<p>What are the potential drawbacks of attending law school at night or part-time in terms of academics, employment prospects, networking opportunities, etc? Thanks for your responses!</p>
<p>One thing you must understand is that you can’t take your time to get the degree. If you go at night, you must take your course work over the span of 4 rather than 3 years. You really can’t go "part time’ during the day. It’s not an option. You can NOT stretch taking the required courses over a time period longer than 4 years and get a JD. It’s not permitted. </p>
<p>It’s REALLY hard to hold down a full time job and go to law school at night. At the “best” night law schools you’ll find that a number of students are “full time” night law students, by which I mean they do NOT have jobs. They are only going at night because they didn’t get into as high ranked a law school for the regular program. There are a lot of students at Fordham and Georgetown who fall into this category. That makes it really difficult for the people who do have part time or full time day jobs to compete. </p>
<p>One other problem is that most hiring is based on the summer position you have after your second year of law school. It may be very hard to take such a job and “keep your day job.”</p>
<p>I am not a fan of part-law school. Yes, people are able to make it through the programs, but it is very difficult to do so. Your goal of going through a part time program should be that once you complete the program you are as well prepared as if you had gone through a full time program. If you are working a full time job and have family responsibilities, I don’t see any way to do all three well. Either you become a poor worker, poor spouse/parent, or a poor law student. Maybe you become all three. I would chose part-time law school only as a last resort.</p>
<p>I really liked part time at Texas Wesleyan. I changed 2L to full time, however I went part time, yet devoted full time hours to it, the goal was to beat the attrition rate… it worked.</p>