He wanted to become a lawyer to help people who can’t afford lawyers, the senior said.
Jim Edwards is 75, but he has just earned his law degree and is waiting for the results of the state bar exam, all because he wants to help people who can’t afford a lawyer.
According to The Daily News Journal of Tennessee, via The Wall Street Journal, Edwards, who hails from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, took the bar exam in July after recently earning his law degree from Nashville School of Law.
“The reason I did that is I had seen, over the years, a lot of individuals that I thought had pretty good cases but couldn't afford a lawyer,” the man told the local publication.
“And I thought that if God grants me a few more years on this Earth, I can get a law degree and help those people and I don't have to make a living doing it,” he added.
Edwards has put up two successful insurance businesses, The Daily News Journal of Tennessee reported.
After working for some time in the insurance industry, he built his first insurance company in the 1970s and sold it for a hefty sum. He sold his second business, a more specialised insurance firm, in 2009.
The successful business career he has had was after he had been kicked out of Mercer University in Georgia, intimated the senior.
He enrolled in the university in 1959, he said, but only attended for 18 months after being asked not to return due to “poor academic performance.”
While at the university, however, he found his love for the law. “Instead of going to Spanish class, I’d go watch a trial,” the man said.
Edwards has the full support of his wife who, according to The Daily News Journal of Tennessee, cheered on her husband through the gruelling course work he had to finish.
His wife, Dr. Gena Carter who he met at a choral workshop in Massachusetts and married in 2011, said that she was familiar with how hard earning a law degree would be.
“Jim would apologize to me a lot during his studying for not being able to go on a date or spend time with me. But I understood. I think it was helpful ... that I knew the struggle. If you don't, you can go crazy. It requires such a commitment,” Carter said.
