So you’re a college junior or senior, and law school is in your near future. The question is, exactly how near? Should you apply during your senior year and attend law school fresh out of college? Or should you work a job for a couple of years and gain experience? This question has a name in law school admissions circles: “KJD,” short for “Kindergarten through JD.” Basically, the KJD law school path is that you finish undergrad in May and start 1L in August. If you haven’t skipped a year, you’re a law student at 22 and a budding lawyer at 25.
For the right person, the KJD plan has a certain appeal. You get all your schooling done (forever!) and if all goes well, “lawyer” is your first and last job. It can be a clean transition from academic to professional life. But it does have its downsides as well.
In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of the KJD law school path, and we’ll also consider the merits of taking a gap year or more. Off we go!
The Case for the KJD Law School Path
Perhaps the most underrated advantage of going straight through to law school is momentum. After four years of college, you know how to be a student. You’re comfortable with the day-to-day life of syllabi, assigned readings, and written assignments. You can also handle the week-to-week swings from “quiet” to “crazy,” where you barely have enough work to do one week and are pulling all-nighters for midterms/finals the next.
If you take a gap period, it’s not like you completely forget how to be a student. But there is a difference in pace of life, and depending on the length of your gap, there can be an adjustment period as you regain your academic bearings.
There’s also the LSAT to consider. From my experience working with students, studying for the LSAT is a tougher road once you’re out of college. It can be very demanding of your time and energy—two things that are often in short supply if you’re working a full-time job post-graduation.
That’s not to say that college isn’t demanding, but it’s not “exhausted after 7 p.m., studying necessary assumptions, and thinking about work in the morning” demanding. Plus, in college, you can often take a lower credit load to offset the added mental load of LSAT studying. (Just try asking your boss if you can come in 10 fewer hours per week!)
Another underrated benefit of the Kindergarten-to-JD plan is that because there isn’t pressure to have a career before law school, your choice of major is less constrained. You don’t need a “marketable” degree; from a law school’s perspective, studying History, Philosophy, or Classics is marketable. What matters is your intellectual rigor and curiosity, not your appeal to Corporate America.
Finally, KJD students benefit immensely from having on-campus resources during the application process. Academic and prelaw advisors, writing tutors, and law school fairs are three great examples of resources you can avail yourself of, right now, for free. Once you’ve graduated into the real world, such offerings are far fewer and harder to come by.
Further Reading
💻 How to Study for the LSAT Part-Time
🎓 What Are the Best Pre Law Majors? (And Do They Really Matter?)
🎓 What College Courses Should You Take to Prepare for Law School?
The Case for the Gap Year
There are numerous benefits of taking some time between college and law school. But before we get to those, let me provide some reassurance: if you take a couple years off, you will not be “behind.” Your typical law student is in their mid-twenties. Roughly one in five 1Ls are 27 or older. Try to take a long-term view of the 30+ year career that awaits you; the handful of years you take for yourself are barely a rounding error.
And, professionally speaking, those years can be valuable! Work experience, especially in a legal setting, can provide clarity on what you actually want out of a career. If you spend a year doing administrative work at the courts, or as a paralegal at a litigation firm, you might emerge with a zeal for argument and advocacy. But you might also realize that you’d rather be on the business side, or in policy, or somewhere else entirely. Either outcome is invaluable information to have as you consider your law school roadmap.
If your academic credentials aren’t quite where you’d like them to be, the work experience gained during your gap years can also strengthen your application. It won’t erase a low GPA or uncompetitive LSAT, but it makes you a better-rounded candidate and can make a real difference.
To be clear, if you’re KJD, you won’t be penalized for lack of work experience. You’ll just be riding or dying on your academic record (because for KJD applicants, there’s little else to evaluate).
Gap time can also help you develop a geographic preference, which matters more than people realize. For most law schools, post-graduate job placement is highly regional—i.e., where you attend law school is most likely where your first job will be. Similarly, the location of your first job is likely the location of your next job. Moving is always possible, but you may be reluctant to pick up and start over (and possibly take the bar exam again) once you’ve already established yourself in your target legal market.
All of this is to say that, at 22 with a fresh college diploma, you might not know where you want to plant your roots just yet. Taking the gap lets you move somewhere new, explore, then move again, with minimal strings attached.
Finally—in the spirit of exploring—being a twenty-something before law school has its virtues. Law school is a grind. Being a lawyer is more rewarding but still a grind. Your postgrad years might be your last real opportunity to explore life at your own pace. You can travel. Learn to cook. Work a job you love, even if it doesn’t pay well.
Law school will still be waiting once you’ve checked a few life experiences off your list. If you take the KJD law school path, you might hit career milestones a couple years younger. But you might also wake up at 40, a partner at a law firm, wondering where your twenties went.
Final Thoughts
Whether KJD is the “right” move depends entirely on your personal circumstances. While there’s no universal answer, here is one useful exercise: envision your life in both scenarios. If you go KJD, what’s the best case? What’s the worst? Ask the same questions if you take a year or two off. In both the best- and worst-case scenarios, which set of answers sits better with you?
For most people, a little runway between undergrad and law school makes a lot of sense. It can make you a stronger applicant, a more grounded student, and ultimately, a more intentional lawyer who knows what kind of law they want to practice and why. However, if you already know exactly what you want out of your legal career, are motivated by your current momentum, and ready to commit, KJD might just be the right fit.
Whether you’re on the KJD law school path or a gap year applicant, a competitive LSAT score will open doors, expand your options, strengthen your application, and position you for the best scholarships.
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Further Reading
💻 The LSAT at 30, 40, or 50+: Non-Traditional Student Advice: Making a career change? Worried about taking the LSAT later in life? Get expert advice for non-traditional students preparing for the LSAT.
🧳 What Can You Do in Your Gap Year(s) Before Law School? : If you’re thinking about taking a gap year before pursuing your J.D., your options for keeping busy are pretty abundant.
