“How did you grapple with law school debt?”
This is a question I get often from pre-law students, and it’s a question I, too, asked before committing to law school. Well, to be honest, I stressed about it for months and nearly opted out of law school due to the anxiety it caused. It’s a critical question to ask and a large amount of debt to stomach. I’ll be coming out of law school with nearly $200,000 in debt. Although I laugh when I look at my debt nowadays, that wasn’t always the case.
It wasn’t easy grappling with my law school debt. I lost sleep, came up with lists as to why it wasn’t worth accruing so much debt for a degree, cursed our U.S. government, and looked into getting a degree in London (LOL). The anxiety was REAL folks! I initially wanted to pursue a public interest career, so I worried about what my payments would look like. The thought of potentially living paycheck to paycheck didn’t sit right with me.
Early in my 2L year, I realized I was better suited for big law practice and no longer wanted to do public interest work (at least full time). However, I then struggled with how large my monthly loan payments would be given my salary. I was always stressing about something!
I realized the root cause of my debt stress was (1) my mindset and (2) my relationship with money.
Upon reflection, I realized the root cause of my debt stress was (1) my mindset and (2) my relationship with money. Whenever I thought about my law school debt, I approached it from a place of fear. This is true for many of us. Fear is likely the root of all your problems, financial or not if you really sit down to dissect it. Fear blurred my vision and blocked my creativity. It had me so caught up with how large of debt I was accruing that I couldn’t see the many ways I could leverage my J.D. to generate money.
Now let us get into financial literacy because – whewwww child – this saved me! I was stressing about the $200k debt because I didn’t know anything about money and how it works. I’ve spent the last two years becoming financially literate. Over the past two years, I’ve met with financial advisors, have delved into stocks, IRAs, real estate, budgeting, and entrepreneurship. This knowledge has relieved me of a lot of stress and helped me realize how I can create multiple streams of passive income. I’ve also sat down to really learn about my loans and repayment plans.
Overall, the first actionable step you can take right now is to change your mindset! Omitting fear from my relationship with money has changed everything. View your J.D. as an investment in yourself and your dreams. A J.D. has a very lucrative ROI if you put it to work for you. After all, it takes money to make money, honey!
Lastly, study hard, get a good LSAT score, do everything I recommend in this post, and get that scholarship money so you can forget you even read this post!
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