LSAT Diary: Avoiding Law School Debt

This LSAT Diary comes from Eric, who got a full ride to the University of Oregon Law School!

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Thanks to Eric for sharing his experience and advice!

Eric's LSAT Diary:

A few weeks ago, Steve and I got to talking about my recent LSAT and law school admissions experience. I have both a unique experience in getting entry into law school and deciding to go to law school in the first place. For many of you, the next few weeks are going to full of strenuous moments of attempting to boost your LSAT score in a mad rush for the December sitting. For some of you, this will likely be accompanied with the ever-so-riddling question of “Why the fuck am I going to law school?” 

I had the opportunity to work in South Korea for eight months as a development consultant for an American university creating a satellite campus on basically what is a man-made island with massive government subsidies and tax breaks. I had to make quick decisions, lots of them, and often they were fairly large transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars. Much of this money was directly tied to tax-payer funded assets in the United States – much of it also involved expatriate employees. The legal complications of this were a massive headache, and the outside counsel we hired was billing $600+ an hour – touting that he was only one of two foreign attorneys in Seoul capable of handling our situation. I thought at this point: “I speak Korean, I know the country, the culture, and I know how to conduct the business here – why not complete the legal side of this equation and be the guy that can bill $600/hour?” 

Obviously the road will be long and far more complex than I am giving it credit for. However, I see where I fit into this massive transnational legal services labyrinth. I cold-called several attorneys practicing in Korea almost all of them were generous enough to offer me a few minutes of free advice. I asked them what their experiences before law school were with Korea – I was able to make connections to my own narrative and theirs, which encouraged me to aim where they aimed. Hence, my decision to go to law school.  I rushed back to the US in December of 2013 with the goal of prepping for the February 2014 LSAT.

I worked through two LSAT prep books and bought the individual tests (that at the time, were not published in the LSAC books) from LSAT Blog. I ended up scoring right at the 75th percentile mark, which was less than I had hoped (then again, most people say that when getting their scores back). I had a 3.4 GPA which landed me applying for schools rank 35-80 (the top end of that being my reach schools, the lower end being my safety schools). I got into a handful, rejected from some, waitlisted from a couple which I really wanted to get into. I decided to look at my options.

I had a friend that went to the University of Oregon and had good things to say about the region, the faculty, and the study environment. The University of Oregon had offered me a 30% tuition scholarship right off the bat – which kept them on my list. The school went to great lengths to reach out to their admitted applicants and answer questions they may have and sort of “pitch” their various programs. After showing some interest, they offered to fly me out for a visit in June. I met with some of the business law faculty and was very pleased with my brief interactions with them. 

I contacted one faculty member in particular a couple of weeks after my visit both to thank them and talk scholarships. I told them I was interested, I loved the visit, and I would be interested in attending provided we could come to some more favorable arrangement with tuition. The faculty member was impressed by this in addition to our positive interaction when I visited, and offered to advocate for me to the scholarship committee. Two days later they came back with a sizable offer covering my tuition, and an offer for a business law fellowship. Doing some quick math, and including my undergraduate loans, a JD from the University of Oregon would all-in-all cost me $40,000 out-of-pocket. 

I think it’s important to note that whenever you look at the out-of-pocket costs, or how much debt you will have when you graduate, you should look at what your monthly payments will actually be. I found I’d pay about $470/month over a ten year period. That’s very manageable. Other people may have a yearly cost of attendance (look at this, not tuition) of $80k+ (see U Chicago) – this ends up being a monthly payment of nearly $3,000 for ten years. I can’t predict markets, I can’t foresee the greater motions of macroeconomics for the next ten years. I understand the difference in salaries between UChicago and University of Oregon. Given all of that, a $470/month payment is nominally $470, and a $3,000/month payment is nominally $3,000. Legal markets gone to shit? Too bad, fork over your $3k. That kind of indentured servitude was not my idea of a free and happy life.

I’ll never forget the advice one of the named partners at a mid-size firm in Seoul gave me, to paraphrase: “Go where you will come out with the least amount of debt. At the end of the day I was able to pack up and start a firm in Seoul, which is what I wanted to do. My peers with massive debt are forced to live where the market is good and where they can bill enough hours. I get to choose my hours, I get to spend my money, and at the end of the day I make just as much as they do.” 

To quote another article from the Above The Law blog by Joe Patrice: “If you want to be a lawyer, and you’ve gotten an offer to pursue your education cheaply at a quality school, then go to law school. If that sentence is untrue in any way, then don’t go to law school. That’s really all there is to it.”

That’s the advice I prescribe to and what I would offer to others. Try to figure out what your value is prior to deciding to go to law school – and use that to appeal to some faculty that shares your vision. The faculty that advocated to raise my scholarship valued my international experiences and thought I would be a valuable addition to the student body – this gave her the ammo she needed to represent my interests. 

Think about where you want to be, talk to others that went there before you, and latch onto the people that can help get you there. I’m not fundamentally opposed to the max debt/max salary perspective, however I am fundamentally opposed to you doing that just because it’s the majority opinion. You have more talents and value than just what your JD and its origins will give you – leverage those and consider them in deciding where you want to go to school. 

Photo by aepoc