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I had scholarships, I worked my ass off while I was in school and, actually before I went to law school, I had saved up as much money as I possibly could to limit the amount of time that I would have to work. In the first year of law school they want you to limit the hours that you work so that you can spend more time studying (I think they try to limit you to 10 hours a week during the first year). There are also plenty of opportunities to work during your time in law school. I had jobs as a research assistant to professors and as a student supervisor in two clinical programs that gave me a steady monthly income. You can also find jobs through local practitioners and law firms.
My advice to you is, start trying to figure out what you kind of law you want to practice, find someone who practices in that area and then approach them. Attorneys and law firms are always looking for people they can groom and potentially hire after they finish school.
Before I went to law school I went to work for a local attorney. I had pretty much decided what areas of the law I was interested in and then I went looking for someone who was already practicing in those areas. I found a local attorney who seemed to fit the bill. I then made a ballsy move and just went into his office and asked him for a job. I explained to him what I wanted to do and told him that I qualified for the work study program. He hired me to work for him I was finishing my undergrad work. I took this approach because I thought I should be familiar with what to expect both in school and afterward. It paid off. Big time. He had a law student who was working for him who taught me a lot of the fine points of legal research. I'm kind of nerdy/geeky anyway so research was something I could really sink my teeth into and I really enjoyed doing. During your first year they spend a lot of time teaching you how to do research because it gives you the basis of everything you'll need to know for the rest of your career. You need to know how to look up cases; use treatises, journals, statutes and find the model codes; how to shepardize (find out if the rule of law has been overturned or how it is treated in different jurisdictions); where/how to find legislative intent (what they legislature meant to accomplish by passing a statute); and basically how to put the pieces together so you have a sound basis for your legal arguments. Writing a legal document is a lot of being given several giant jigsaw puzzles and then taking pieces out of the pertinent puzzles and making a completely different picture.
By the time I got to law school I was ahead of the game because I was familiar with where to find things, how to use them and most of the law school staff & faculty knew me. They were used to seeing me around the library doing research and interacting with the staff. I think it increased my chances when I applied for jobs at the school because they saw me for over a year before I went to law school wandering the library doing research and really trying to learn. Besides, I also took the opportunity to ingratiate myself to them during that year. For example, whenever I ran across something new I would seek out the profs who taught that area and I would have coffee with them and talk about what I should be looking for and where I should be looking. The profs loved me because I was actually asking questions and I would actually listen to what they were saying.
I used to joke that the reason I went to law school was "I was told there would be no math," but there is. You'll do simple math in classes like family law, wills & trusts, business law, tax law and legal accounting. But, if it is any comfort to you, most of the time you won't be required to solve for x.
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