I take it then the law school will take the difficulty of engineering classes into account when looking at GPA?
That would be fair if they did, but they don't. Schools might tell you they care, but they don't. All they care about is your gpa and lsat, and your race if you are an underrepresented minority. These are the criteria by which they are ranked. Schools will bs you a lot about how they don't care about rank, but they do. It's money.
Part-time programs are few and far between. None of them afaik are prestigious at all. The prestige of the school affects your starting salary. I would not recommend anyone go to law school who cannot get into a top 25 school, at least if you want to make money. Take a few LSATs. You should be scoring in the 160s if you want to forgo engineering for law. You have more to waste in that your 4-year degree is actually useful. Mine was political science. My university has a higher average starting salary for 4-yr engineering degrees than for a law degree, which is three years more than a bachelor's. Law students in the top ten percent of their class at less prestigious schools do well in getting a job. The rest of us don't. And keep in mind that everyone at law school was in the top ten percent back in undergrad. The academic competition is at another level, like an all-star game. And don't think that being an engineering student will get you anywhere in law school. One of my buddies, who actually managed a lower class rank than me, had just graduated with some ridiculous double major - nuclear physics and mechanical engineering. Like me, he always had good grades until he got to law school. He also wanted to do patent law, but with his lack of academic credentials, I don't think he ever found a job, or even got decent interviews.
Patent law does pay well, but you still have to get through law school with very good grades, or else you won't get a job out of it. Because it pays so well, it is very competitive. To get that six-figure biglaw job right out of school, you still need to be at a top school or have top grades. Have them both, and you can really cash in. I have heard about biglaw jobs in L.A. starting at $250k+ for new grads. By comparison, I have crappy grades from a very mediocre school. I am looking at a probably $40k/year government atty job when I get around to passing the bar, if I wanted a job. I will more likely start my own office or one with someone I know, but law school does not teach anything useful like how to make money.
Most people who are considering law school should not go. It's a miserable three years; you can rack up a giant debt; and you might not have many job options when you do graduate. Your lsat/gpa is very important. The other way to go besides going into the best school that will take you is to go to the best school that will give you a scholarship. That's what I did, and coming out with so few job options, I am very happy to have not taken on any debt in getting my law degree. Most law students graduate $60-$80k in debt, which is bad, but not getting a decent job with which to make the loan payments is worse.
