Hey, OLs. There are several pros and cons to taking time off between college and law school. This is better known as a gap year. In this post I’m going to list those pros and cons that hopefully will help you decide what’s best for you. I separated those aspects into five categories that I think will provide a holistic viewpoint for your law school consideration.
Law School Admissions
PRO: Gaining Work Experience During Your Gap Year(s)
Gaining work experience is a huge advantage for those of us with low GPAs and/or low LSAT scores. This work experience can enhance your application and put some distance between you as an exceptional applicant and you as a mediocre student. Work experience can highlight other attributes you may have such as leadership and diversity of thought. These attributes may give you an edge to make up for other shortcomings on your application.
Further, if you’re like me, you can use these gap years gain practical legal experience as a paralegal, law clerk, or legal assistant to assess if this is a path you really want to dedicate three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. This certainty can translate into a rich personal statement or inform your admission interviews. My work experience certainly complemented my resume and my letters of recommendation, which spoke about my particular legal skills.
CON: LORs from Former Professors
Academic letters of recommendation are the preferred type of recommendation for law school. Admission Committees want to see how you perform academically since they are admitting you as a student. Although AdComs understand that some-if not most-applicants with work experience will instead submit professional letters of recommendation (like I did!), these professional recommendations may not be able to speak about your academic prowess especially if you don’t have the most competitive numbers.
If you take a few gap years after undergrad before asking for those letters of recommendation, you risk losing those relationships with Professors you may have built over your tenure at school. Will your professor will remember you and be able to write a unique recommendation that distinguishes you from other applicants if she taught you four years ago and have taught dozens of classes since?
Law School Gap Year Finances
PRO: You Are More Financially Stable (And Can Build Savings For Law School!)
If you take a few gap years to work full-time, you can build some savings, pay off some debt, or just in general improve your financial habits. If you use this time to build reserves, you can live off these savings during law school. Cost of living during law school is INSANE and an often forgotten cost that many aspiring lawyers need to consider. Seriously, how will you eat and pay rent during law school? You won’t be getting a room and board scholarship when most law schools don’t offer on-campus housing!
Further, you can learn budgeting tools and other tips and tricks to decrease expenses or make money with this goal in mind. No teacher is better at his or her job than experience. Student discounts may have applied to you in undergrad, but have you determined if you’re eligible for food stamps? Have you exhausted your newly-formed professional network for scholarship or internship opportunities that wouldn’t be an option outside of your network?
CON: You Have More Financial Responsibilities (And Opportunities To Get Into Debt!)
Hand-in-hand with opportunities for building reserves are opportunities to spend your money and get into debt! Unfortunately, I fell into this trap as well. Once you begin to earn money full-time, you will be tempted to spend money full-time. This is a pitfall of taking a law school gap year.
Additionally, your essential expenses will increase as well. You will be paying for your transportation, housing, health insurance, utilities, professional wardrobe for work, moving costs, furniture for your first post-college place, and any expenses that your parents were paying for during school. Let’s be real. How many of you pay for your own Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu accounts during college?
Your Legal Career
PRO: School and Work can complement each other
Perhaps you are getting a degree in an engineering discipline and your employer offers a tuition reimbursement program. Or you can continue to work as an engineer in the day while going to school at night so that when you graduate, you can leverage this extra work experience into a higher salary of better benefits. This logic applies to multiple industries.
Even law firms (except, perhaps, BigLaw’s first year programs) will consider pre-law school or non attorney experience if its directly related to their legal services. For examples, my first post-undergrad job was a Paralegal/Legal Assistant at an elder law firm. I also specifically worked on Medicaid applications and interfaced with nursing homes, hospitals, and healthcare providers on weekly basis. My exposure to federal health programs and health systems through my internship experiences got me the first call over other entry-level applicants. Again, this logic applies to lawyer jobs as well.
I have been behind the scene of the hiring process for attorney positions. I’ve seen applicants who had tangential experience get interviews over others who have gone to T14 schools or had fancy scholarships. My favorite examples are former child protective services social worker applying as a child custody attorney (which makes so much sense!) and a former social media manager applying to a internet and media law firm.
CON: Opportunity Costs Are More Expensive
As you progress in your career, your earning potential will raise. Therefore, the money you are forgoing by going to law school is also greater than if you went to law school straight out of undergrad.
Let’s Compare:
Let’s compare two accounting majors who received full-tuition scholarships to law school and take out $24,000.00 per year for their living expense each year. One (Let’s call him Ron) goes to law school after undergrad and the other (Harry) waits three years like I did.
