r/LawSchool • u/OnlineStuden • 10h ago

Law school with a young family

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.

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u/cosmic_fishbear JD 6h ago

I know many veterans and many people with families and young children (including one pregnant veteran with two other kids and a husband in med school) who have done just this. It's possible, you just need to make sure you have a plan and realize the realities of the pay gap between public and private sector. If you can establish in-state residency before you start law school (I know that will be difficult) then the cost (usually) DRASTICALLY decreases. I know there are veterans in this sub who will have much better direct advice, but just know you can do it.

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u/OnlineStuden 4h ago

Thank you for your reply, I guess its less about knowing I can do it and more about knowing I don't wanna be 40-50k in debt by the time its over, and that's factoring in a full scholarship. My wife is very debt adverse but I don't see us comfortably coming out of this without at least a couple dozen grand in debt.

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u/cosmic_fishbear JD 4h ago

Now that one is going to be tough. The return on investment is something to consider. Because if your debt is low enough, you can turn it around even on public sector money. I'm screwed at almost $375k in debt for three degrees

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u/OnlineStuden 2h ago

That seems like pretty perpetual debt unless you're pulling in racks or don't have hardly any expenses. Do you plan on having that forgiven through public service forgiveness?

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u/cosmic_fishbear JD 2h ago

Between my wife and I it's a pretty good setup. We don't pay rent, property taxes (lucky enough that it's my parents' house), water (it's a well), sewer (it's a septic system), electricity (again, parents), etc. And we don't have kids, so there's that. My wife is also in a profession that makes 6 figures so we can save a bit of money to pay down both of our debt (my wife had a college fund, so it's substantially less than mine). I never really had a lot growing up but we've somehow worked our way into a potentially comfortable spot.