What, Like It’s Hard? // The cost of ambition

I know there is nothing else I want to do with my life except being a lawyer. I have been nearly certain since I was 16 years old, and throughout the last six years, I have been affirmed time and time again that this is the right path for me. And yet, for all my encouragement of others and praise for those who want to dive into a future legal career, I remain deeply uncomfortable with one thing — the cost of it all.

My freshman year, Pitt’s pre-law advisor Alex Ball gave a presentation to a club I was in about the path to law school. He went over everything you could possibly need to know, and at the very end he broke down just how much it was going to cost to go to law school — I believe he estimated somewhere around $1,200-$1,600 in total to study for the LSAT, take the LSAT, pay all the fees and actually apply to your schools of choice.

I remember finding that hard to believe but, oh boy, was he completely and totally correct.

I say this all the time — I have never contributed to and participated in such a classist and elitist process in my entire life. And as a middle-class, out-of-state college student, trust me when I say I am no stranger to elitist environments. Without the gracious assistance of my family and outside support, I have no idea how I would have ever afforded this process. I cannot even imagine the struggle it would be without any sort of accommodations.

Admittedly, I am a try-hard. I cared about my LSAT score, and I have a relatively clear plan for my future career. I don’t necessarily think I am the most representative of the general applicant pool, but I know that I am not an outlier. If anything, I am rocking it in the middle to upper middle of try-hardness. Based on that information, here is the breakdown of everything I spent to apply during the 2024 application season:

• $290 for my three LSAT textbooks and their equivalent workbooks.
• $180 for online live LSAT lessons.
• $200 for the LSAC Credential Assembly Service — mandatory.
• $5 to send my transcript to LSAC.
• $660 for my exams. It is around $220 for each LSAT, which I took three times.
• $45 to send my CAS report to each school. I applied to 13 schools, thus I spent $585.
• $210 for application fees. It would have been somewhere around $975 if it weren’t for fee waivers.

All in all, I spent somewhere around $2130 the last two years of my life to apply to law school. It could have been closer to $2895 if I hadn’t gotten my nine fee waivers. 

I want to be honest with whoever is reading this that I didn’t have this amount of money just lying around to afford this escapade. I was only able to apply to the schools that I did and take the LSAT three times thanks to scholarship awards and family assistance. Some people take out loans to cover the costs, others diligently write to schools to get at least the application fees waived and some are able to get relief from LSAC as well. 

But the truth of the matter is that applying to law school is expensive to a degree in which it will deter a lot of people who don’t want to deal with the price. Even those who just want a JD and to get out, who don’t care about where they go and the kind of school they attend, will still have to put up a pretty check at the end of the day.

The best advice I can give to anyone, regardless of the amount of schools you end up applying to — get yourself as many fee waivers as you possibly can. I was sent a lot due to my LSAT score and GPA, but you can also get some if you reach out to admissions counselors at the schools you are interested in. Or, if you go to the law school fair here at Pitt or other admissions events, you can probably score one there as well. The $45 CAS fee per school is unremovable without LSAC assistance, but you can get the extra $40-$100 fee removed with some kindness and grace from admissions counselors which will help out tremendously. As you can see above, it did for me.

As much as this is a lot of money spent, it was spread out over the course of two years and is nowhere near as much as what actual law school will cost. I am not saying this to deter people from the profession or shatter anyone’s dreams, but the truth is that people are not honest about the cost of it all. People make this process seem a lot easier and a lot cheaper than it actually is, and if you complain about it or struggle to keep up with the increasingly high demands, people will make you feel small and like it’s not even worth it to try.

If you are thinking about applying to law school, you should know what you are getting yourself into. It’s hard, it’s a lot of work and it is ungodly expensive. But it is also an investment into yourself and your future career. Depending on the kind of law you want to do or the school you go to, there exists the potential for a very lucrative career if that is the route you choose to embark on.

The truth of the costs is that it sucks. While your friends get to go out for a drink or sit around at a cozy booth feasting on not-so-cheap meals, you are left drinking water and eating a side of fries — if you even have the time to go out in the first place with your busy studying schedule. But, at the end of it all, you’ll have a JD and near 100% job security. The world will always need lawyers.