Fortunately, owls are not alone. Many law schools have organizations dedicated to OWLS. These organizations offer older students the opportunity to network, share law school strategies, and simply spend time with their peers. NYU Law`s organization for OWLS, for example, offers “meet-and-greet dinners in law student dormitories in exotic locations like Brooklyn and Harlem,” while Harvard hosts OWLS quiz nights. But we`re not all spring chickens when we start studying law. In almost every new law school, there are small contingents of students who come to law school with considerable life experience. They are known as OWLS or older, smarter law students. I was thirty-four years old when I started my second career here at UVA Law. After going through the demographic profiles of incoming classes from different schools, I applied because I knew I would be among the oldest students in the incoming class of a law school. I found that typically half of the nationwide first-year law students were twenty-six or older, and one in five was at least thirty.
Even better, I had noticed a particularly healthy presence of older students in several of my target schools. For example, Northwestern and Temple reliably reported a median age of 1L equal to or greater than twenty-seven years. Both also reported age ranges that typically extended into their forties and fifties. Even more promising, I heard about a student organization called Older Wiser Law Students (OWLS), which existed in most schools to facilitate social events and career guidance for students like me. First and foremost, OWLS themselves celebrate the variety of experiences. Finally, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The life of the law was not logical; It was experience. The common law has always looked back before daring to move forward step by step – so, of course, it must have something to do with it. Lawyers, judges and legislators do not lock themselves into libraries or cabinets to consult perfectly logical or theoretical axioms from which an abstract concept of “law” can be deduced.
Rather, they move through the world itself—personally navigating successes and failures, recording gains and losses, relying on war and peace, finding love, and suffering losses—before pretending to defend, judge, or legislate this world to a better position than they found it in. The OWLS strive to embody Holmes` thinking. We may have preferred only our experience chapters more than most. We want the AVC legal community to know that we are your colleagues and students who, before we even realized that we imagined a future in law, went out out of the world and learned about professions, started businesses, taught, became parents, studied great art and literature, or served their country. to name just a few of the efforts. who proudly fill out the resumes of our own OWLS here at UVA. And most importantly, this time, we are here to stay! OWLS recognizes that law school presents unique challenges and experiences for students leaving other careers or even other countries, balancing other important and/or children, as well as those commuting from other parts of the state, and is dedicated to ensuring that law school is an enriching and successful experience for them and their families. Mission: Older Wiser Law Students (OWLS) fosters a supportive and thriving community for students who have taken time off before law school, have moved on to a second career, have already earned a graduate degree, are married and/or are parents, and others who consider their academic background non-traditional. We run information and networking programs, both independently and with other organizations, to provide students with advice on navigating law schools and their careers. When we`re not in quarantine, we also regularly host dinner parties, happy hours, and family events to promote community among owls (and hopefully do so again as soon as we can meet in person).
My disappointment passed pretty quickly. I found myself in Section J, which included not only several students in their late twenties, but also a colleague from Trizenarian. Best of all, I quickly realized that my classmates up to the “K-JD” were exceptionally mature. That initial thrill and gratitude I felt for the chance to visit UVA lasted all 1L year, undiminished by the fact that I stood out a bit. But an air of dissatisfaction remained. In many ways, a particularly young character is a great trait for a law school. It`s humbling to learn alongside some of the brightest young people in the country – people in their early twenties who think, speak and write at a higher level than most mature professionals in all fields. But on the other hand, there is a kind of perspective that can only be gained through life experience and can only be enjoyed by others who have also ventured beyond the walls of science for several years. I asked myself, “When the OWLS retires, what else will our law school community do for older students looking for the kind of solidarity I was looking for – other than hoping that these students will have the chance to find them in their (randomly assigned) sectionmates”[2]? When I was accepted to UVA, I was excited and grateful for the opportunity to begin my second career at one of the country`s elite law schools.
