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Its it late in relative terms? A little - you'll likely be older than most of your classmates.

Is it too late in absolute terms? Nope. If you wanna go, go.

im a 33 y/o 3L. it's fine. the only thing that it has affected is my clerking applications. not necessarily that i think im worse off (though i may be), but that i specifically have avoided applying for 2 year terms even where competitive just because that extra year seems like so much at this point.

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landshoes wrote:It matters in the employment context. Depends what you did and why you're switching to law, at least for firms.

Agreed. You'll need a good answer when employers ask why you gave up whatever you've been doing to go into law. But I think having a decent professional resume under your belt is a huge boost in legal hiring. Employers won't look at you as a kid who is going to need to be trained in how to function in a professional environment.

ETA: And, of course, make sure you've done your homework. Make sure going to law school is a good investment based on your goals, the price tag, etc. This would be true for any applicant but it's doubly important if you have a family.

Barack O'Drama wrote:

Eternalsunshine wrote:I'm a 33 y/o 1L. I'm significantly older than most of my classmates, but of course I knew that going in. You'll be too busy studying to think about your age, anyway (until you get headaches from staring at your computer screen because you're old and your eyes just aren't what they used to be).

Wait do your eyes really get bad at that young an age? Holy smokes!

Mine are! Also, my knees ache from... wait for it... sitting down too long. That's right, sitting.
But worry not, youngster. There are lots of perks to being 30+.

Eternalsunshine wrote:

Barack O'Drama wrote:

Eternalsunshine wrote:I'm a 33 y/o 1L. I'm significantly older than most of my classmates, but of course I knew that going in. You'll be too busy studying to think about your age, anyway (until you get headaches from staring at your computer screen because you're old and your eyes just aren't what they used to be).

Wait do your eyes really get bad at that young an age? Holy smokes!

Mine are! Also, my knees ache from... wait for it... sitting down too long. That's right, sitting.
But worry not, youngster. There are lots of perks to being 30+.

Are you kidding! WTH! That sucks. I figured I wouldn't have to worry about feeling old till I was 50+

At least there are perks! Do you think the perks are worth the trade? What kind of perks are we talking here?

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Not a big deal so long as you're able to adequately explain why you chose to go to law school at 33.

I don't think GPA or LSAT are have a negative drain by age last I checked. And that's what matters.

ForumCommissar wrote:I don't think GPA or LSAT are have a negative drain by age last I checked. And that's what matters.

Well, there does appear to be a drop off in testing scores by age.

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -group.pdf

(page 8 )

Although I suspect that the motivating factors for us older geezers is somewhat different than that of the younger/more traditional group.

haus wrote:

ForumCommissar wrote:I don't think GPA or LSAT are have a negative drain by age last I checked. And that's what matters.

Well, there does appear to be a drop off in testing scores by age.

http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -group.pdf

(page 8 )

Although I suspect that the motivating factors for us older geezers is somewhat different than that of the younger/more traditional group.

Most people score very poorly on the LSAT to begin with, so there's nothing stopping a smart and well-motivated more senior student.

I went to a community college before transferring so I'm used to seeing older students, so it really wouldn't shock me.

As a mid 40's 3L, I'd say it depends on what your objective is, what your priorities are, and where you are currently at in your life.

For me, my 40's was not too late to start law school. I would have been a very bad law school atudent coming straight from undergrad way back in the day and quite frankly probably wouldn't have succeeded in that endeavor.

However, now I see things from a different perspective than my younger classmates, I am more mature than when I was younger, I prioritize better than when I was younger and I understand where law school fits in my life and am quite adept at striking a good balance between my work life, my school life, and my family life.

I absolutely enjoy the camaraderie of my classmates and the professors and admin, I enjoy the competition and I love the mental stimulation that school provides.

When I first started, I worried about both being able to compete and fitting in. Neither has been a problem at all. I perform quite well and I have made lifelong friends out of many of my much younger peers and my professors.

Now for the difficulties: My eyesight is not as good as it once was and I now wear corrective lenses. I have to sit in the first couple of rows in class because of my eyesight when I'd prefer to sit farther back. Towards the end of some nights, I have to use a magnifying glass the size of a small tennis racket or else just stop for the night. I'm old and out of shape, so when playing golf with classmates, I now lose when about 10 years ago, I would have crushed them (and I'm a competitive person so that bothers me) but now I get tired and my game goes to heck towards the end. My attention span is short. My memory is not as proficent as it used to be so I have to work harder to memorize things than the younger students. (The flipside of that though is due to life experience, I'm generally better at stuff that is not rote memorization than the younger students). I sometimes get called "Professor" by new 1L's that don't realize I'm a student instead and that can be annoying if you let it although that usually just allows me to meet someone new and get a few laughs out of it.

