15-year-old prodigy from Coastal Mississippi now a first-year law student at Loyola University

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Jimmy Chilimigras holds a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, passed his CPA exam, and is now attending Loyola College of Law.

He’s also 15 years old.

“I’m happy with what I’ve done but I’m mainly just staying focused on what’s next, you know?”

Chilimigras has been described as a “once-in-a-generation” talent, graduating from high school at 12 years old. He said his father homeschooled him before he went on to study accounting for his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Western Governors University, an online college.

“I do like academia. It’s a lot of fun for me,” he said. ‘It’s all I’ve ever really known. I think because of that I really just see [every day] as a normal day.”

Originally from Bay St. Louis, Chilimigras said he has five younger siblings. He said his entire family has supported him throughout his academic pursuits.

“They’ve never held me back,” he said. “I think I’ve definitely had a lot of good influences. My parents have been great, my extended family have been really supportive as well. I’ve had a lot of good mentors.”

Chilimigras said he knew he wanted to go to law school even before attending WGU.

With 200 potential picks, he said his biggest wish was to stay close to home.

“I think we really have something special down here. We have a beautiful area, we have such wonderful people,” Chilimigras said. “The community here is amazing, and I want to make my hometown proud.”

Prior to applying for law school, Chilimigras took the notoriously difficult Certified Public Accounting (or CPA) exam and passed.

It’s thought Chilimigras is the youngest person in the world to pass the exam.

“The CPA exam was probably, before law school, the most difficult thing I’d done,” he said.

After taking the CPA exam, Chilimigras scored an astounding 174 on the Law School Admissions Test (or LSAT), one of the highest scores in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

He would go on to apply, and be accepted, at the Loyola College of Law in New Orleans.

“I do like academia,” Chilimigras said. “It’s a lot of fun for me.”

Now in his first year, he said he is studying criminal law, contracts, torts, civil procedure and legal research and writing.

“Criminal law and torts are some of my favorites just because like there’s always something crazy going on,” Chilimigras said.

He said his professors and fellow students have been nothing but kind and welcoming. In that regard, his age has not been a factor.

“This summer, my admissions director sent me a text message that said, ‘Can we admit a 15-year-old?’ I said, ‘Why? Why do you ask?’” said Madeleine Landrieu, Dean of Loyola College of Law. “He can’t drive, he can’t stay in a dorm on campus, we had all sorts of housing policies we had to think about. But the answer became pretty easy: why not?”

Landrieu said, since arriving at Loyola, Chilimigras has been a beacon of intellectual curiosity.

“One of the things we try to teach our law students is the law is just a set of rules around which a society tries to co-exist with itself. That’s really what they are,” Landrieu said. “He brings a perspective to that and is going to teach us all a lot more than we teach him.”

Chilimigras said he still has his learner’s permit and carpools daily to Loyola. The days are long, but worth it, he said.

“He is a once in a level, once in a generation level talent, and it’s good for us to have him. He’s good for Loyola,” Landrieu said. “He’s going to help us all be better humans. He’s just a terrific, terrific young man.”

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.

Subscribe to the Fox 8 YouTube channel.

Copyright 2023 WVUE. All rights reserved.