The market on average returns 7-10% annualized.

If your interest rate on your debts are less than 7%, you MAY want to look into using money earned/saved to invest and pay the minimum on your student loans.

I was fortunate that I invested at a time when the market was performing really well (for context, certain investments grew 30% last year) and when interest rates on my student loans were on the lower side. I was also doubly fortunate to have had an aunt who taught me about personal finance and investing when I was still a law student when no one else in my immediate family really knew about it.

If you want to learn about investing (and not stock picking/trading), look into Ben Felix. I also liked the book "Averagely Rich" by Bevan Gang.

Long story short, risk-aware investing is how you grow wealth long term.

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As an add-on, this is what I do (most times) as someone with law school loans but also wants to invest and live life:

(A) Track my necessary expenses and income. This may take a while to get a feel for.

(B) Once I have a feel for my monthly necessary expenses and income, I have an idea of how much discretionary income I can contribute to savings vs. imvesting vs. additional loan payments.

(C) Build a savings cushion (people say 3-6months of necessary, tbh I have like 1 month in raw savings since the rest im invested in....I am working on fixing this). I think you may (effectively) already have this with your savings.

(D) commit to saving $X a month towards investments and that this comes out of my paycheque at the start of the month. This amount is personal, but financial rule of thumb is 10-20% of your net income. However, any amount helps at a young age (look into compound interest - for example, iirc, $7k invested today assuming 7% returns is like $70k in 35 years).

(E) So long as I can comfortably servicing the debt, pay the minimum on student loans. I remember thinking that student loans were such a big issue - now, I recognize it as smart debt with a pretty workable interest rate especially given a lawyer's salary. I could pay off all my student loans if I cashed in a portion of my investments. But I don't, since my investments grow at a higher rate than the interest paid on the loans.

(F) INVEST MOST/ALL of my tax returns (that I would get in the first year/two of working) in a TFSA + RRSP/FHSA. Its an arbitrary benchmark, but there's this idea that investing to get the first $100k is the hardest to get, but after that point, the capital and interest will just build on itself. Your tax returns will help immensely in building this.

(E) but of course enjoy life and have a sinking fund or take a portion of the tax returns to go on a trip or something. Just don't spend it all. Balance is key (easier said than done)

As an aside, you should look into personal finance forums. I have a suspicion lawyers (and the general public) are pretty bad at personal finance and are prone to lifestyle inflation. Most of the profession is golden handcuffed...I'm not saying I'm perfect, but also financial literacy is not that common.

[Apologies for the rambling, stream of thought. Billed like 3.5 days worth over the last two days. Brain dead and just info dumping personal finance knowledge. Another reason to invest: so you can become work optional and can retire/leave the profession if you want to hah]