Bay St. Louis 18-year-old becomes Louisiana’s youngest law graduate

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - An 18-year-old from Bay St. Louis became Louisiana’s youngest law school graduate Saturday, walking across the stage at the Smoothie King Center with his fellow Loyola University New Orleans Law School graduates.

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Jimmy Chilimigras finished in the top two percent of his class and already has his sights set on another advanced degree.

Chilimigras has been expanding his education rapidly for most of his 18 years. At 12, he graduated from high school. At 14, he took the LSAT. By 15, he had a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting and became the world’s youngest CPA.

“It all happened pretty quickly. He just buckled down,” said Erin Chilimigras, Jimmy’s mother.

Chilimigras wants to start a law practice one day and make tax filing less stressful for families.

“I love tax. I have a few world records there. It’s phenomenal,” he said.

He is used to being the youngest at school. But at home, he is the oldest of seven kids, and there is already a bit of early-education competition.

“I have one little sister Azelie who thinks she may be able to break some of my records,” Chilimigras said.

She is 12 and looking to best her older brother by graduating from law school slightly younger than he did.

“Probably around 17 or 18,” said Azelie Chilimigras.

“I wish her all the luck. She may need only a little bit of it,” Jimmy Chilimigras said.

The family homeschools, and Jimmy carpooled from their home in Bay St. Louis to New Orleans for classes at Loyola. He began law school at 15.

“I want to make my hometown proud,” he said at the time.

Three years later, Chilimigras said the most valuable lessons were unexpected — rebounding from disappointment and testing the limits of learning.

“I think if there was anything I’d want people to know it would be maybe a little bit less about me and more just about with enough hard work and perseverance what you can accomplish is truly limitless,” he said.

“I think we can all do more than we expect. I think the most important thing is to take action and kind of get started on things. I found that a lot of times I’ll take on a lot of work, often times I’ll expand as a person to fill the work and responsibilities that I take on,” Chilimigras said. “We only have a very short amount of time and I of course try to make the most of it.”

Next, Chilimigras will pursue an advanced tax law post-doctoral degree at Northwestern in Chicago.

“I’m extremely proud. Jimmy has put in a lot of work and no matter how he finished or what he did I’d be proud of him but just to see all the work he put in pay off and he accomplished the things he talked about and just he kind of dreamed of is — just watching that happen is something,” said John Chilimigras, Jimmy’s father.

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