Trust me, I have a J.D.

As soon as law school begins is as soon as law school ends. That is the way it tends to work.

And once it ends, bar review rapidly begins.  Sometimes, bar review begins as law school is ending.  And when that happens, that means you did not plan your schedule out right for your final semester.

Speaking of planning, what do you plan to do now that the Bar exam is over and while you await your exam's results?  This is a waiting period of a few months.  In NY, we take the Bar at the end of July and have to wait until Mid-November for the results.  That is three and a half months of being suspended in limbo.

Law School purgatory, if you will.

By now, the Bar exam taker has de-stressed to some extent (from taking the exam at least).  Life is weird because days filled with studying non-stop are now days filled with doing nothing non-stop.

Well, not exactly nothing

Thousands of law students across the nation are not only stuck waiting for results, but they also cannot find a job.  And so, they start googling and binging what others are doing.  From the looks of it, people are applying to all sorts of jobs like there is no tomorrow.

In a nutshell, everybody should now be applying diligently to jobs and networking.

Here are some things you should NOT do:

1.  Visit forums online
These places are depressing and will only make you feel miserable.  Many people are voicing a lot of negativities and it just is not worth your time. Do not do this.  You have other things to do.

2.  Give Up
Listen bub, you spent three years of your life to get a J.D. to become whatever it is you wanted to be.  Do not settle for something so far removed from that goal that it would be very difficult to become an attorney or whatever you want to be.  However, if you are having absolutely no luck finding a non-legal job, it might be because you have "J.D." on your resume.  Employers may view you and your salary requirements moreso as "high maintenance".  But, if you are proud of your J.D. (which you should be), then in your cover letter, let the employer know how that J.D. will help you help them.

3.  Sit Around Doing Nothing
This is the worst thing you can do right now.  You have to apply, en masse, for jobs.  And not just that.  You have to network.  Major emphasis on networking.  Let me show you in font language how much emphasis is on networking:  NETWORK! Why?  Because employers are getting hundreds of applications, yes, even for the jobs you think nobody would want to do.  Who knows if they will ever read your cover letter.  But, they might be at the next bar association meeting and they would much rather hire somebody they met in person and had a chance to talk to than filter through email after email and page after page of people talking about how great they are.

Here are some things you should do:

1.  Apply to a few jobs a day at least 
Keep churning out your resume and cover letter each day.  A few a day is better than many at once.  You might miss some errors if you churn out too many in a day.  For example, in cover letters, always make sure the date is correct.

2.  Bookmark webpages
When you find a good site that has lots of potential jobs, then drag the link onto your toolbar and make it a habit to check that daily.  I have a few on my toolbar.

3.  Conserve resources
By this I mean do not waste money or time.  For example, Netflix recently changed its payment plan.  If you have both streaming and DVDs, your cost is going to go up.  Ask yourself if you really need both services and if you really need the whole thing and if you can go without it for a few months to save some cash.  There is always Redbox and the internet at your disposal for cheap or free entertainment.  Retail stores keep sending me coupons and sale informations, but, even though I would save a lot of money in purchasing discounted items, I save even more money by not buying anything at all.


I hope this helps and please leave any comments if you have any other helpful tips!