Reply to Taking on Debt for Law School

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[quote=Anonymous]I'd encourage everyone to take time off between college and law school and work in a legal field in some way or gain another skill that is useful for legal practice.

I didn't do this and I wish I'd been able to take some time and learn Spanish or live somewhere random because that's hard to do after law school with so much more debt.

I graduated from a T14 in 2009 and went into public interest. Pay was low in comparison to my debt (though debt was lower than 145k because of scholarships, teaching assistantships, a summer at a big law firm, and some other things). Loan forgiveness from my law school and the DC Bar Foundation helped me pay it off. Then I went to a policy job in a trade association related to my public interest job and basically doubled my salary (still about 50% lower than a first-year associate at a big firm), enabling me to pay off the loans about 7 years after graduation.

I'm glad I went to law school because I made friends there, found it interesting, and my job requires it. The degree could help me with other work I'd be happy to do as well. But I'm sure there are jobs I would have been ok with that didn't require law school and I could have done a cheaper/shorter grad program like an MPP or an MBA.

Most importantly, I think your kid needs to decide for himself what to do. You decide what if anything you're willing to contribute for grad school or similar post-grad training and your kid decides how and when and whether to use it.[/quote]

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