Cost in Time and Money

The Money Part
    Now you will need to reference the worksheet at Appendix A (.pdf).
    Law school is a very expensive undertaking.  This part of the site is designed to put you in touch with just how much you will be spending on a legal education. 
    You may not be familiar with some of the terms used below and on the worksheet (e.g., gouges).  This site will cover them in depth in later chapters.  For now, just take my word for the costs and continue on.  The worksheet we’ll be using is not designed to be exact, since some of you will incur costs that others will not and vice versa; however, it will get you surprisingly close to the actual dollar amount that you will spend on law school, should you decide to attend.
    You will also notice that the worksheet doesn't include items such as food, rent, day care, automobile gas, maintenance and insurance, entertainment, etc.  That's because you would incur those expenses whether or not you were attending law school.  The worksheet is designed to lift out only those expenses directly incurred as a result of attending law school.
    Here are keys to the worksheet headings for more explanation:
   
    Tuition and Fees - If you know what law school you plan to attend, their catalog will give you the tuition and fee numbers for you to input onto the worksheet.  If you don't have the catalog you can quickly call the law school, access that law school’s web page, or use The Official Guide to ABA-Approved U.S. Law Schools (an incredibly valuable resource for anyone contemplating law school; available online at www.lsac.org.  LSAC is an organization we will be discussing in the next chapter).  If you don't yet know where you may be attending, use $18,000 as the annual tuition number for attending an out-of-state public law school, $7,000 for attending an in-state public school as a resident, and $22,000 per year for a private law school.

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