I don’t really have an answer for you as to should you stay or should you go, but I can let you in on my decision. I am an attorney currently finishing up my pre-reqs and applying to medical school in the Spring. Here are the conclusions I have made.
1.) there is no justification from financial perspective. There simply isn’t a break-even point. If you make the move, you will never have a theoretical point in your career where the decision was the financially correct move. So basically, you have to have other motivations than financial ones. If those motivations outweigh the financial ones, move on to step two. If not, go back to law.
2.) Medical school is going to be difficult, but you have a few advantages. First, you’ve been through a professional school before. You understand that as the content doesn’t get any easier, in fact it might get harder as you progress, your ability to process and utilize the content in a beneficial way will increase. Just like how taking constitutional law first or second semester helped you with taking criminal law or estates or something like that in later semesters, the foundations you’re building at the beginning will make things seem a little easier in the future. Not easy in terms of time strain, but at least in terms of mental ability. If you can deal with the fact that you are going to be incredibly stressed for the next 5-8 years, but you WILL be able to complete it, move on to three.
4) Next, there is the age component. You’re going to be older than most of the other starting doctors. This will have pros and cons, and they even themselves out. Ignore everyone who says it is too much of a con. I am older than you, and I have decided to make the leap, so you can too. If you made it this far, just trust me and move on to 4.
4) now that you’ve decided to go back, you have some abilities to mitigate the financial effects. First, you’re probably capable of taking the patent bar due to your undergrad. Becoming a patent lawyer can be benificial in a couple ways. First, it gives you a *relatively* low stress avenue to make money while attending school. You could take on just enough clients to cover bills while attending school. Since there are no imminent court proceedings with the work, if you need to take a week off to study, you can do it. Second, you can see about teaching a patent class at your school’s affiliated undergrad or law school if they have one. This would work to ease your student debt and bring in income while you attend school.
You can also join the military reserves. Since you are in the beginning of school, the vast majority of your original service commitment will be completed before you finish residency, possibly all of it. You can have them cover your tuition and give you a couple grand a month by tacking on more time.
Finally, there is the less likely, but not impossible option of pimping out your degrees. Depending on where you live, there are likely some competing personal injury firms. You can go to them and offer your services as an of-counsel. Their ability to use your degrees/future degree as an advertising chip, plus the possibility of having an extra hand if the need arises, might be enough to secure somewhat of a salary for doing not a whole lot. Like I said, not likely, but I have heard of more than 1 person having success at this route.
Good luck.
