You have a conference call at 10 AM, a project deadline at 4 PM and a date with a logic puzzle at 7 PM. Welcome to the “double life” of the career-switching law school applicant.
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that only hits when you are trying to leave one career to start another. You spend eight hours a day being a competent professional managing budgets, leading teams or coding software and then you come home, change into sweatpants and force your tired brain to care about whether Person A sits next to Person B at a hypothetical dinner table.
If you are prepping for law school while holding down a full-time job, give yourself some credit. It is not easy. Unlike the college senior who can treat studying like a full-time gig, you have to steal time. You are studying in the margins of your life on lunch breaks, early Saturday mornings and late nights when you would rather be watching Netflix.
But here is the good news: while it feels overwhelming, professionals often make better law students than fresh graduates. You already know how to work. You just need a strategy to manage the chaos without burning the candle at both ends.
Treating the Test Like a Client Project
The biggest mistake working professionals make is treating the LSAT like homework. Homework is something you do when you “have time.” But in the corporate world, you know that if you don’t block out time for a project, it never happens.
You have to treat this test like a high-stakes client deliverable. You wouldn’t “wing it” for a quarterly review, so don’t wing it here. You need a structure. You need a reliable LSAT study guide that breaks the massive mountain of material into manageable daily tasks.
When you have a plan, you stop wasting energy wondering, “What should I do today?” and start just doing it. This saves your decision-making power for the actual questions.
The “5-to-9” Before the “9-to-5”
The reality of working full-time is that your brain is mush by 6 PM. If you plan to do your heaviest lifting after a stressful day at the office, you are setting yourself up to fail. Your reading speed slows down. Your patience for complex arguments wears thin.
Many successful career-switchers find they have to flip their day. They wake up two hours early (say, 5 AM) and get their study session done before they check a single work email. The house is quiet, your phone isn’t buzzing and (most importantly) your brain is fresh.
It sounds painful, and for the first week, it is. But there is a massive psychological win in knowing that by the time you pour your first cup of coffee at the office, you have already done the most important task of your day. The rest of the day can throw whatever it wants at you; you already put your deposits in the bank.
The Art of Saying “No”
This is the part nobody likes to talk about: the social cost. You cannot work 40 hours a week, study 20 hours a week, and still maintain a perfect work-life balance. Something has to give.
For the next three or four months, you have to get comfortable with saying “no.” No to the Tuesday night happy hour. No to the weekend getaway. It isn’t forever. It is a season.
Your friends and colleagues might not get it. They might tell you to “take a break.” But they aren’t the ones trying to secure a scholarship that could save them $50,000. Protect your time fiercely. You are investing in your future self, and that person will thank you for skipping a few brunches.
Don’t Hide It (Ideally)
If you have a supportive boss, let them know what you are doing. You don’t have to say, “Sorry, I’m leaving in six months.” You can frame it as professional development or simply let them know you are taking a rigorous course.
Why? Because it buys you grace. If you seem a little more tired than usual, or if you need to take a random Friday off before the test, they will understand why. Keeping it a total secret adds a layer of stress you don’t need.
According to recent data on law school applicants, the pool is getting older and more diverse. Admissions committees value work experience. They like seeing that you have navigated the real world. So, when you are writing your personal statement, don’t hide your career. No, highlight it. It proves you know what hard work actually looks like.
The Finish Line
There will be days when you want to quit. There will be days when you look at your comfortable paycheck and ask, “Why am I doing this?”
That is normal. Just remember that this phase is temporary. The late nights and the early mornings are the price of admission for the career you actually want. Keep your head down, follow your schedule and trust that the work you are putting in now will pay off when you open that acceptance letter.
