If your first career isn’t making you happy, don’t worry — you are definitely in good company. A lot of people find that they followed a certain script — go to school, get a good job, and try to raise a family. While that works out for many people, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find that your life could use a few improvements. For example, if you’ve always wanted to be a lawyer, you might have settled for something different in hopes that you will be able to get your life together. Maybe you got a Masters degree online and are really looking for that JD.  In other words, sometimes we do things different in life because it’s what is required to take care of our families.

However, you might be at a point in your life where you’re thinking about doing something simply because it might lead to a more exciting second career and that’s perfectly okay too. If you want to become a lawyer, your best bet is to go to law school. Now, you might think that you don’t have a chance at law school because you went off and got a different career path. However, this is actually not as bad of an idea s you might think.

First and foremost, you will need to remember that it’s really all about getting a well balanced profile in the eyes of other people. If you went off to the allied health field and now you want to be a lawyer, you have unique medical experience that other people do not have. If you went into computing, then you have technological experience that the average lawyer would not have. These are all things that can pay off in the long run, especially if you’re willing to build your resume a certain way to get those points highlighted properly.

From there, you need to think about the high points of your first career. If you have a chance to look back on your old evaluations, this will help you really understand your accomplishments in a different way. If you don’t highlight your career, trust me, no one will do it for you. You might think that this is going to make you look bad, but that’s not the case either. Most people are going to brag about their accomplishments, and they definitely should. It’s important to ensure that you will have every resource at your disposal to get into law school, and your first career can be a powerful weapon. You just need to make sure that you hang in there as much as possible and don’t give up. That’s the real key to success in a huge way.

When you get accepted to a law school, you will need to make sure that you balance your law school duties and the duties of your first career. Most of the time, your current employer will not reimburse you for law school unless they can really make sure that you will be able to use your law degree to serve the organization.

Time management skills are going to play a big role here, but if you’ve already built one career, chances are good that you already know everything there is to know about time management. When you have other obligations, you won’t be as likely to get sucked into the social side of law school.