous work experience and graduate studies will make me a winner. I have 50 active years ahead of me, I will use 7 to invest in a career change and bumbbb 40 years will be my years of real interaction with this world. meanwhile, studying for LSAT isn't as I hoped, its quite challenging when you have not been in school for over 8 years, but for better for worse, I will be here.
21, but if everything had gone per plan...I would have been 19
I will be 49, turning 50! I feel like I definitely have a good 25-30 years left where I will to be active. As someone mentioned above, lawyer skills can be applied to a myriad of jobs. Even when I am really old, it is my hope to still be able to tootle around doing something useful for humanity.
This is not at all an invasive question, it's a rather intriguing one. I'd imagine this question individually sparks a deeper one of "I wish I did ____" for a grip of people. We all have our own unique paths that got us to the point of entering law school at a particular age. Whether that specific age was under our control or not, according to a plan or a recovering dream, the question really made me think about the time I spent after graduating uni and if that time was worth it.
Personally, my "I wish I did ____" would be going straight into law school. I have found that getting back into studying for the LSAT is incredibly challenging. Since, unlike school, LSAT studying relies purely on self-discipline. Inherent to school itself, there are strict schedules, mini goals like learning a small segment of X topic, ect. While in school, it was so simple to study for the LSAT when there was an external pressure of discipline afforded simply by being there. I got caught up in wanting to keep pushing for a higher score that my own due diligence took a hit. Although there have been challenges along the way, at least I know I want to be a lawyer from the way I continue to thoroughly enjoy my work experiences in the field.
So, this reasoning lead me to pull the trigger on starting law school at the age of 24. You've really made a nice discussion here. I enjoyed the brief pause to reflect as well as reading the replies from others, thanks.
I'll be 47 at orientation and will sit for the bar at 50. I'm retired military and have always held an interest in the law. So for me, once I transitioned and spent time with the family, law school seemed a natural choice. It aligns with my continuing desire to serve others.
I will be 41. Speaking from a lot of years of experience, you can't have regrets when you look back at your career and schooling. Just take everything as a learning experience and treasure it. Squeeze every bit of knowledge out of life and apply it diligently as you go forward. Don't wish you could have done this or that, just put your head down and do it! I started college when I was 17. I went for years and never graduated. I have over 175 college credit hours and it does not add up to a degree just yet. I am in the last of my four classes that I need to complete to graduate with my bachelor's degree and I will finish the last one just one month before starting law school. I own a business and work 50 hours/week. I will be making an hour long commute four days/week and arriving back home at 10:30 on those nights. Every Friday night and all weekend long I will study and I will repeat this for four years. I don't intend to regret one moment of that time, but rather am looking forward to the grit that I will have gained and the added benefits that being an attorney will provide for my company. I intend to be a force to be reckoned with for another 40 years after that.
You are never too old to go chasing your dreams! Soldier on and don't give up!
i'll be 23.
I get to turn 40 and then start in the Fall! I have been thinking about law school for 10 years, at least, probably longer (more that others suggested it to me sooner than that and I laughed it off at first). I did every degree imaginable, which is very humorous if you knew me as the undergrad who didn't care about college (or wanted to be there). I ended up working after UG, then went back to my MS and started teaching, then went for a PhD and now am a university professor with tenure. Some people I know think I'm nuts to be doing this and possibly giving up the security I have with my job and such. Especially since I have two littles under 3. But law was always niggling at me and it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I realized law was really something I was super interested in. A friend of mine jumped the academia-ship at 41/42, and I watched her do it and thought if she could, I could. So here I am. Would I have done it sooner? Yes, although I agree with the person prior who said to not have regrets, I do wonder sometimes what would have happened had I started this earlier/not with kids/ not married / not with a FT job, etc. I would definitely have had more flexibility and choices. But it is what it is and it means I just have somewhat different choices (e.g., where to go) and priorities (e.g., I'm not stressing about hitting the 170s because it's not necessarily as desperate a requirement for where I can go at this point in my life). Being older also means I have a TON of experience and related-skills that I think will help me along the way in law school. I think I'm way more prepared for the rigor compared to fresh-out-of-UG. I'm also more confident than I was in my 20s and have more of a take-no-prisoners attitude compared to the more meek me at 20-something, so I'm not as hesitant to ask questions or find out exactly what I need and how I can get there.
Regardless of age, however, it's really what you're going to do with the studying and classes, and then ultimately what you do afterward that is most important. Always look towards the end goal and know that once you get there, there's a new one!
