How to Make Money while in Law School
Let’s be honest, studying abroad is expensive, especially if you are based in New York City. It’s easy to feel like your personal finances are out of control while in law school, but there is no reason to limit yourself while in school. Whether you are looking to monetize your time while in law school, or whether you simply want to be in charge of your finance, here are some ideas every law student should be thinking about when it comes to figuring out how to make money while in law school.Â
1) Take advantage of work-Student programs
This would be your best option, especially if you’re an LLM on a F1 visa. While there is a few restrictions on student visas, there’s other way to make some money.Â
First, consider working on campus: reach out to your professors and see if they need a Teaching Assistant or Research Assistant. It would includes assisting your professor in class, grading assignments and/or doing some legal research. Not so glamorous, but it’ll pay the bills and will look nice on your resume.
Your school might also have some off-campus programs that would allow you to work under certain conditions. CPT or Curricular Practical Training programs offer employment or paid internships off campus with minimum hours. Reach out to your career center for more information!
2) Get Paid to Take Surveys
Most probably, it is one of the easiest ways to make money at school – you just need to register to a survey company (which is often free) and earn points by completing its surveys.Â
You can make easily between $2 to $75 per completed survey. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea now right?Â
Moreover, you can take survey at any time, even during that class of professional responsibility! or more seriously if you have extra time at the library.Â
Some of the popular surveys you can take include:
Survey Junkie: This is a renowned survey company getting great reviews! Survey Junkie has a minimum payout threshold. You can cash in for $10 once you reach 1,000 points.
Opinion Outpost: The company gives point rewards for every completed survey. You’re allowed to cash your points for sweepstakes or cash.
Swagbucks:Â Swagbucks is more than a survey site! The company lets you earn for searching the web, watching videos, and playing games. They will give you a $5 bonus simply by signing up.Â
3) Work as a virtual assistant
As a law student you can earn money online working as a virtual assistant and you will be paid hourly. A virtual assistant is usually a self-employed administrative or personal assistant who is hired to perform several tasks for clients. As a virtual assistant, a law student could work right from home as opposed to an office. Virtual assistants do variety of things for their clients like conducting research, manning email accounts and other web-based services. You will find virtual assistant job postings on sites like freelancer.com, upwork.com et al.
4) Tutoring
It’s a classic, never gets out of style. Think about it: if you speak several languages, that something you could put to good use. Moreover, you might simply be doing well in school, so why not sharing your knowledge?
It is an excellent opportunity to both help others and improves your teaching skills while making good money on the side.
To find the interested students, you can stick a notice on your school’s notice board or take the help of Social Media platforms.
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5) Sell your stuff
This is something I would advise to everyone: open your closet and look for things you’re not using anymore. First you will make some money but you will also clean your place.Â
Especially when it comes to books. The Strand in New York will buy your books, used or new. You can also find new students to buy back your school books, but don’t wait to long as there’s almost a new edition for law school books every year.Â
6) Walk dogs
If you are in a big city you can make some extra money by walking dogs.Dogs are better than people anyway. When you’re frustrated with your assignment, take your mind off it all by taking Fido out.
There are plenty of apps you can sign up on to be a dog walker — you can even set your availability and location! There’s a reason therapy dogs exist: sometimes we all just need to escape from other people.
If you have more than just a few scattered hours of availability each week, consider taking this a step further by working as a pet or house sitter. For one thing, sometimes you get to sleep there. For another, it typically pays more.
7) Do what you’re best at: write
Assuming you like to write article, then you could earn a modest income as a freelance writer! There are several sites online that remunerate writers who qualify for writing jobs – you could be a student author and that would be quite an achievement!
The Amazon Kindle Publishing Platform from Amazon receives write-ups of a minimum of 5,000 words from writers the world over from just about any genre of writing. As a law student, you can write a short work and forward it to them. Once your works are sold on the Amazon store, you earn royalties of about 70%.
There are other sites too where you can bid for freelance writing jobs like freelancer.com and upwork.com amongst others.
Conclusion
First and foremost, don’t try to go around the rules. A side job is still a job and you might have to pay taxes on it. Moreover, if you’re on a student visa, be mindful that working without adequate authorization can lead to dramatic consequences. Don’t risk it. It’s not worth jeopardizing all the effort and expenses you’ve invested this far.Â
Then as I’m sure you know, your primary focus should be on studying. Yes, new shoes and vacations are expensive, but so is re-doing an entire semester of law school. Small sacrifices can lead to big victories.
Finally, realize that there’s feasible ways to make some extra money without getting in trouble, and listen, if you need a few bucks, reach out to us!Â
