<p>My brother is a current senior at a good undergraduate university, but has entailed about 60k dollars worth of debt over his four years. He wants to go to law school, but feels as if he will have far too much debt to pay off if he goes straight away. He plans to work for a few years (5-7) pay off his loans, and then go to law school. His stats are quite good (3.8 166), and it's only money that's holding him back. So, will it put him too far behind the curve if he goes into law school in 5 years rather than straight away?</p>
<p>Although I didn’t do it to pay off debt, this is what I did. I believe it could hurt his Biglaw chances (they don’t seem to hire as much from the nontrad pool, although I have no stats to back this), but as far as law school itself it can be an asset. As long as it’s meaningful work that he can get LoR’s and maybe a persona statement out of, and as long as he performs well there, it can help his application. Just remind him to keep up on his LSAT prep, he’ll have to take the test again if he waits 5 years.</p>
<p>Lots of people go to law school several years after college. While 5 years is probably more than average (at my school, the median 1L is 25 years old), he won’t be the oldest one there.</p>
<p>I believe the LSAT score will expire after 5 years though, so he may need to retake it if he waits that long. On the other hand, with his GPA even a 1 or 2 point increase may have a strong positive impact on which schools accept him, so he might want to retake it anyway.</p>
<p>I’m sure he’ll be thrilled! I know he doesn’t really want to go Biglaw, rather he’d like to work as a criminal defense attorney on a smaller scale. Thanks everybody.</p>