Retake the Bar Exam?
That is the million dollar question on my mind since got my results early November. Been going through some serious soul searching, somber assessments of the job market prospects, and some baseline cost benefit analysis.
In my mind right now I plan take the bar again, although the question is when exactly, and in what jurisdiction? If I narrow my job search to federal attorney positions, then any jurisdiction will do. If moving back home is in the cards, then it would make the most sense to just focus on Hawaii sometime in the future. From a pure test-taking strategy standpoint, I should retake the test in the same jurisdiction again since I’ve already been through at least one round.
There are at least three areas where I would be motivated to take it again sooner than later. First is in order to use the degree to get a better paying or more fulfilling job, which was what was motivating me the back in July. The second was more of a fall back position, that even if I couldn’t get a legal job right away, it would be an investment my future legal career, my reasoning is that I can’t even apply for anything until I’m licensed, so it would be better to get it down earlier than later. There is also the fact that my paperwork and character and fitness investigation are already in, I had to ask a number of personal and professional references to vouch for me, and I’d hat to see that all go to waste now.
As for the first motivation, that’s pretty much shot this time around. Maybe ignorance is bliss, I had no idea how bad the legal job market was back in July, and how it has maybe gotten even worse since then. I’ve been hearing stories about friends applying for paralegal positions only to find out that they are competing with a ton of licensed JDs, some with several years of litigation experience. I also have heard of attorneys getting laid off after a year or less than a year, on top of that after being deferred. What was once a fall back position for a lot of recent grads, government employment has now become almost impossible to get in. One attorney I spoke recently said that federal jobs, especially federal attorney positions are becoming harder to get than those famous big law firm jobs that a lot of law students kill themselves for 3 years over. With the way the economy is going my thoughts are that at the very least, it’ll have to get worse before it gets better.