This is an essay I wrote for the Perspectives collection UK Law sends out to incoming 1Ls. I tried to cover up the scarier parts.

My wife and I have two children. When I started school, my daughter was almost three, and my son was five months old. He would wake up every night around 1 AM, and it would take at least an hour to get him back to sleep. She started late on her terrible twos, and they were just coming into full swing when the fall semester started.

I was terrified that having kids would doom me in law school. I couldn’t count on a good night’s sleep on any given night, and my evenings and weekends were already full of doing things with them. And I certainly had a few “what was I thinking” moments over the course of my first year. Dealing with raising children and learning the law at the same time is difficult. But overall, I did better in school for having kids.

When you have kids, you have two things that other students don’t have. First, you have a reason to be efficient. Because you know your time to study is limited, you make the most of the time you have. You may only have two hours a night to read casebooks, but you’ll learn to get it done in that time because you have to. More importantly, you’ll always have a reminder as to why you’re in law school. When you come home from a day in class, you’ll come home to kids who need you to provide for them, and for whose benefit you’re spending so many hours studying. These two aspects of having kids while in law school will help you keep your focus. Since everyone in your class is already pretty smart (no, really, you’ll be surprised), the ability to keep your focus where it needs to be is one key to success.

Having said all that, here are three bits of solid practical advice, which I’ve gleaned from experience.

First, UK Financial Aid will give you more loans if you ask for them. The amount you spend every month to maintain a family is much more than a single, childless student spends, but you have to file a budget appeal to make up the difference. It’s not a painless process, but it’s worth the time to take care of it up front, instead of trying to figure out how you’re going to pay the day care in December. There is also a specific form you need to fill out if you pay for child care, since UK will give you additional loans to cover child care costs, above and beyond your amended budget.

Second, Kentucky has free health care for children for low-income families, which, if you quit a job to come to school, you probably qualify for. For example, if you have a family of four and your income is less than $42,400, you qualify. Health insurance for our kids was a huge part of our monthly budget, and this goes a long way to lessen the burden.

Finally, you absolutely have to save time for your kids. It would be really easy to let law school take over your life, especially if you have a significant other who is willing to watch the kids and give you all the time you “need.” When you go home from a day of school, put the law books away for a few hours, and eat dinner with your kids. Play with them. Give them baths. Read them stories, sing them songs, and kiss them goodnight. Then the law books can, and must, come back out. But keep them on a schedule, and give your kids the time they need. That way, they’ll be ready to give you the time you need when exams roll around, and you’ll not feel guilty for taking the time to rest and prepare as well as possible.

Posted by Dan on June 2, 2009 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)