To Gap Or Not To Gap? That Is The Question

If you had to do it over again, would you?

Here’s the question posed to a collective group of old lady lawyers (we were on a Zoom call at the time) about a young woman college grad: is it better for her to consider law school directly out of college (there would be at least a year’s delay) or take several years before applying? Should she have some real-life experience of some sort or another first?

The sense of this group of old lady lawyers was to take several gap years. Considering the average amount of law school debt, she should be very sure, or at least as sure as possible in a very uncertain world that she wants to be a lawyer.

That means getting a job in a law firm, corporate setting, government, or nonprofit, or any other place where she can get some knowledge, exposure, experience, into what it is like to practice law. Granted, those jobs were few and far apart even before last year, but with remote practice likely to continue to some time to come, maybe even indefinitely, it’s hard to get a sense of what the day-to-day practice truly means, and the only way to get that understanding is to see lawyering in practice.

No one on any TV show that I’ve ever seen has talked about billing (boring!) but it’s an essential part of practice. Get those time sheets in, thunders the law version of Nurse Ratched. I don’t think that “The Good Wife” or “The Practice,” just to name two, ever devoted any airtime to that requirement.

Many law students, aspiring or otherwise, think that they want to do trial work.  That’s the sexy part about being a lawyer, true, but it doesn’t take up much time in the practices of many lawyers. While we lawyers can and do find drama in settling cases, a TV audience does not. I don’t recall television or movies portraying the day-to-day work of most practices, the litigators and transactional lawyers as opposed to the trial attorneys. Prospective students need to know more about what the practice of law really is, and how many times will one try a case, let alone be in a courtroom to argue a motion.

Even getting a file clerk job could be a challenge these days; with so much online, in the cloud, file clerks may do less filing and a lot more scanning. File maintenance may not mean the same as in the old days. Bankers boxes of documents may be relics of a bygone age.

I think all college grads considering law school need to do a deep dive into exactly why they want to be lawyers. Idealism and a desire to make the world a better place are laudable goals, goals we probably all had at one time or another, but as we learn, they often clash with the reality of practice, of making a living, handling clients, and opposing counsel. The practice of law is not easy, nor should it be, and the amount of debt that most will incur in law school doesn’t make it any easier.

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Here’s a question for newbie lawyers: did any professor, clinical professor, or adjunct tell you what practice would really be like? Did they tell you about the long hours, cranky judges, intractable opposing counsel, and the push-pull of doing the work and getting the clients? Regardless of whether you went to a Biglaw firm, a firm of any size, or you struck out on your own, did anyone tell you what you needed to know from a business perspective? Were there any classes or even a one-day or half-day session of things you needed to know, regardless of where you landed after law school? Trust account management, for example? Billing for another? Client development?

Regardless of how many clinical classes you took, regardless of how many stellar grades you got, the truth is that once you pass the bar, you are, wherever you land, practicing by the seat of your pants, especially in your first few years. Clients should not have to bear the brunt of your post law school education.

Obviously, knowing the law is essential and knowing how to apply it is even more essential, but how do you learn about the nonlegal aspects of practice, the care and feeding of clients, how to interact with courts and clerks, and a million other little (and not so little) things that are necessary for success today?

So, newbies, if you’ve read this far, what advice would you give to prospective, aspiring law students about gap time? If you had to do it over again, would you? Does it make more sense to go to law school as soon as possible after college or does it make more sense to take several years to go out in the world, see what it’s like, and whether amassing massive piles of debt is worth it when viewed from the perspective of five or 10 years out in practice? I’ll print your responses (those that are printable) in the future.

A recent study reports that the average law school debt is roughly $150K.  There are no words.

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As our profession starts to get a long overdue grip on mental health issues, a new report came out that surprised me: women lawyers are more stressed and drink more than male lawyers.

On second thought, I shouldn’t be surprised. Women have the majority, if not all, of the family responsibilities for both children and elders; they don’t see themselves advancing in the profession as much as men, and work-life balance for a lot of women is nothing more than a twenty-first century platitude. The questions of work-life balance and the accrual of law school debt are questions that all aspiring lawyers need to answer for themselves in this post-pandemic world.


Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.