I still think about an email I received from a former client and one-time law school applicant, updating me about the interesting things he was up to. He concluded the message by saying:
Anyways, thanks for being the law school advisor that told me that law school didn't sound like it was for me :) . After killing myself for another 7 months and finally getting up to a 174 on the LSAT, I said screw law school and haven't looked back... I still recommend your services and have gifted at least 15 of your books.
I had had a preliminary diagnostic conversation with this applicant, as I always did before starting any counseling on the applications themselves, because I wanted to make sure we'd had a conversation about whether it made sense to apply at all. His update helped me distill the central message:
It's OK to walk away from law school, even after you've gotten a great LSAT score, and even after you've gotten in. Before you sign on any dotted lines and send in your deposit to go to law school, remind yourself that you DO NOT HAVE TO GO. Now is the time to reassess those options and decide whether they still make sense for you. Keep your head screwed on straight.
DO go to law school if you want to be a lawyer (based on what knowledge?), and you are going to a school — and at a price point — that sets you up to reach your goals. Do you know what your goals are? Do you know why you're going? Are you going to hit the ground running from Day 1? If not, don't go.
DON'T go just because you can. For plenty of law school graduates, they look back and think it was a time-consuming and expensive detour from what they really want to do with their lives.
DON'T go because your parents want you to.
DON'T go because you think a law school diploma will somehow validate you as a smart person.
DON'T go because you think law school — even a top law school — is a safe bet. That depends very much on the economy and your own hustle.
DON'T go because the government is enabling you to borrow heaps of money for this purpose.
DON'T go because some law school out there is happy to part you from your student loan dollars.
You may still have good reasons to go to law school, but it's on you to figure out what those good and rational reasons are. Law school is a fine choice for some people, and a terrible one for others, depending on the circumstances and various options on the table.
I continue to believe that many ABA-approved law schools do not add enough value to justify the tuition they are charging, or the debt that many people incur in order to attend. There's no shame in applying but then deciding, "Wait, this might not be the best option for me." Sometimes you have to start down a particular road before you have a moment of clarity, or before you are open to hearing something you didn't think you needed or wanted to hear. Imagine how hard it is to walk away from a 174 LSAT, after all that blood, sweat, and tears, when you know that others would give their right arms for that score. Still, this once-aspiring-applicant thinks he made the right call, and I agree with him.
Ultimately nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you go. It's your choice, and you’re the one who lives with the consequences, whether good or bad.
So educate yourself about the legal profession as it is today, warts and all. Educate yourself about what graduates from School X typically earn and what their typical career paths are. Educate yourself about borrowing costs. Go find lawyers who do the kinds of things professionally that you think you want to do, and look under the hood. Go get the LSAT score you need to get into the school that will open the doors you want opened, and the score that will enable you to go there without a real risk of financial ruin. And if you're not in the running for the kind of school you need to get from Point A to B to C, have a back-up plan and maybe even go do something else entirely. Don't have a back-up plan? That might be the worst reason to go to whatever law school will take you. If law school is your path of least resistance, that’s a really strong sign that you should be more proactive with your goals.
Once you've done that homework and gotten advice and formulated a plan — do not outsource or skip this part, because ultimately it's you who bears the consequences — you'll have a much better sense of whether law school in general is the right move for you, and whether particular law schools who have made you offers are good investments for you. If so, that's great news. And if not, that's great information to have too.
Why do I keep banging this drum? Because so many of the forces and voices you come into contact with will push you toward law school — supposedly easy money, prestige, your proud parents, magical thinking, dodgy statistics, sexy TV shows, historical levels of affluence among lawyers, you name it. The list is long.
Those are the wrong influences to be listening to, for a bunch of reasons: the present is not like the past, some of those schools are lying to you, you probably have to pay the money back (and it's a lot for many people), the practice of law is rarely sexy, and your mom will still love you even if you don't go.