Leaving the JD behind for a RN --> NP?

I am a lawyer. I've been one for about 15 years. If you do not have a burning desire to be a lawyer, I highly recommend you do something else. The job market for new lawyers is probably worse than the market for new nurses. If you do not graduate at the very top of your class from a top law school, you may be looking at a salary of $45-50k to start. And that's if you get a job. If you can't, you do document review at $20-25/hr -- no guarantee that'll you'll work (you string together temporary gigs), no vacation, no benefits, no chance of advancement.

I'm not a nurse so I can't to the pros/cons of that avenues.

Talk with/shadow both lawyers and nurses. My disgruntled opinion is just that -- mine.

I went through the same thing as you I graduated with a criminal justice degree but always had nursing in the back of my mind. I was going to start law school and after a talk with my cousin (law school graduate) I decided not to go. She told me if law wasn't my passion I shouldn't go to law school. She's not even practicing law. She going to school to be a pharmacist now. Not going to law school was the best decision of my life. I'm currently in a RN program and work at a clinic part time. This is my dream. Cant wait till I graduate.

A former co-worker of mine was a Deputy for many years and eventually decided to become a lawyer. So, he went to law school and after he finally passed the Bar, he started looking for a job. He eventually landed a part-time gig, but it was very much part-time and no benefits to say the least. He continued looking for a full-time position and after the better part of 2 years he found what he was looking for. He's now a Prosecutor for a local DA's office.

To say the least, he's had a tough road. To my knowledge, his student loans aren't that bad, but I'm sure he still has to pay back quite a bit. Once he's done with that and he's got some decent experience, he'll earn quite a bit more than I will.

I'm sure he'll say the same thing that many above have said: follow your passion. While passion alone won't pay the bills, it'll certainly help you get through the lean times between graduation and your first stable job.

PP was absolutely correct re: currently, the ROI for Law School is much worse than Nursing. There has been a lot of information in the news on the plight of newby lawyers.

That being said - you don't really have to make an 'either-or' decision. I know a lot of very well paid RN/JDs working in Healthcare Loss Prevention/Risk Management. We (nurses) are particularly suited for this role since we know all the ins and outs of clinical processes and patient care. The folks I know all had several years of clinical experience before moving ahead with their JDs. My advice? Go ahead with nursing school & keep that JD in mind for future career growth.

You can always go into legal nursing

That way you'll be doing a bit of both

Get your nursing degree and get some experience. During the time you are getting your experience, put money in savings. If you still want to go to law school then you will have a nest egg and a very good paying job that you can do part time to help pay for school without going into debt.

I've known a couple of nurse turned lawyers who were able to combine the two quite successfully.

"When I started out in my higher education journey I was focused on eventually entering nursing school. After a few prereqs I set my sights a little higher and transferred..."

If you truly feel like nursing is a 'lesser' profession, don't do it. We have plenty of washed out pre-med and other students who 'settled' for a career in nursing.

I meant higher as in just being able to go straight through education wise - I didn't mean nursing was a "lesser" profession