"When I applied to law school in the late 1990s, the trend was to either apply as a senior in college or after a year or two of postgraduate work experience.
Things have changed, to some extent. The Law School Admission Council’s Analysis of ABA Law School Applicants by Age Group report revealed that, from 2011-2015, around 30 percent of applicants were between ages 25 and 29 and nearly 20 percent were over age 30.
That means nearly 50 percent of applicants during this time frame were age 25 or older. These statistics suggest that it’s fairly commonplace for law school applicants to have many years of postgraduate work experience before pursuing a J.D." …
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/law-admissions-lowdown/articles/2017-10-23/master-law-school-admissions-as-a-second-career-applicant
All professional schools prefer folks with work experience. But since LS is almost solely a numbers game, great work experience will rarely make up for bad numbers.
My husband graduated college and went on to get a masters in chemical engineering. Then he went to work for an oil company for 3 years and worked with some of the lawyers on a project. He realized he could do what they did, make more money, and not be transferred all over the place like the oil company wanted to do. He asked them to pay for it and they said no. He applied to law school, was accepted, and graduated Order of the Coif. He has practiced law ever since for a major firm and is also a patent attorney and well as a litigation attorney. This path was perfect for him. He was 28 or 29 when he started law school.