Law School Planning for A Nontraditional Student

Applying to College
1

Greetings. I am a pastor with fourteen years of lead pastor experience. I earned my BA in English back in 1995 (UK) and my Masters in Divinity from Vanderbilt in 2010 (I was on a leadership/academic scholarship). Moreover, I was a Reserve Officer and Chaplain in the USAF then NAVY from 2006-Sept of this year.

I want to go to Law School that I can better advocate for military women and men and their families while also working on legislation reform for the prison overcrowding issues that are too often mated with little reform and high recidivism. I also want to work with legal issues with juveniles and am very interested in alternative dispute resolution training that I would like to apply to conflict resolution in many arenas.

Currently, as I am pastor and have much experience with counseling, I am am taking classes in counseling from Northwestern University as a MA student. I do believe, counseling training is a beneficial tool not only for pastors, but for some attorneys too.

My question: I am in the St Louis area. I very much prefer Wash U Law School (I have visited). I also, being a father of a toddler, need a scholarship (I am working on a KAPLAN LSAT Prep Course; Feb 2016 LSAT). What wisdom would you offer me, a nontraditional student, as I work toward getting into Wash U Law School (St Louis U and Mizzou would be other possibilities)? How viable do my goals for the use of a Law degree sound? Thank you.

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This question really shouldn’t be in the non-traditional section of this board. Better if you posted in the law school admissions section. In the US no one does law as an undergrad. It’s a graduate school level degree. If I were an admissions officer I’d be asking myself: what does he truly understand about practicing law? Does he know what he’s getting into? 1) You may want to get law-related experience to add to your resume before embarking on the study of law. Can you find work in a public interest organization like the Prisoner’s Legal Service? Even as a volunteer? There are several orgs like that. Be sure that you try out the field before committing, because 2) financial aid for law schools is usually pretty slim. You will be gradauting with a lot of debt (if you don’t already have debt from your other degrees). The types of law that you want to go into don’t pay much. There are loan-forgiveness programs for people entering public interest practice, but you should research this thoroughly. UWStL law school grads have about $111K debt upon graduation. 3) Many of the things you want to do are possible without a law degree (advocating for military women and men and families, prisoner overcrowding issues, etc) 4) Nontraditional status: for law school your story isn’t that nontraditional. People enter JD programs from a variety of areas usually after having worked at something first.