Let’s say Harry gets an entry-level accountant job with an annual salary of $62,000.00 and a 10% raise per year. This is a generous assumption, but lets pay ball for the sake of simple math:
First year: Harry makes $62,000.00
Second year: Harry make $68,200.00
Third year: Harry make $75,020.00
For fourth, fifth, and sixth years Harry goes to law-school. During this time, he and makes $0.00 if we assume he doesn’t get any paid work. Ouch. However, if he stayed at his job he would have made the following:
Fourth year: Harry could’ve made $82,522.00, but he didn’t.
Fifth year: Harry could’ve made $90,774.20, but he didn’t.
Sixth year: Harry could’ve made $99,851.62, but he didn’t.
So on top of the $72,000.00 student loan debt Harry incurred for his living expenses, he essentially lost $273,147.62 in potential earnings by quitting his job after three years of building his career and going to law school full-time.
Let’s see how Ron is doing:
Instead of taking the entry-level $60,000.00 job, Rob goes to law school and makes $0.00. We are again assuming he gets no paid work during his time at law school tenure. Let’s give him the same conditions he gave Harry: an annual salary of $62,000.00 and a 10% raise per year.
First year: Ron could’ve made $62,000.00, but he didn’t.
Second year: Ron could’ve made $68,200.00, but he didn’t.
Third year: Ron could’ve made $75,020.00, but he didn’t.
So on top of the $72,000.00 student loan debt Harry incurred for his living expenses, he essentially lost $205,220.00 in potential earnings by quitting his job and going to law school full-time.
The difference ($67,927.62) may not seem that big compared to how they both spent a tremendous in opportunities costs, but remember we didn’t even calculate other potential raises, bonuses, job changes that led to higher salary, and other benefits. This is napkin math I did doesn’t illustrate those other factors that could multiply the disparity. Is waiting to pursue your drams worth, at minimum, $70 grand?
Law School Gap Year Lifestyle Changes
CON: You May Have To Pause Starting a Family, Traveling, Etc.
Not all opportunity costs can be measured in dollars and cents. If you want to have a family, travel the world, or pursue other non-monetary goals, you may have to pump your brakes until you finish your legal education. With the demands of law school, you may find it exceeding difficult if not impossible to do any of these other things at the same time. Mind you, some people do have families and travel while they are in law school, but they also have spouses or extended support networks to lighten the load of balancing everything.
PRO: Law School Gap Year = Early Adulthood
This is a benefit that most applicants don’t consider when it comes to taking time off prior to attending law school. I graduated college when I was 22 years old and applied to law school at 24. I will be 25 when I start law school. Over the past few years, I have lived in a big metropolitan area, gone to concerts, clubs, all types of 21+ events, and traveled to different parts of the country. I had little expenses as a young adult so most of my disposal income went into enjoying my early adulthood.
If I had gone to law school right after undergrad, I would have never went on trips with my friends, started my first business, or experienced the myriad of other carefree early-20-something-things I got to do because I was working and supporting that lifestyle. I’m appreciative that I did travel and and do more spontaneous and experimental stuff while I was young and without the responsibilities of mid-to-late-20s.
Law School Mental Health
PRO: You Are More Focused, Mature, and Wise
This benefit ties directly into the previous one. If you take a law school gap year, you will be attending law school at a time where you are more mature and focused on your goals. With time comes clarity of what you want in life and in your career. Unfortunately, many people pursue higher education because they do not know what to do professionally.
I’ve met a lot of attorneys who admit that when they applied to law school, they had no idea what to do with their lives outside of continuing school. How many times have you heard of someone deciding between law school or medical school or another intense career path? Maybe you find yourself debating whether to pursue law or architecture, nursing, academia, or another profession. Waiting a few years may distill what path you should go down with some work experience and time under your belt.
I personally took three years off between graduating college and going to law school. My law school gap year period was a great decision for me. I didn’t want to commit tons of debt and immeasurable mental anguish without knowing for certain that being an attorney is actually right for me. I’m going to law school with a certainty that I didn’t have three years ago. My determination to practice law has only strengthened with time. During difficulties, I won’t doubt my decision in the same way I may have if I hadn’t known otherwise.
CON: Going Back To School After The Gap Year SUCKS
Lastly, going back to school is a huge mental adjustment. I’m actually scared of returning to that “student” mindset. When you begin working, making your own money, and full-on “adulting,” reverting to a student and depending on others again-whether that be your spouse, your parents, the government, or your school-is a tremendous shift mentally.
Gone are the work deadlines and the 9-5, sure. But now I have to deal with exams, finals week, attendance, and law school assignments again. I must now manage an input, learning, full-time, instead of creating, managing, or other outputs. When you are “contributing” to society, you are operating differently than when you are “benefiting” as a student. And going back it going to be ROUGH.
