Short answer: no.

Long answer: Law school is a type of professional school and, as such, they do like post-college work experience. Admissions committees want to know if applicants are socially awkward weirdos who would never be able to land a job in the real-world after graduation. They also want to know if applicants are mature and responsible enough to fully dedicate themselves to a very intense three-year legal education, knowing full well the risks and possible rewards.

All that being true, law school admissions is almost entirely a numbers game. While your work experience will be appreciated, in no way will it overcome poor stats. I'd say that, at best, your work experience will act as a tiebreaker with someone who has similar stats but no work experience. You'd already have to be competitive at the school, though.

Also, a lot of people seem to think being a paralegal is a way to break into law school, but that's not true. While law schools will like that you didn't just decide to go because you were unemployed and had nothing better to do, paralegal experience is a fairly common profession among applicants. Since it's not at all unique, there's really not going to be a boost for paralegal work any more than there'd be a boost for any other type of work. You could have spent years as a hotel manager and I'd figure your cycle would be the same as a paralegal's.

Your LSAT and undergraduate GPA matter the most and your soft factors (work experience, internships, awards, honors, and so on) are more like icing on the cake. Without the cake, you'd just be a big blob of icing sitting on a plate.

The process will depend on the school that you go to. Assuming you want to go to a reputable school you will have to sit for the LSAT and submit your scores, as well as your college transcripts, to a law school that you're interested in. Some schools may require you to go in for an interview.

It's great that you've got paralegal experience, however it won't allow you to skip parts of the application process in trying to get into a school.

Don't........consider this...........56 thousand law degrees are awarded each year........with thousands in the pipe line......law is and will be saturated for years and years.........get something in the health field and you won't have to starve trying to pay off your 200K student loan........just look in the yellow pages under lawyers.......page after page of attorneys begging for work........the new software can do 90% of what you would hire a lawyer to do.........for $40 bucks........

You may have an easier time writing your essay (and your resume will look good) and convincing the admissions board that you'd be a good candidate, but it still comes down to LSAT score and undergrad GPA. And the LSAT (as I'm sure you know) doesn't have anything to do with your work in a law firm. It's just reading and logic.

That said, if your numbers are good, your paralegal experience will almost certainly give you a leg up. They know that you aren't just doing this on a whim--you know what it is to be a lawyer. I would think that would give you an advantage over someone just out of college.

Don't listen to the naysayers. You know what you're getting into. Presumably, you wouldn't be thinking about law school if it wasn't something that was for you. Good luck.

I agree (mostly) with Orange. What's important is first and foremost your GPA and LSAT scores. GPA matters less the longer you've been out of school. Your recommendations and promotions from a career-track job are important. If you've worked for awhile, been promoted, and have good recommendations from your bosses, law schools will consider this like a GPA. But the actual career-track job does not matter. Paralegal, airline pilot, stockbroker...all the same to law schools, except to the extent that it diversifies the class.

You might have a slightly easier time in law school once you get there depending on your area of concentration as a paralegal and how much responsibility your bosses gave you. But the application process will be just as rigorous, and being a paralegal will not give you an edge over someone with an equal amount of experience in a different field.