Your mileage may vary but I'm glad I waited until later in life to go to law school as I don't think I would have had nearly the success, nor the camaraderie that I enjoy now compared to if I had gone as a younger atudent as I'm mich better equipped for this journey now than back then.

Good luck to you.

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Ha! Once I figured all of the above out, I decided not to. Law really is a horrible way to live ones life.

I used my law degree to go into consulting.

Voyager wrote:

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Ha! Once I figured all of the above out, I decided not to. Law really is a horrible way to live ones life.

I used my law degree to go into consulting.

So, you have your JD?

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Ha! Once I figured all of the above out, I decided not to. Law really is a horrible way to live ones life.

I used my law degree to go into consulting.

So, you have your JD?

Assuming we're talking about the US, what other law degree do you think there is?

cavalier1138 wrote:

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Ha! Once I figured all of the above out, I decided not to. Law really is a horrible way to live ones life.

I used my law degree to go into consulting.

So, you have your JD?

Assuming we're talking about the US, what other law degree do you think there is?

Idk, LLM maybe?

bmathers wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote: Assuming we're talking about the US, what other law degree do you think there is?

Idk, LLM maybe?

That's an advanced degree that only people with prior law degrees (or in some cases, JDs pursuing joint degrees) can get. These are probably things you should find out before applying to law school...

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:

bmathers wrote:

Voyager wrote:Age is the least of your concerns. Top of the list should be: is this a good career for me to pursue?

-Awful hours
-High stress
-Work for generally awful leaders
-Starting pay for most is not particularly great
-Most graduate with huge debt loads

So, with it laid out that way --- why are you pursuing such a career?

Ha! Once I figured all of the above out, I decided not to. Law really is a horrible way to live ones life.

I used my law degree to go into consulting.

So, you have your JD?

Yes, I have a JD.... and even passed the bar exam just for the hell of it because my consulting firm generously agreed to pay for the prep class...

Thank you guys for ENCOURAGING words here... Im 33 too and I was worrying a lot...

It's never too late to pursue your dreams

I'm just curious...

Besides the law school application where we have to input our birthdate and therefore our age,

do any big law firms applications require us to input our birthdate ???

my understanding was that they can only estimate our age by looking at when we graduated from college(typically at 22) and obviously our face looking.

poptart123 wrote:It's never too late to pursue your dreams

This is generally bad advice. While you're not too old to go to law school, I would say that you're definitely too old to pay tuition to go to law school. Hitting 40 with a negative net worth is irresponsible if you have a family and sad if you don't.

YHSCCN2020 wrote:I'm just curious...

Besides the law school application where we have to input our birthdate and therefore our age,

do any big law firms applications require us to input our birthdate ???

my understanding was that they can only estimate our age by looking at when we graduated from college(typically at 22) and obviously our face looking.

You'll need to give any employer your date of birth for hiring/tax purposes, though not until you've actually been hired.

But yeah, your resume should have dates on it that will give some indication of your age - if you're a non-trad and graduated at an older age then it may be harder to tell your age in an interview.

Of course, being older doesn't matter/hurt you anyway.

Maybe this has been addressed already, but what does your current resume look like? If you've spent the last ~10 years in a professional setting, that's a big plus to most employers. But if you've been bouncing between fast food and retail, or going in and out of graduate programs, or just have a spotty resume in general, that's going to be a huge red flag.

I took part in hiring decisions at the job I worked before law school. We'd hire 19 year-olds with GEDs over the latter type of applicant.

philepistemer wrote:

poptart123 wrote:It's never too late to pursue your dreams

This is generally bad advice. While you're not too old to go to law school, I would say that you're definitely too old to pay tuition to go to law school. Hitting 40 with a negative net worth is irresponsible if you have a family and sad if you don't.

It's generally good advice because one should be happy with their life rather than living with regret. Get the right LSAT score and you don't need to worry about tuition! Also, if OP wants to be a lawyer... what other advice do you want to give him? "Give up on your dreams; you're too old to pursue the profession you want!"