Before presuming you’re too old for law school, consider how your background may help you as an applicant.
Although most applicants are under 25, about 1 in 5 are 30 or older and a much smaller proportion are over 40. Many older law school graduates build fulfilling second careers that draw on preexisting skills and experiences.
Law school applicants who have been out of college for several years or more should keep the following aspects in mind:
- Career paths
- Application materials
- Part-time programs
- Campus resources
- Personal challenges
Career Paths
Law schools aren’t looking for students to come in with detailed career plans. Law students’ career paths can change course and evolve as they explore the wide range of legal fields through classes, clinics and internships, career services offices, events and extracurricular activities.
However, older applicants have a little more explaining to do to show that a legal career makes sense for them. In their resume and essays, they should clarify their past career path, their reasons for pursuing law and specific postgraduate goals.
As an older applicant, frame a career change positively, emphasizing the future over the past. For example, it’s fine for a former teacher to say she wants to work on education reform or ensuring classroom access for children with special needs. She could even say that teaching has been a fulfilling experience but ultimately can’t support her family.
But if she says that she hates dealing with paperwork, office politics and ungrateful parents, law schools may wonder whether she is committed to law school or simply burnt out and eager for any change. They may worry that this applicant might find law school similarly dissatisfying and drop out.
Application Materials
Law school applicants of any age need to submit all their academic records and ideally at least one letter of recommendation from a professor to the credential assembly service.
Applicants unable to track down an academic reference should try to find professional references who can speak to academic skills and other relevant personal qualities.
Generally, law schools don’t expect applicants who have been out of school for at least eight years to submit an academic reference letter, but there’s no shame in reaching out to a professor you haven’t spoken with in years. Just give the professor ample notice and offer to provide a life update and details about old grades and examples of past performance.
Law schools tend to put less weight on grades earned many years ago, but as an older applicant, you should try to demonstrate your academic capabilities through work experience.
In your resume, recommendation letters and personal statements, highlight examples of skillful uses of research and analysis. You might consider taking law-related courses at a local college, particularly if your field is unrelated to law.
Part-Time Programs
As an older applicant, you may have more life responsibilities to juggle with law school. You may be limited in geography or time commitment. Fortunately, there are increasing options for part-time and low-residency programs.
There are now multiple fully online J.D. programs, and even more hybrid online programs, that allow students to earn a law degree fully or primarily from home.
Campus Resources
Many law school students feel atypical in one way or another. As an older law student, your mindset may be worlds apart from younger peers more concerned with finding free drinks than child care, but you should not feel alone.
Many law schools have associations of Older, Wiser Law Students, or OWLS, to socialize, commiserate and share advice. Older students with kids might also consider Parents Attending Law School, or PALS. Nowadays, law schools offer a range of resources for parents, from flexible schedules to lactation rooms.
Personal Challenges
Some older applicants may be looking for a second chance rather than a midcareer change.
Law schools of all tiers have students who overcame hardships like addiction, incarceration, disability or fleeing a desperate situation. Schools value such students because they arrive with more motivation and more direct experience of the legal system than traditional applicants.
If your path to law school has been rocky, use your personal statement, optional essays or an addendum to provide this context. Make clear your readiness for the rigors of law school as well as your career goals, uniquely informed by your past challenges.
Most importantly, stay mindful of your strengths as an older applicant. While you may face hurdles like age discrimination in the legal field, you may also benefit from greater life experience, more resources and connections, and higher clarity of purpose.
For example, I once met a retired woman in Alaska who was working as a cook to save money for law school. She planned to spend her twilight years aiding the Alaska Native communities that she had grown close to while working on the North Slope oil fields.
Her plan to study Native American law wasn’t easy, and she would have to leave Alaska to find an accredited law school. But considering the hard life she had lived in the Last Frontier, I doubt she felt daunted by the challenge.