I will be 40 this year. My husband has 2 years of college left, so I will wait until he is closer to graduation to apply. I will be leaving active duty for the reserves because I really want to be an assistant DA in a larger city. I am doing this for me and my family. Too many move.
being full time Army
I will be 30...
I'll be 22
I'm 36 currently. I expect to apply this fall, making me 37 and starting when I'm 38. Hoping that the additional experience of a reasonably successful career offsets a rather unfortunate undergraduate GPA.
Gonna be 25. Wow, thought I would get there earlier lol. Been doing this LSAT gig for a while.
That being said, I will be very happy if I achieve my goal of going to law school in fall 2020
I'll be 30!
30!
I'll be 48 starting law school this fall, if my June LSAT is a success. I spent 23 years in newspaper and digital media, owned a newspaper and digital marketing company for 12 years, ran 10 newspapers in Arkansas for a private equity firm, helped another private equity firm sell a newspaper over the course of a year, wrote and published a Vietnam War history book available on Amazon, titled Under the Wing of a Patriot, and have found myself displaced in my career. There aren't as many newspapers left to run and their future online is troubling due to Google and Facebook garnering 80% of digital ad revenue. I'm ready for a new career in law and hope to leverage my past experience as a publisher w Intellectual Property law/ data / privacy.
I'll be 50. I figure I'll have a good 2 decades to make a difference, maybe even closer to 3, as all of my relatives have been alive, healthy, and fully functioning well past their 80s.
Assuming I start in 2020, I will be 29. I feel old and am a bit worried whether I am making the right decision by going to law school.
26/27 depending on the exact start date! I def. don't regret coming in with more work experience under my belt, esp. in the exact field I want to work in post-law school.
We have a very large range of ages!! Wishing you all good luck and sending love to everyone. Thanks for taking the time to participate in this discussion!
I'll be 23 - turning 24 the second week of school!
I will be 53.
honestly i love seeing older generation posting in the 40s and up, i have always felt like i started school late because i did my time in the army, but this motivates me, I am turning 35 in May, hopefully I will be starting law school at 35 or 36
28
I'm gonna be 30
I'll be 34. All you youngsters going in your 20s is a smart move! The older you get, the more bills and responsibilities pile on making it more difficult to go. Not impossible by any stretch, just a little bit more complicated.
I'll be 32! For my own sake, I'm glad I waited until my late 20s to really start studying for the LSAT because I'm likely to go to a much, much better school and that's worth the wait for me. I have a lot more perspective and my studying skills are way more on point now than in undergrad (I've outgrown procrastination -- yay!). I'm also really appreciative of the life lessons and work experience I've gained because I think it'll serve me well.
Also, to anyone who has been told that you're too old to start law school: that is categorically false and also stupid because the only way that you're too old is if law school had an age limit and you were over the age limit (I would assume that one of the reasons why law schools don't have an age limit is because they don't care how old you are). Life is a lot more circuitous than any of us were told when we were young, and it's good to do what suits you when it suits you (the reverse is also true). You do you, and kick some LSAT butt when the time comes!
I will be 63. Murray Shusterman practiced law until he was 104. That’s my goal. Right now I practice dentistry 40 hours/week. If the LSAT goes well this year I hope to start law school next year. I’m already taking Torts in a paralegal program. If I bomb the LSAT I will work as a paralegal; maybe for one of you!!
Do what you feel called to do. Don't let age be a guide.
I will be 29 when I start. Graduated a Master's program at 23, traveled, saved, taught reading & writing to wonderful elementary and middle school students for 5 years, but now I'm ready to pursue my passion.
I'm sincerely excited to just learn. I took my undergrad and grad school for granted. I was more concerned to just get a damn job and that's it. Can't wait to start in the Fall!
I'll likely be just about to turn 26 when I start.
Hopefully, 25
I’ll be 31. I always wonder about what it would’ve been like had I decided to go earlier.
But I got my masters in between, and loved what I did. I still love it and with around 80 years ahead of me, I’m sure I have plenty time to have multiple careers! And yes I’m confident I’m going to see 2100. I hope people will make a big deal about turn of a century. Like Y2K and stuff...
I'll be 28 when I start. I graduated with the intentions of going to law school right away. But a few major life interuptions, plus some LSAT struggles have kept me back. But as I have found, it is never too late to start!
If I start Fall 2020, I will be 28 at that time. I just turned 27 in January. I totally feel you on the feeling behind thing lol. But I feel like I'm entering law at the perfect age because I'm sure of it now. I don't care for partying, going out on weekends, etc like I would've maybe in my early 20s. I'm pretty dedicated to this now and don't believe I would've been back then. So it's a good thing!