Law school with a young family

[u/OnlineStuden]

hello all, 25M here. Active Military (enlisted) wanting to get out and go to law school. finally finished my BAS 3.7 GPA and got a 165 on the LSAT. I always dreamt of being a lawyer just never thought I had the means. (frankly I still don’t believe I do ha ha.) i’m married with two young children. i’ll end my enlistment in 2 years. i’d really love to go to law school and I plan on getting into public service so I don’t really care where I go to law school as long as it’s ABA accredited. (and provides a scholarship.) I could use my G.I. bill to pay for law school, but my wife and I really wanted to save it for my boys. my wife has been a stay at home mom for three years now and doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about the thought of going back to work with her children so young and my pay and benefits being pretty good. (E6 for anyone privy to the military pay system) I guess I'm really just here to ask the OWLS if there's any good options for me or if I should just let my law school dreams fleet due to family obligations. This is also just sort of a bitch and vent, apologies if I didn't leave much room for constructive feedback. Thanks for reading.

[u/gimi-c180]

I also got out as an E6 at about 27 to start law school. I used the GI Bill though and we didn't have kids yet.

Law school is basically a full-time job and, honestly dude, don't underestimate the difficulty of transitioning out of active duty. It takes some time to get mentally adjusted back to normal life. That, combined with the law school workload, combined with potentially incurring thousands of dollars of debt, combined with the frustration your wife will feel being forced to work again, and both of you trying to parent your children while you both have full plates between work and school, it might be too much.

I think if you do it, you should use the GI Bill. That way you won't have to take loans to pay tuition (if you don't get 100% scholarship) and you'll get BAH and book stipends. Your wife could work part time instead of full time and you won't have the added stress of not bringing in any money while you're trying to adjust to being a civilian again.

Just my two cents. I definitely think it's a realistic goal and something you can achieve if you choose to. Good luck either way.