deferring law school enrollment

I post this info on behalf of all pregnant law school students to be.

I was accepted to the class of 2011 at my law school of choice back in January 2008. The same week I found out I was pregnant with my second child and due right around orientation week. Knowing both how much depended on a solid 1L performance and that I would likely have another C-section delivery, I recognized that there was no way that I could possible begin law school on schedule. My mom even said, “Are you sure? I could come help for as long as you need.”

That generous offer aside, I knew that I’d be doing myself and my future career prospects a huge disservice by attempting to muscle through my first semester on painkillers and severe sleep deprivation. My Google forays didn’t turn up anyone who had accomplished such a feat. I did find tales of women who had babies midway through 2L or 3L year and women who suffered through morning sickness and other gestational indignancies during 1L year. But no examples mirrored my predicament exactly.

Once I resigned myself to deferring, I set about finding how easy/difficult the task would be. I found a helpful list on Deloggio outlining deferral policies at 142 law schools circa 2003. Apparently, at some schools deferring is not allowed at all–you pretty much have to reapply. (The last thing I wanted to be doing in the months after my baby was born.) Luckily, my school has a “liberal” policy that does allow medical (and other) deferments.

As a courtesy, I set up a meeting with the Dean of Admissions. He granted my request right away and asked only that I send my request to him in writing via e-mail. During the next admission cycle, for the class of 2012, all I had to do was send in a form confirming that I would be enrolling and resubmit my original application cover sheet (basically so that they would know if I had had any run-ins with the law during the intervening year). Simple and stress free.

My only lingering question is: Did deferring affect my application for merit aid? By the time those decisions were made, the university could safely assume that I was committed to attending and not entertaining offers from other schools. Consequently, they knew they would not have to woo me. No leverage. My numbers were probably not strong enough to win merit aid anyway, but perhaps my deferral situation also factored into the committee’s decision. I also wonder if taking the LSAT again during my deferral year and increasing my score would have resulted in merit aid. Probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference. My school is notorious stingy with most merit aid (but admirably generous with minority students, making for a more diverse student body than other schools have).

Now that the economy has tanked and law firms are revising their recruitment practices, I am grateful to be part of the class of 2012, not 2011. Hopefully, with the extra year, things will be a bit more stable, although I don’t expect the legal job market to return to previous notions of normal.