Deciding on a Law School

*Again, found a post half-way written from around February/March time. Enjoy!

Ever since I met Chad he has wanted to go to Law School. When he first told me I was so confused because Chad is the complete opposite of the stereotypical lawyer. Over the last year we have researched different law schools, their strengths and weaknesses, geographic location, and opportunities they provide. We started with a list of over 100 law schools, narrowed it down to about 45 and further down to ten laws schools for which we applied.     

Narrowing down the list was hard. At first we wanted to go to prestigious schools, where although Chad would have endless opportunities afterwards we would be in drastic amounts of debt. I wanted to support Chad in this decision of his life, in our life, but the amount of debt that we would be in scared me for numerous reasons.

The more we contemplated law school, the more we realized we needed to have a broader view, an eternal perspective. We want to have a family, we know that being a mother and father is going to be our greatest calling in this life, greater than our careers, greater than any monetary money that we could earn. I realized that I wanted to be a mom, not in ten years, but sooner (definitely not yet haha) and Chad realized that yes, he could have a very prestigious job, he could be at an amazing firm making tons of money, but working 80+ hours a week was not what he wanted. He wanted to be able to spend time with his family and to be able to provide for them. This gave us a different perspective to research law schools, we began looking at schools where Chad could get a scholarship, have decent opportunities afterwards, and where we’d be able to start a family sooner than later.

Chad applied for 10 law schools, located all over the country. The most prestigious law school he applied for was George Washington University, the reason we choose this school was because of the binding decision offer. Meaning if Chad got accepted through the binding decision he would have to go there and he would receive a full-tuition scholarship. We felt good about applying to GW through this decision realizing that if he didn’t get accepted through it no harm would be done, but if he did get accepted he would be going to an amazing school and would have an awesome scholarship.

Acceptance letters kept coming in the mail, and in February 2014 we got the letter from GW. Chad was accepted! We couldn’t believe it. Both of us were ecstatic!! What an amazing opportunity AND blessing! Our prayers had been answered and a huge weight was lifted off of our shoulders. We couldn’t wait to tell our families about Chad’s acceptance.

This decision is exciting, so exciting but it has been one of the hardest decision I’ve ever made. All of my family lives in Utah. They are ALL here. I’ve never lived outside of Utah. I’ve never even been to Washington, D.C. And questions and thoughts have constantly been flying through my head throughout this entire process about whether or not I will like it. Will I like it? Will I miss my family? Will I make new friends? Etc.

I was thinking about these questions when one of my professors shared a thought the other week: fear is the opposite of faith. If we fear we are being inactive, but as we begin to act, we show faith. Which, is exactly what Chad and I are going to do, move forward. We know that GW is where we are supposed to be, it will be hard, but if we actively move forward we will learn, grow, be blessed, and hopefully bless others along the way. Plus, it may kind of be like a little mission for me