Entrance into Law School

According to the admissions folks we spoke with (who will remain anonymous), if you have the grades, application, and LSAT that rank near the top quarter or so of the prospective class, baring anything abnormal, you'll get accepted.

If you slot in the other 75% (and note that can include being significantly better than average), then all the other factors start to come into play. Other factors can include undergraduate university, geography, race, gender, age, military background, prior work experience, and other factors.

We know you cannot influence your race, gender, age, and undergraduate university (assuming you've graduated already). You probably have little ability regarding geography and veterans represent a small percentage of law school applicants and is always seen as a positive.

What one can control is whether to take time between the undergrad and law school experience. The feedback we got from admissions folks was very consistent.

1. It can't hurt. Literally nothing you can do will hurt your admission chances. Clearly jobs that point to your interest in law (paralegal, legal intern, etc.) all corroborate a story of why you want to go to school, but we were told that folks who took a year to travel, ski, work as a brewer, learned to cook, etc., all allowed the candidates to paint a picture of “I'm ready to do this” assuming the application told what they thought was a sincere story.

2. It probably will help. Some of the schools we spoke to said prior work experience helped the admission process because they believed this candidate pool would be more mature and have a greater chance of employment post-law school. Remember, law schools are partially ranked by employment numbers, so they aren't just accepting you as a legal student, but also looking at your future career opportunities and how that might affect their rankings and their fundraising prospects years down the line.

Anecdotal information seems to suggest that those who did something after undergrad but before law school experienced less stress their first year at law school. This might be attributed to either having experience in the real world to cope with new and stressful situations or having gotten into a healthy headspace by taking time off before the three-year slog of law school.

We were fortunate enough that two law schools gave us the data they track regarding this subject. One school that wants to remain nameless saw a marginal increase in grade performance from those who took time off, but it was not a massive amount. Northwestern Law, Alex's alma mater, has found that work experience greatly improves student outcomes, such that it has almost become a de facto requirement for admittance. More than 90% of incoming NU Law students have at least one year of work experience. Alex was one of the few in his class who did not have work experience, and at times during the critical first year felt that lack acutely.